I could easily have been one of the subjects of this study. As an adolescent and teen I was desperate to be "cool," to be seen as mature, and to be "popular." It never really happened, and in some ways I was heading down the path these kids traveled - more relationship difficulties, higher rates of drug and alcohol abuse.

Fortunately for me, I bottomed out as an 18-19 year old, dropped out of the world I had been living in (including leaving behind my friends from high school), and then went back to school (after flunking out of my first college).

The kids in the study didn't make the same changes:

Allen's team said their results show that "early adolescent attempts to gain status via pseudomature behaviour are not simply passing annoyances of this developmental stage, but rather may signal movement down a problematic pathway and away from progress toward real psychosocial competence."

Hitting my bottom and becoming introspective (thank you Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Walt Whitman, St Theresa, Mirabi, Rumi, and so many others) saved my life. AND it allowed me to do some growing up that I failed to do as a teenager (no one grows up psychologically when they are high or drunk much of the time).

What happens to the cool kids when they grow up?

Wednesday, July 2, 2014


"Cool kids", according to a new study, are those early teens (aged 13 to 15) who want to be popular, and try to impress their peers by acting older than their years. They have precocious romantic relationships, commit relatively minor acts of bad behaviour (such as sneaking into the cinema without paying), and surround themselves with good-looking friends. These teenagers attract respect from their peers at first, but what's the story by the time they reach early adulthood?

Joseph Allen and his colleagues made contact with 184 thirteen-year-olds (98 girls) from a diverse range of backgrounds, living in the Southeastern United States. They interviewed them at that age, and then again when they were aged 14 and 15. The researchers also contacted some of their close friends and peers. Finally, the sample and their friends were followed up again a decade later, when they were aged 21 to 23.

There were short-term advantages to being a cool kid - these teens tended to be popular when they were in early adolescence. However, this popularity began to fade through teenhood. And ten years later, the cool kids were at greater risk for alcohol and drug problems, more serious criminal behaviour, and, according to their friends, they struggled with their platonic and romantic relationships. As adults, cool kids also tended to blame their recent relationship break ups on their partner not thinking they were popular enough - as if they were still viewing life through the immature lens of cool.

Allen's team said their results show that "early adolescent attempts to gain status via pseudomature behaviour are not simply passing annoyances of this developmental stage, but rather may signal movement down a problematic pathway and away from progress toward real psychosocial competence." They think cool kids' preoccupation with being precocious and rebellious gets in the way of them developing important socialisation skills. It's also likely that as they get older, cool kids feel the need to engage in ever greater acts of rebellion to command respect from their peers.

Is it possible that the researchers were simply measuring a propensity to deviance and criminality in early adolescence, making their longitudinal findings unsurprising? They don't think so. They point out that serious criminality, and alcohol and cannabis use, in early adulthood were more strongly correlated with being a cool kid in early adolescence (i.e. as measured by desire for popularity; precious romantic relationships; minor deviance; and surrounding oneself with good-looking friends) than with alcohol and drug use, and criminality at that time.

The study is not without limitations - for example, cool kids were found to lose their popularity through adolescence, but this was based on a measure of their peers' desire to be with them, not on their status. It's also possible they retained or earned popularity with teens older than them. Nonetheless, Allen and his team said their findings are novel and show that the "seemingly minor behaviours" associated with being a cool kid "predict far greater future risk than has heretofore been recognised."

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Allen JP, Schad MM, Oudekerk B, & Chango J (2014, Jun 11). What Ever Happened to the "Cool" Kids? Long-Term Sequelae of Early Adolescent Pseudomature Behavior. Child Development; Epub ahead of print. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12250 | PMID: 24919537

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What Ever Happened to the "Cool" Kids? Long-Term Sequelae of Early Adolescent Pseudomature Behavior.

Allen JP, Schad MM, Oudekerk B, Chango J.

Abstract

Pseudomature behavior-ranging from minor delinquency to precocious romantic involvement-is widely viewed as a nearly normative feature of adolescence. When such behavior occurs early in adolescence, however, it was hypothesized to reflect a misguided overemphasis upon impressing peers and was considered likely to predict long-term adjustment problems. In a multimethod, multireporter study following a community sample of 184 adolescents from ages 13 to 23, early adolescent pseudomature behavior was linked cross-sectionally to a heightened desire for peer popularity and to short-term success with peers. Longitudinal results, however, supported the study's central hypothesis: Early adolescent pseudomature behavior predicted long-term difficulties in close relationships, as well as significant problems with alcohol and substance use, and elevated levels of criminal behavior.

The Downward Spiral of Upward Social Comparison

I found this cool video at Channel N, a video and multimedia blog from Psych Central curated by Sandra Kiume.

Social Comparison Theory

By Sandra Kiume

The Downward Spiral of Upward Social Comparison

Comparisons among peers, acted out as situations around a fashion photo shoot and party, mixed with narrated citations. An unusual video format, with lots of good research info about media and peer comparisons affecting body image, drinking, eating disorders, identity, racism, individuality, suicide, and more.

