The role of attractiveness and aggression in high school popularity

Abstract

This study examines the effects of physical attractiveness and aggression on popularity among high school students. Previous work has found positive relationships between aggression and popularity and physical attractiveness and popularity. The current study goes beyond this work by examining the interactive effects of physical attractiveness and aggression on popularity. Controlling for race and gender, the results indicate that attractive students are seen as more physically and relationally aggressive than those who are less attractive. We also found that those who are both physically attractive and aggressive are perceived to be more popular than those without such characteristics. However, the same interaction showed the opposite effect when predicting sociometric popularity instead of perceived popularity. These results contribute to the understanding of the differences between those who are well-liked (sociometric popularity) and those who are socially visible (perceived popularity), and the unique predictors of these two dimensions of status in the peer group.

“It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness”: expectancies associated with tween makeup ownership

“…The girl "who owned makeup" was described as mean whereas the girl "who did not own makeup" was described as being friendly, helpful and kind. These findings extend research that has revealed an association between perceptions of attractiveness and negative personality traits (Owens and Duncan, 2009;Borch et al, 2011) to show that the consumption of makeup can be associated with being "relationally aggressive." The current findings suggest that girls who own makeup might be popular because of their ownership of makeup and other "feminine" possessions whereas girls who do not wear makeup might be liked for who they are (although directionality of this relationship cannot be determined from correlational research).…”

“…However, this popularity was not linked to “positive personality traits.” The girl “who owned makeup” was described as mean whereas the girl “who did not own makeup” was described as being friendly, helpful and kind. These findings extend research that has revealed an association between perceptions of attractiveness and negative personality traits (Owens and Duncan, ; Borch et al ., ) to show that the consumption of makeup can be associated with being “relationally aggressive.” The current findings suggest that girls who own makeup might be popular because of their ownership of makeup and other “feminine” possessions whereas girls who do not wear makeup might be liked for who they are (although directionality of this relationship cannot be determined from correlational research). Thus, tweens might be faced with an internal conflict: embrace media messages by engaging in the culture of consuming beauty and be perceived (and potentially behave) as popular and mean or disengage in the consumption of cosmetics in the pursuit of beauty and potentially be less popular, although more likely to be perceived as a “nice” person.…”

Peer Status and Aggression as Predictors of Dating Popularity in Adolescence

“…Popular girls were seen as especially desirable dates by boys. Popularity is more closely associated with other desirable attributes, such as facial attractiveness or physical maturity, in girls than in boys (Borch et al 2011;Krantz 1987;Krantz et al 1985). It may also be true that the peer-valued characteristics that are associated with popularity-things like material wealth and being fashionable (Vaillancourt and Hymel 2006)-are more important for boys' romantic interests than for girls', leading to popular girls' higher levels of attractiveness as potential dates.…”

“…Regarding this last point, we expect that the patterns we found in our data would remain significant after controlling for physical appearance. We also suspect that physical appearance variables would have acted as important moderators of our findings, such that adolescents who were popular, aggressive, and physically attractive would have been seen as exceptionally valuable potential dating partners (Borch et al 2011). …”

The social status of a child in a group and its correlation with psychological, social-cognitive and behavioral characteristics

“…Кои [Dodge, Coie, 1987] было об-наружено, что как проактивная, так и реактивная агрессия связаны с со-циальным отвержением, но при этом мальчики с проактивной агрессией также могли оцениваться как лидеры. В то же время, если агрессивные подростки 17 лет являются привлекательными, то они оказываются бо-лее популярными (воспринимаются как более популярные, но не по ре-зультатам социометрии), чем те, у кого нет таких характеристик [Borch, Hyde, Cillessen, 2011].…”