Research has shown that popularity is very important to a child. Popularity is more than just making friends but shows status and can be measured on a scale. Prominence is also important to a child and can be measured with other social domains. Children will prioritize being popular than other aspects of their social lives such as fixing friendships or maintaining acquaintances. Especially Sullivan has written many theories about friendships and popularity in children. It is more important to be popular in a group of friends rather than just having a lot of friends, or just having a few important friends. Adolescents have rather complicated goals when it comes to making friends. Popularity is usually a personal aspect that children do not talk about publicly but everyone wants.
According to theories about popularity, popularity is a selective process that must happen for children to be included in a specific group. These groups are usually looked up upon other students although they may be vocally talked down upon. Many adolescents may make fun of other “clicks” when interpersonally they would like to be part of it. Children drive on status, which is automatically given to them if they are associated with a popularity group. Popularity has a large impact on children of all ages and once children realize the concept of popularity, they want it. Within the study, two questions are asked. How is popularity related to the behavior of obtaining it and how the behavior of becoming popular affects the actual outcome of it? There may be specific behaviors that are associated with becoming popular or having popularity as a very specific goal that a student wants. Aggression and popularity perception have both been grouped together when tr...
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...e interaction between their personal status, goal, and aggression connected to becoming a popular student. Physical aggression was also used from students with low popularity priority but increased their popularity throughout the end of the year. Students that began with low-popularity status were known as a wannabee. These students are expected to have no chance on obtaining a goal of high popularity status.
The study only used one variable to measure the amount of behavior to become a popular student. In future studies, more measurements can be added to see if the results are similar or if precision was correct in the first study. Popularity is a relevant topic to still be studied in adolescents due to its high priority overall during student behavior. The study concluded that, including social aggression, other behaviors are factors during adolescent popularity.
Adolescence and high school years are marked by the development of identity, relationships, and societal roles. It is during this time that adolescents begin to place a significant amount of importance to whether they belong or not, their physical appearance, and friendships. During this time, everyone experiences being labeled or classified into a category that more than likely, they do not belong to. This is because society tends to place people in groups according to hobbies, personality traits, and common interests. In most cases, stereotypes motivate this kind of behavior. For example, there is a saying that says, “Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are.” In other words, your companions say a lot about who you are as an individual. These assumptions are what
The Geeks Shall Inherit The Earth is a book by Alexandra Robbins which summarizes the story of seven different teenagers that have many different problems, which many of todays teenagers also have. I found myself having many similarities to the teenagers in the story, for example, when with her group Whitney, the popular bitch, thinks “You didn't day that when we were alone, but now that you're in front of a group you do” (Robbins 21). I can relate to this because I feel as though many people are pressured to say or do things they normally wouldn't whenever they are with their group or ‘clique’. Robbins has this idea that the freaks and geeks, or “cafeteria fringe” will someday grow up and use what they are criticized for to become more successful than the other peopler people. She calls this the ‘Quirk Theory’ (Robbins page 11). This helped me to learn that right now, in high school, not being ‘popular’ may seem like the end of the world, but the reality of it is that after these four years, it wont even matter, but what will be important is how you learned to grow as a person and the true friendships that were made. This makes me want to focus more on my education and learning to grow as a person instead of focusing on how many friends I have or who I sit with at lunch, because truthfully it wont matter once high school is over.
In many high schools, there is an unspoken social order amongst peer groups; teenagers are either included in the popular group or the unpopular group. These social standings are determined by the popular group whether they will accept certain people based on shared interests and values but mainly on appearance. For example, some groups may isolate a student who does not have clothing considered to be attractive enough. Teenagers belonging to the popular clique label individuals as outcasts who do not fit the clique’s standards of a perfect appearance. This repression can cause a build up of anger if an outcast seeks to be accepted into that popular group. Literature displays this social phenomenon of categorizing people too; author Mary Shelley
High school can be a place full of cliques and groups of friends but some people aren’t always in cliques. If there is a person who doesn’t always like the same things as other people they might not fit in with a group of people. In high school a person may become different and not find a group of friends that they fit in with. With no group of friends a person in high school may start to become an outcast. Laurie Halse Anderson, the author of Speak used Melinda to show that any high school student can become an outcast.
A large majority of teens want to fit in and feel like they belong, but how far are they willing to go to fit in? The more they want to fit in the more likely they will be easily influenced by suggestions from others. During my second week of eighth grade, I felt like I wasn’t fitting in and that everyone was silently judging me and criticizing me. Of course now that I think about I don’t think anyone really cared about me, but I was more self-conscious about myself then. One day during lunch my friends and I sat next to a couple of girls who were known as the “popular” girls and I thought that maybe I would fit in more if I was friends with them. I spent the rest of that lunch hour trying to build up the courage to talk to them and at last minute I told the friendliest looking girl, that I loved her shirt and I asked her what store she bought it from. She told me that it was from Free People; she then gushed about the store and told me how everything there was amazing. She suggested that I should check it out sometime so I did. I, of course couldn’t wait to shop there. I told myself that if I shopped at Free People, I could maybe fit in with her and even be a part of the popu...
As preteens and teens push for increasing independence from their parents, they tend to turn to their peers for guidance, acceptance, and security. For those who are low in self-esteem and confidence, their safety lies in fitting in and having a place to belong. Most people find a group in which they connect with in a healthy way while others make their way in cliques that give them security but at the price of their own values and individuality. The movie Mean Girls portrays how high school female social cliques operate and the effect they can have on girls. I will argue how if one doesn’t have a strong sense of self-identity, the opinions of others will become their identity.
