Would you prefer to be ‘popular’ or ‘well-liked’? A new study from The Australian National University has shown that for Canberra’s young people, being well-liked is much more desirable than being popular, and being popular does not always mean you’re well-liked.

The study by Stephanie Hawke, a PhD candidate in Clinical Psychology at ANU, looked at nearly 200 Year 9 and Year 11 students from across Canberra. It found that adolescents saw being popular and being well-liked as two very different things, and that popularity may not be something young people want.

The research has been released as part of National Psychology Week. It is the first Australian study to address the issue of popularity and what it means to young people.

“Both boys and girls agreed that many popular teenagers are disliked by the year group as a whole,” said Ms Hawke.

“This can be for several reasons such as bullying, having an attitude of superiority and disrupting the classroom. Those students who are described as being both popular and well-liked manage to balance their high social status with positive qualities such as being kind and friendly.”

The study also found that there was a complicated relationship between both individual and group popularity, and how these were perceived by students.

“One interesting finding is that popular students are likely to belong to popular groups. This was contrasted with well-liked students, who were much less likely to belong to groups of well-liked peers,” said Ms Hawke.

“It seems that being popular is about the group that you fit into, whereas being well-liked is about the individual person’s characteristics. Almost all of the students interviewed said that they would prefer to be known as well-liked as opposed to popular, because this is a reflection of who they are as a person.”

She added that the results indicate that ‘popular’ students are not idealised in the way that popular culture sometimes portrays, and that once other students are aware that many ‘popular’ students are not liked by others in the year group, it is possible that they will lose the power they are perceived to have.

Source
Australian National University