Producer: A Group Three Presentation
Featuring: Mazi Azizi, Nik Janosevic, Natalie Melgoza, Brianna Mitjans, Julia Ramage, Kevin Yang
Format: Flash, HD
Date: 02/06/09
Length: 00:14:29
Video Link: http://vimeo.com/4958096

Tags: Channel N, Psych Central, Social Comparison Theory, Sandra Kiume, Downward Spiral of Upward Social Comparison, A Group Three Presentation, Mazi Azizi, Nik Janosevic, Natalie Melgoza, Brianna Mitjans, Julia Ramage, Kevin Yang, Psychology, social status, comparison, identity, sociology, social psychology, media, peer comparisons, body image, drinking, eating disorders, identity, racism, individuality, suicide

David Berreby - More Privilege Means Less Empathy

This is a disturbing yet unsurprising study presented by David Berreby at Big Think's Mind Matters blog. Berreby is author of Us and Them: Understanding Your Tribal Mind, a book that I found quite useful in its examination of in-group/out-group dynamics (the paperback was strangely re-subtitled The Science of Identity).

Anyway, the study finds that wealth & privilege are negatively correlated with empathy and concern for others. One of the traits that Buddhism encourages (as did my authoritarian,, working-class father) is humility. The greater our sense of humility (as opposed to feeling elitist) the greater our sense of empathy for others.

Another disturbing aspect of this study, at least for me, is that high school educated subjects scored higher than college educated subjects on identifying emotions in photographs. Hmmmm . . . .

Full Citation:
Kraus, M., Cote, S., & Keltner, D. (2010). Social Class, Contextualism, and Empathic Accuracy Psychological Science, 21 (11), 1716-1723 DOI: 10.1177/0956797610387613

Study: More Privilege Means Less Empathy

David Berreby on November 18, 2010

If you're a member of America's anxious middle class, you can feel downtrodden one minute and privileged the next, just watching the news. Here's some super-rich guy planning his run for President, way above you on the social ladder. Next, a story about destitute refugees, which reminds you that you're many rungs above the worst-off. Does that matter? Yes, if this study in October's Psychological Science is right. It suggests people's "emotional intelligence" is keener when they feel humble and low-class, while feeling elite makes people less emotionally alert.

Michael W. Kraus and his co-authors offer three experiments to back up their argument that upper-class people are less sensitive to others' feelings than are people of lower social class. (You can get a pdf of the whole paper here.) The most striking involved 81 college students (59 women and 22 men) who had to place themselves on a 10-rung ladder of social status. Before they did so, as Stephanie Pappas reports here, half were asked to think about a super-elite figure like Bill Gates. The other group was asked to think about someone at the very bottom of society's heap. When they were all tested for their ability to read emotions from photos, one bunch scored better: The students who'd been reminded that their social status was lower than other people's.

In another experiment, the researchers gave 200 university employees a test of emotional perceptiveness—identifying emotions in photographs—and found that those who had ended their education with high school scored 7 percent better than those with higher education. In the third study, two-person teams went through a mock job interview and then each member reported what s/he had felt, and what s/he thought the partner had. People who had rated themselves lower on the class ladder read their partners' feelings better than did those who reported themselves more privileged.

All three studies, write Kraus et al., support their hypothesis that upper-class people, having more control over their lives and less need to rely on relationships, are less empathic. Which is certainly interesting, (though the notion that poor people empathize more than the upper crust is hardly new).

But what's remarkable about the paper, I think, is the first experiment I mentioned. There, the researchers induced the phenomenon, apparently making some students more emotionally alert by manipulating how they saw themselves in the class system, right there, right then.

That result, if it holds up, would tell us that social-class effects are genuinely psychological—not driven by some hidden historic force that acts on social groups, which can only be seen by noting correlations among traits (like "high school education" and "higher empathy score"). Instead, psychologists can study the cause and effects of the phenomenon by looking at individuals in real time.

That matters because, important though they be, social class and its effects can be difficult to pin down. Researchers use readily available data—education level, income and occupation, for example—as a proxy for "socioeconomic status." But these aren't perfect. If you're a Ph.D working a low-paying job, are you upper-class or lower? If your paying work is menial but you're the all-powerful president of the PTA, where are you on the social ladder? Moreover, it can be difficult to distinguish the effects of, say, occupation, from the effects of other traits. If you're underpaid and frustrated, is it because of you're working class, African-American or female?

If it's people's own perceptions of their social status that alters their thoughts and feelings, though, then it may not be so important to triangulate their social class from their personal information, and then tease the effects of class out of the mix. Instead, psychologists can just, you know, ask.

Not that corroboration does any harm, or that this is an either/or choice. (In fact, write Kraus et al., in the job-interview experiment, students' self-rating on the class ladder correlated pretty well with their parents' education levels and even more with family income.) It is, though, a reminder that social class can be psychically important without being an objectively defined physical measurement.

Tags: David Berreby, Big Think, Mind Matters, Us and Them, Understanding Your Tribal Mind, More Privilege Means Less Empathy, Social Class, Contextualism, Empathic Accuracy, Psychological Science, humility, Psychology, culture, empathy, social status, society, emotional intelligence