As an individual stuck amidst a foundation known for its propensity to breed social congruity, college has opened my eyes to numerous distinctive reasons why individuals decide to act in ways they wouldn't regularly act. Since they ordinarily aren't certain of their character, adolescents are more inclined to similarity than others. In the most essential structure, college is tormented with congruity through the generalizations that learners seek after and explore different avenues regarding trying to uncover their personality. There are two sorts of Conformity: the kind that makes you do your errands when your father authorizes you to, and the less than great kind in which you aimlessly take after the thoughts and tenets of an inner circle or gathering, without addressing the negative impacts it has upon yourself and the improvement of whatever remains of public opinion. Conformity is basic in that people strive for a feeling of strength and acknowledgement in their lives. As a result of this need, “we therefore figure out how to fit in with principles of other individuals. What's more the more we see others carrying on in a certain manner or settling on specific choices, the more we feel obliged to stick to this same pattern.” Despite the freedoms we are supposed to have in American society most adolescents find it difficult to have their own identity.
Adolescent years are a time period in a human beings life where we search for a place that we are most comfortable. It is a time where we try to find friends with similar interests and those who will easily accept us for who we are. Once we are accepted by those friends, we tend to do more things with hopes of getting approval from “the group.” Trying to fit in during adolescence is a significant factor for self-motivation because it determines the level of being accepted and popularity amongst our peers. Through our year of adolescence we experiment and try to discover oneself as a person, but we also find what our strongest traits are that are used in order to be accepted, or to feel more popular. Popularity is defined as a state of being liked or accepted by a group of people (cite). As the group of people gets larger, so does that person’s popularity. For some people, popularity may come easy due to their charisma or looks, but there are those children who feel lonely due to their lack of popularity.
Meijs, N., Cillessen, A. H. N., Scholte, R. H. J., Segers, E., & Spijkerman, R. (2010). Social intelligence and academic achievement as predictors of adolescent popularity. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 39(1), 62-72.
Several studies have demonstrated associations between perceived popularity and aggression (Prinstein & Cillessen, 2003; Sandstrom & Cillessen, 2006; Cillessen & Mayeux, 2004). In a study conducted by Cillessen and Mayeux (2004) perceived popularity positively predicted relational aggression, and relational aggression positively predicted perceived popularity between grade 6 and grade 8. Perceived popularity has also been associated with higher levels of aggression over time. Sandstrom and Cillesse...
In one journal entry I wrote, I brought to light that the popular group is something that every one of us, for some reason feels as though we need to be a part of. This is from my own experience and things I have observed throughout my four-year career in high school. I think it was perhaps worse in junior high, however. When you are in seventh and eighth grade you are not sure of who you are and are desperately searching around for something to belong to, to be a part of. Why is this, why are we a society that are most often drawn to the most popular, "cool" and "beautiful" that high school has to offer? Why is acceptance the most important thing to us, is belonging really as important as losing your own sense of self? Who you hang out with, who your closest friends are as an adolescent without a doubt help to shape who you are. And it's funny that you seem to end up being friends with the ones who are the same type of people as you. Same fashion sense, taste in music or cars and movies. When searching for an identity in high school, it is hard not to just attempt to pick up the one that seems the most socially acceptable. I know that my personal experiences include these conforming characteristics. Still as a freshman in college I am constantly looking at the fashion of my peers, wondering to myself "do they think I fit in"? This was especially true the first few weeks of college when I wasn't sure who my good friends were going to be; I made sure that I dressed as well as I could everyday, in all the new clothes I had bought specifically for college.
Adolescence is about growing up and not standing out. When you stand out, you give people more room to judge you because they see more of who you really are. When we grew up, we never really thought about being in the ‘in-crowd’ because we were all friends. When I moved up here from Mississippi, people were so fascinated with my accent and everyone loved to talk to me, but when I lost the accent, everyone stopped recognizing me. That is how today’s society is, people like you because you are probably smart or talented and that makes you stand out, but when they are done using you, they throw you away like you are some piece of garbage. If you are a little different from what today’s picture of a perfect person is, then people will never recognize and if they do, they only recognize you for a second.
Media has influenced a lot of today’s trends and ideologies. Adolescents, being on the psychological level of self-identification, bring this deceptive notion of fashion and social classes to school. The problem comes when this trend affects the performance of students and their personal lives. We all remember our days back when the talk was “Who are the jocks, the cheerleaders, the rick kids, the geeks, the losers, etcetera?” Believe it or not, the status quo in schools is always composed of them. These cliques have identities exclusive for each. Students who do not look, act, or dress the same as one group are, more often than not, left out. They could be hurt physically and or psychologically with cruel teasing and rumors. Bullying and social discrimination are both so evident in children especially in the secondary-education (“School Uniforms” 2). These are not the media’s wrongdoing. These are done by the students themselves, and administrators are not helping enough to relieve it. Counselors may help with the students’ emotional stress, but there is no other tangible solution in removing the segregation like school uniforms.
teens are pressured to fit in with others to be considered “popular”, but this ends up making their
For example, friendship is very important for a child healthy development. Through relationships with friends, kids learn how to express and how to manage and organize their emotions. They learn how to compare themselves with others. They also can discover what others value about them. If kids do not laugh, have fun, and get excited, they do not learn how to calm down themselves. They do not learn how to control their emotions. Peers also play an important role in setting the norms and the appropriate responses to them. In middle childhood, kids learn how to learn behavioral norms and impression management through friendship. They also learn rules of social behaviors. In contrast, during adolescence people tend to find who they are through their friendships. They can explore their identity by making social comparisons and reflected appraisal. Moreover, they learn how to integrate logic and emotion. They can also discover if they are good persons, and how others think about them. Friendship is very important for the development of high