Mitch Prinstein - Popular: The Power of Likability in a Status-Obsessed World

I began working on this book in earnest about two years prior to its completion. But in a very real sense, my research began many years earlier. Perhaps as early as kindergarten. I was always drawn to the study of peer relationships and to psychological science more broadly. I recall my attempt to create an IQ test, using tater tots, on the lunch line in grade school; I posited stage models of adjustment to midterms while in eighth grade; and as a teenager, I developed my own taxonomy for different levels of popularity. These examples offer two revelations relevant to this book. First, I was always, without question, a psychology nerd. And second, long before I imagined I would ever write Popular, I had been collecting vignettes from people who never knew that their experiences would become apt examples in the pages that follow. To protect their privacy, and as is customary in the field of clinical psychology, I have thus de-identified all stories herein by replacing names and trivial, nonessential details. To further ensure confidentiality for some particularly sensitive examples, the stories of Steve and Peggy represent composites based on several similar experiences.

A few stories have not been de-identified. My star student at Yale is indeed named Daniel Clemens. Studies and quotes from public figures and celebrities similarly have remained unmasked. Last, details included in stories about my own life also remain unchanged, to the best of my recollection.

It was a cloudy day in the fall of 1977, and the sounds of screaming children on a grassy field in Old Bethpage, New York, could be heard from blocks away. Boys and girls at the elementary school were contracting a mysterious and highly contagious illness at an alarming rate. With every passing minute, another child became infected and then immediately was shunned by their peerscast aside by those they had called their friends just moments earlier.

Tiny pairs of plaid-covered legs were running as fast as they could to safety. The school grounds were freckled with youth scattering in every direction. Some hid behind trees, in the bushes, or under a set of monkey bars as they caught their breath for a few moments, and then took off again. Most of the teachers were nowhere to be found. The few that were outside simply watched as the children succumbed to the outbreak one by one.

I grew up in that town, and I was on that playground on the day of the epidemic. I remember yelling and rushing away as kids all around me were stricken. Then, finally, came a sign of relief: Doug and Jill, two of my classmates, announced that they had discovered a vaccine, one so effective that it could instantly eradicate the infection in any afflicted child. The cure was swift and powerful, but relapse rates were high. Soon another boy, David, announced that he also had access to a cure, but few took him up on his offer. We only sought help from Doug and Jill. By the end of recess, the Great Cooties Epidemic of Old Bethpage had endedat least until the following day, when it began all over again.

I remember that day vividly, and many like it. I remember how much fun it was to run and scream without a care in the world. But I recall even back then my curiosity about kids like Doug and Jill. What made them so much more fun than everyone else? Why were they always the center of our attention?

I also remember feeling sorry for David, and how difficult it was for him to attract much interest from others. Why was he so often ignored?

The difference, of course, was that Doug and Jill were popular and would remain popular for the rest of their lives. David was not, and on that day, his standing in the social hierarchy became very clear to him.

There are relatively few Dougs or Jills in the world. Those people who seem to effortlessly become popular wherever they gotheres maybe just one or two in every classroom, company, or social group. There are likewise a small number of Davids. Everyone knows exactly who they are. Even at an early point in childhood, and most certainly by first grade, the popularity hierarchy is already established.

Most of us landed somewhere in the middle, and on some playground somewhere in our past, our relationship with popularity was born. Either we knew we were admired and began to worry about maintaining our special influence over others, or we recognized that others were more popular than us and began to yearn for more attention and positive regard from our peers.

Our positions in the social hierarchy seemed so important back then, and for good reason: popularity is the most valuable and easily accessible currency available to youth. It is salient to us at every age. I can still remember unpopular kids in elementary school crying when they werent allowed to cut in the lunch line, while the populars had unfettered access. As we got older, our popularity dictated which peers were potential friends and which were strictly off-limits. Our cliques seating preferences in the cafeteria were even organized along the status hierarchy. By high school, we barely spoke tomuch less datedanyone who was less popular than us. We would spend hours listening to adults chiding us to focus on schoolwork or eat our vegetables, but none of that mattered as much as whether the cool kids at school would greet us the following day.

Now, as adults, our parents advice makes a lot more sense. Our grades really have affected our educations, our careers, and our financial resources, just as our eating habits have had implications for our health and vitality decades later. But is the same true of popularity? Did any of it really matter?

The answer is yes: it did matter then, and it matters now. It may surprise you to learn just how much we should still care about popularity.

Our popularity affects us throughout our lives, often in ways we dont realize. At some level, you may already perceive that to be true. Isnt it interesting that when we remember who was most or least popular back in high school, it brings up some of the same emotions today as it did back then? The mere mention of the word popular has the power to transport us back to our teenage years. We graduate high school, make new friends, find stable romantic relationships, and get settled in our careers, but somewhere deep inside, we know that some part of who we are todayour self-esteem, our insecurities, our career successes or failures, and perhaps even our happinessis still linked to how popular we were back then. Theres something about our popularity in youth that seems to remain a part of who we are, as if its become deeply embedded in our souls forever.