EFFECTS OF PERCEIVED ATTRACTIVENESS AND ACADEMIC-SUCCESS ON EARLY ADOLESCENT PEER POPULARITY

Effects of perceived attractiveness and academic performance on 9th gr aders' ratings of peers' popularity were investigated. Participants we re 270 9th graders (152 girls, 118 boys) who read a vignette describin g a hypothetical same-sex peer with whom the student had been assigned to complete a project. The partner's attractiveness and academic perf ormance were systematically varied in four conditions: high attractive ness/high grades, high attractiveness/low grades, low attractiveness/h igh grades, and low attractiveness/low grades. After reading the vigne tte, the students rated the partner's popularity. As hypothesized, ana lyses of variance revealed that attractive partners were significantly more popular than unattractive partners, regardless of whether the pa rtner had high or low grades. Contrary to expectation, attractiveness was not more important to girls than to boys. Integration with past re search and suggestions for future research are offered.