What are the chances that you will ask a person you are friends with, from whom you have already heard stories about the relationship, the children or even about his career problems, what was his social status at school? It probably won’t happen, after all, it’s a somewhat invasive question, on the continuum between “how much do you earn” and “how often do you have relationships”, a question that in a certain sense measures people, even if high school is in their past, near or far.
If the question of your popularity at school continues to haunt you in adulthood and it seems to you that past experience affects the quality of your life today, not only are you not alone, you are also right. This is true not only for those who have experienced bullying, exclusion or boycott, which are recognized today as traumas for everything. Even 90% of the population who have not experienced trauma are affected by their social status during childhood and adolescence, and the studies that testify to this are many.
But this is not a simple equation. The attempt to link a single value between a number in a sociometric test and the future quality of life does not stand the test of reality. The reason is that there are all kinds of social classes in high school and variables that affect each in a different direction.
risk of disease
Before we dive into the question of what our social status map consists of, it’s worth getting to know some of the prominent studies that have shown that social status in youth has a significant impact on our adult lives.
Dr. Mitch Prinstein of the University of North Carolina, author of Popularity: Finding Happiness and Success in a World That Cares Too Much About the Wrong Relationships, likes to start his lectures with the following finding: Men’s income is correlated with their height, but correlated even more strong with their height at age 16. Assuming that a taller boy feels more confident, there seems to be something about how we feel then that continues to affect our lives.
3 studies that link popularity in youth to adult life
1. A longitudinal study done in Sweden lasting 27 years found a correlation in women between their social status at age 16 and the risk of metabolic diseases at age 43
2. Duke University researchers have shown that those who were labeled in their youth as people who others want to be friends with held more prestigious jobs in adulthood
3. A study done in the USA in 2019 found that it was the children who received intermediate scores in the acceptability indices who were the most satisfied with their social status
A different kind of effect was shown by researchers from Umeå University, Sweden, in an article they published in 2017 and was based on a longitudinal study that lasted 27 years. According to their research, there is a correlation in women between the social status at age 16 and the risk of metabolic diseases at age 43.
Another study, also based on data collected from the same group of subjects in Sweden over many years, showed that girls who were particularly popular in high school were more successful professionally than girls who were moderately popular. However, and this is where a crack begins to appear in the simple equation, there was no difference in the quality of social connections in adulthood or in general life satisfaction.
Duke University researchers have also shown a link between popularity and professional success. They examined data from an American longitudinal study and found that those who were labeled in their youth as people who others want to be friends with held more prestigious jobs in the labor market in adulthood.
How did the popularity affect? The researchers Ying Shi and James Moody estimated that there are two mechanisms at work here: first, social skills affect social sympathy at a young age and also the acceptance of jobs in the labor market, and second, something in the experience of popularity charges the young person with abilities that help him conduct himself in the labor market in a pleasant but effective manner in adulthood Maybe it’s confidence, maybe it’s just experiencing different types of positive relationships with people.
The status that got involved
So it is better to be rich, healthy, beautiful and socially acceptable. What’s new? In recent years, studies have been accumulating that claim that there are different types of popularity and not all that glitters is gold. Prinstein, for example, discovered interesting findings after he began to distinguish between two types of social acceptance: love and status.
According to him, popularity in preschool and elementary school is mainly based on a feature he calls “Likeability”. The owners of this trait know how to share, not be petty and resolve disputes in a matter-of-fact manner. They are not violent, and will more often than not help a child who is in social distress. These kids get high marks on the question “Who would you like as a friend?”
But at a certain point a “status” kind of acceptance develops, where the important thing is who fits the group’s values, which may be different: wealth, beauty, success in studies, power to exclude others. These are the people who get high marks on the question “Who would you like to sit next to in the cafeteria”. Sometimes they are also considered desirable friends, and sometimes not.
“A group always wants social synchronization, meaning that no one should be exceptional in relation to the values and behavior patterns that are most important to the group,” says Prof. Tom Gompel from the Hebrew University, “but only at the age of 7 do you start to notice social status.”
Prof. Tom Gumpel / Photo: Private photo
Best to be in the middle
The status, according to Prinstein, is a type of acceptance that does not always yield positive results in adulthood. He describes a study published in 2014 led by Joseph Allen from the University of Virginia, which demonstrated this: 13-year-old boys, mature for their age, who combined rebelliousness, risk-taking and a great interest in sex, chose friends mainly according to their degree of external attractiveness, but at the age of 15 their interest had already decreased . At age 22, they were already more likely to become adults with addiction and criminal involvement, and had a harder time maintaining romantic and platonic friendships.
When those adults who were the accepted age of 13 are asked why their relationships ended, they tend to claim, more than others, that it happened because “my status wasn’t high enough.” According to Prinstein, they are stuck with a concept of popularity that is no longer relevant and it is harmful to them in their adulthood.
In another study, conducted at the University of Michigan in 2019, children in the seventh grade were specifically asked who was the most accepted in the class and who was the most loved. In addition, the researchers measured their satisfaction with their social status, their friendships and their level of belonging to the school.
