Introduction
The teenagers’ psychology is one of the mostly discussed problems nowadays. There are plenty of research papers which present the different views on the reasons and consequences of the adolescents’ behavior.
Hongling Xie of Temple University and Yan Li of Duke University initiated their own research aimed at determination of the key characteristics of adolescents’ understanding of popularity in social peer groups. The results of their work are presented in the article What Makes a Girl (or a Boy) Popular (or Unpopular)? African American Children’s Perceptions and Developmental Differences.
The Main Points of the Article
In order to characterize the attitude of youths to the concept of popularity and to determine the dependence of their attitude on such factors as age or social status, the authors used a survey method. They asked a number of the Afro American students living in the socially disadvantaged neighborhoods of the city of answering some questions.
The survey method has a number of essential advantages. In particular, it allows researchers to collect a significant volume of data in a short period of time (Cherry n.d.). The survey undertaken by Xie and Li covered the population of 489 students of different school grades (Xie & Li 2006). The authors also used a method of interview to collect the necessary data. “Questionnaires and interviews can also be used to collect data for other research methods, for example a correlational analysis” (Research methods 2010, p.41).
The collected data have been analyzed using the following measures: narrative accounts for popularity and unpopularity, prominence of domains, deviance for popularity, age, physical maturation, peer social groups, and peer characteristics (Xie & Li 2006). The authors have made certain important conclusions. In particular, they have found the negative deviance for popularity meaning that the children’s perception of popularity and unpopularity does not deviate from the social values and norms (Xie & Li 2006).
The social and ethical values play an important role in the coordination of people actions. Victimization and violence often result from the adolescents’ misunderstanding of these values. “Furthermore, perceived-popular youth may influence the development of antisocial behavior among their peers” (Cillessen & Rose 2005, p.105).
The results of the study of Xie and Li show that there is no positive correlation between the popularity and aggression (Xie & Li 2006). However, the findings of the study initiated by David Swartz, Jonathan Nakamoto, Andrea Hopmeyer Gorman, and Tara McKay showed that the popularity influences the progress in studies.
The scholars found that “the increase in popularity were associated with increases in unexplained absences and decreases in GPA” (Swartz et al. 2006, p.1125). Xie and Li emphasized the gender and grade differences in attitude to popularity (Xie & Li 2006). In particular, they stressed that the girls are more concerned with popularity than the boys. The results of their work can be used as a background for further research.
Conclusion
In order to summarize all above mentioned, it should be said that popularity among children and adolescents is the urgent topic of study in psychology. There are various opinions on the problem. The authors of the article analyzed in the essay focused their attention on the problem of influence of popularity and unpopularity on the social behavior of children and teenagers. They have found that there is no direct relationship between the antisocial behavior and popularity.
References
Cherry, K. (n.d.). What is a survey. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-survey-2795787
Cillessen, H.N., & Rose, A. J. (2005). Understanding Popularity in the Peer System. American Psychological Society, 14(2), 102-105.
Research methods in psychology. (2010). Web.
Swartz, D., Nakamoto, J., Hopmeyer Gorman, A., & McKay, T. (2006). Popularity, Social Acceptance, and Aggression in Adolescent Peer Groups: Links With Academic Performance and School Attendance. Developmental Psychology, 42(6), 1116-1127.
Xie, H., & Li, Y. (2006). What Makes a Girl (or a Boy) Popular (or Unpopular)? African American Children’s Perceptions and Developmental Differences. Developmental Psychology, 42(4), 599-612.