Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1986, Vol. 50, No. 3, 523-536

Copyright 1986 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0022-3514/86/$00.75

Social Status in Small Groups: Individual-Group Similarity and the Social "Misfit" Jack C. Wright Brown University Wediko Children's Services, Boston, Massachusetts

Mary Giammarino

Harry W. Parad

Harvard University

Wediko Children's Services, Boston, Massachusetts

Research on social development often attempts to predict social status in children's peer groups using personality features or traits of the individual child. Yet few personality measures consistently predict social acceptance across different groups, and those predictors that are consistent generally account for small proportions of the variance in status. This article proposes that social status is a function of both individual and group characteristics. It is argued that two factors are necessary to predict peer popularity: prosocial interaction and person-group similarity. Prosocial behavior is viewed as a prerequisite for high social status and is predicted to be consistently correlated with status across peer groups. The relation between status and other social behaviors such as aggression is predicted to be mediated by the degree of similarity between the individual and the peer group. The results of two studies, employing both acceptance and rejection measures of status, provide support for the proposed model. This evidence helps to integrate apparently discrepant findings in the sociometric literature and demonstrates the utility of social psychological theories of interpersonal attraction in the study of peer status.

and cooperative (Coie et al., 1982), and less fikely to be withdrawn (Wiggins & Winder, 1961). Although they rely on different sources of data, these approaches share a key feature: Their goal is to identify the features that lead children to be liked or disliked, regardless of the groups of which they are members. This view is reflected most dearly in the early sociometric research. Northway, Frankel, and Potashin (1947, p. 57) argued that a person's social acceptance in one group represented "an outward measure of a psychological characteristic called acceptability," which the person would possess in other groups; Bonney (1947, p. 10) summarized the "ten personality trait-syndromes," without which a person would inevitably suffer a loss in social status. Such approaches are rooted in theories of personality that emphasize stable, enduring traits possessed by the person, rather than situational forces that influence behavior (Mischel, 1968).

Peer relations in childhood play a central role in social and emotional development. Probed initially by Moreno (1934), Northway (1944), and Bonney (1947), social acceptance and rejection have become the focus of renewed research efforts (e.g., Asher & Hymel, 1981; Coie, Dodge, & Coppotelli, 1982; Dodge, 1983; Gottman, 1977; Hartup, 1970). This research has revealed several links between peer relations and later social adjustment: Unpopular children are more likely to engage in delinquent activity (Roff, Sells, & Golden, 1972) and to receive psychiatric services as adults (Cowen, Pederson, Babigian, Izzo, & Trost, 1973). These findings have stimulated interest in identifying the factors that predict social acceptance and rejection. One line of research, employing direct behavioral observations, examines the quality of popular and unpopular children's interactions with their peers. For instance, popular children spend more time on task (Gottman, Gonso, & Rassmussen, 1975; Vosk, Forehand, Parker, & Rickard, 1982), initiate more positive contact with peers (Dodge, 1983), and engage in more prosocial play than do unpopular children (Hartup, Glazer, & Charlesworth, 1967). A second line of work, employing peer assessments, indicates that popular children are viewed by their peers as more supportive

Variability in the Correlates of Status Despite the intuitive appeal of trait constructs, it has been difficult in both the literature on personality assessment and social status to find trait measures that consistently predict either social behavior or sociometric status. Measures of traits such as honesty, aggression, and conscientiousness have displayed less consistency across situations than expected (Hartshorne & May, 1928; Mischel, 1968; Newcomb, 1929). In the literature on peer acceptance, many studies have demonstrated a positive relation between popularity and social competencies or prosocial behavior (e.g., Gottman et al., 1975; Green, Forehand, Beck & Vosk, 1980), yet the relation between negative behaviors (e.g., aggression) and unpopularity has not been demonstrated as consistently (see Green & Forehand, 1980). Each individual study yields certain correlates, but there is less agreement than one might expect

We would like to thank the staffand the children of Wediko Children's Services, whose cooperation made this work possible. We are especially grateful to Hugh Leichtman, the administrative director of Wediko, for his support. Leslie Gavin and Ginger MacDonald provided assistance in several stages of the project. Earlier drafts of this article benefited from comments by Eleanor Maccoby, Gregory Murphy, Einar Siqueland, and anonymous reviewers. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jack Wright, Hunter Laboratory of Psychology,Brown University,Providence, Rhode Island 02912. 523