Popularity increases aggression in kids: study
To determine the link between popularity and aggression, researchers at the University of California, Davis examined surveys involving about 3,700 students. The surveys asked the students about their friendships as well as whom they picked on and who picked on them. The surveys' questions concerned both physical aggression and relationship aggression such as name- calling and ostracism.
After controlling for variables known to influence aggression, including dating activity, sports participation, grade-point average, socioeconomic status and physical development, the researchers found that students who were more central in their social networks were also more aggressive.
Network centrality is a bit more complex than popularity: It means that a kid has not only a lot of friends, but a lot of friends who are also socially prominent. These school-age movers and shakers have a lot of social power among their peers, lead researcher Bob Faris said in remarks published by LiveScience.com on Tuesday.
"For the most part, we find that status increases aggression," Faris told LiveScience.
"For some people, that will be a surprise. For other people who have grown up quoting 'Mean Girls,' it might be an 'Oh, duh' kind of revelation," he added, referring to the 2004 comedy about a clique of vicious but popular high school girls.
In the study, Faris and his colleagues not only examined individual traits, but also social networks where bullying takes place, using data from a long-term study of public school children in three counties in North Carolina, according to LiveScience.com.
Their approach is different from many previous studies on kid aggression which only focused on the traits of bullies and their victims. These studies suggested that bullies often have troubled family lives and may be at higher risk for depression and other mental health disorders. Their victims are often unpopular, Kazinform cites Xinhua.
The gradual increase of aggression with popularity continues until one reaches the top two percent of popular students, Faris said. At that point, aggression suddenly drops off. The top two percent are even less aggressive than the kids at the very bottom of the heap, Faris said.
"We can't preclude the possibility that kids at the very top are just somehow really different, that they're incredibly nice and everybody loves them," Faris said. But other evidence suggests that these extremely popular kids are just secure enough in their positions that they don't need to be aggressive anymore, he said.
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