Adolescence

As children enter middle childhood, they become increasing focused on navigating the peer system, which provides an acute awareness of the social hierarchy and their place in it (Gottman & Mettetal, 1986; Parker & Gottman, 1989). Some children even prioritize attaining social status over maintaining friendships (LaFontana & Cillessen, 2010). Status matters because it describes an individual’s ability to compete for and control both physical and social resources (Hawley, 1999). Previous studies have identified two forms of affective regard, separate from the peer group and behavioral reputation, that predict popularity and unpopularity: acceptance and rejection (Marks et al., 2021). However, their relative importance has been unclear because previous studies have not included both in the same model and because most studies have been concurrent, not longitudinal. Affective markers of peer regard and behavioral markers of peer group reputation are moderately correlated, making it difficult to draw conclusions from separate studies of each. Studies which incorporate measures of each are few and limited in scope. The current study was designed to examine the origins of popularity and unpopularity by disentangling affective regard from behavioral reputation using a sample of 292 students enrolled in grades 4 to 6 (ages 9-13) of a university-affiliated school.

Children who are perceived by classmates as being fun increase their peer status over time, but little is known about whether being fun predicts other peer outcomes. Also unknown are mechanisms whereby being fun predicts changes in peer outcomes. Associations with fun, like surgency, suggest that children high in fun are more likely to gain friends while children low in fun are more likely to lose friends, indicating that friend gain and friend loss may serve as intervening links between being fun and peer outcomes. Participants (171 girls, 190 boys) were third to seventh grade students attending a public school in Florida. Across three time points approximately three-months apart, participants reported who their friends were, nominated peers who best fit descriptions of fun and popular, and completed self-reports assessing peer problems. Results indicated that being fun predicted subsequent changes in popularity and peer problems via friend gain but not friend loss. The findings suggest that being fun is a unique predictor of peer outcomes and that friend gain is a mechanism whereby fun children experience positive peer outcomes.