The children who received the lowest scores on both measures of acceptability were the most unhappy, but there was also a surprising finding: it was those with intermediate scores on both measures who were the most satisfied. There was another break in the correlation between acceptability and quality of life.
Those with the highest score on both measures reported that they were not that satisfied with their social status, and the score they gave to the quality of their relationship with their best friend or girlfriend was relatively low compared to those who received intermediate scores on both measures.
This finding is supported by another study done at the University of Virginia, according to which even one close friendship is correlated with high self-worth in the future, and inversely correlated with depression and anxiety, but the opposite was true for the fate of those who did not indicate one intimate friendship.
Prinstein is comfortable with these studies. He admits in his book that he himself was a “lovable” but not “cool” kid. Narr also said in interviews that in high school she was not a dominant figure, but she had one very close friend, exactly the option that turned out to be desirable in her research.
Prof. Margarita Azmitia, who studies the impact of the social experiences of youth from minority groups (LGBT, ethnic minorities, those with special needs and those with excess weight) on their adult lives, says in a conversation with Globes that she adopts Princetain’s division into love and status, but claims that the image Even more complex, because the equation in which a nice boy is also a favorite is not always fully met.
Prof. Margarita Azmitia / Photo: Private photo
Sometimes children are not liked because a certain external characteristic makes them unusual. For example, sexual orientation, color, religiosity, physical disability or overweight. A certain group may discriminate against such a person even if he has a more reasonable set of social skills.
For boys, for example, late puberty can be a reason for harming a boy’s social status, “and then sometimes they will do ‘adult’ things like smoke or drink, and this will put them at risk, and not necessarily help them to be more accepted,” says Azmitia.
Why do you think the children who were very popular on status and appearance measures do not gain the same benefit from this in adulthood as the children who were popular?
“The qualities that made them stand out are not so important in close relationships. Their anxiety probably stems from the fact that when you are the most popular, your status is constantly in jeopardy because everyone wants to be the most popular. The investment in remaining the most popular is exhausting and demanding and stressful. It is also related to seeking thrills, And this is a behavior that can be destabilizing later on. In addition, when you arrive at a bigger place, with more people, it is already difficult to be ‘the most’. Those who were very accepted did not learn how to deal with rejection.”
The big release from high school
One day school ends, and real life begins. Many of the children who felt different now feel relief. It usually happens not because they managed to reinvent themselves as a completely different character and became the kings of the class in a mature version, says Azmita. “Kids who were more transparent or were more rejected due to a lack of social skills will often continue to be marginalized or transparent in college as well.”
So why is it that the transition from high school to the big world often carries with it a sense of liberation? “Simply because there are more people there and more chance of finding people who are similar to you or interested in your company. And even if not, you won’t be the only one in this situation, very noticeable in an entire class where everyone gets along.”
For children who have suffered because of an external characteristic, leaving high school can be even more liberating. Often there will be other people like them around, and sometimes they will be able to form a group of like-minded people or a group that shares common interests, which overcome the differentiating characteristic.
“It’s easier for this type of ‘unacceptable’, because they understand that their exclusion was related to not fitting into a specific reference group, but can change in another group,” Azmitia says. With one reservation: sometimes those who have experienced microaggression, with or without a reason that is clear to them, may become suspicious and interpret neutral situations in a problematic way. It may be in the midst of their new relationships.
A third reason why leaving high school brings with it relief is that adults tend to be a little less cruel after all, at least in this context. They do not tend to externalize exclusion, especially not one based on external features.
Both at the university and at the workplace there can be “the table of the accepted”, but, says Azmitia, “if you occasionally sit as an adult at the lunch table with a group you do not belong to, probably no one will expel you or ignore you. If there is a clique that does not treat you well , you’ll just sit with someone else and know that it’s not age-appropriate.”
During her research, Azmitia noticed that the members of the minority groups she is researching have a tendency to volunteer more during their university studies. “It strengthens their sense of belonging to the place in a way that neutralizes the feeling of abnormality. Suddenly they are speaking on behalf of the place.”
Gumpel agrees that meaning to the group, Mattering, is another parameter of social connection, alongside status and sympathy. “Volunteering can strengthen the sense of meaning, even before it is a platform for creating new friendships,” he says.
Conflicts with Hebrew
It seems that quite a few people who had childhood friends are nevertheless still conflicted with their past social status.
Azmitia: “Mostly these will be people who tried to enter a certain subgroup that didn’t really want to accept them for its own reasons, and they lived on the fringes of that group for a long time, and experienced uncertainty about their status. Someone watching from the side might envy them, since they are part of a group, maybe Even a group is desirable, but even within the group it is not always easy.
“In another case, it could be that a certain person was popular in a class or subgroup and aroused jealousy, and then people took advantage of a moment of weakness to ‘get revenge’ on him.”
Gumpel: “There is no one who has not experienced some form of rejection in their youth. Every now and then someone says that their high school years were calm and relaxed on a social level, and I think they are in denial. It is a very stressful and socially complex period.”
Azmitia: “Even those who loved high school will often say that they don’t want to go back to it, because they manage to preserve the same qualities in their adult life. Those who miss it usually feel that later on, life has become too complex for them.”