Yearning for Popularity: How are Popularity Goals and Self-Perceived Popularity Related to Aggression and Victimization?

Many adolescents want to be popular. Popularity goals are associated with adolescents’ relational and overt aggression and aggression has been linked to greater risk for victimization. The current study sought to examine if popularity goals may be linked to victimization through associations with aggression and if self-perceived popularity and gender may moderate these relationships. Participants were 292 adolescents (60.3% girls; 44.5% seventh graders, 55.5% eighth graders; 79.5% White/Caucasian) from the Southern United States. Results indicated that relational aggression accounted for the association between popularity goals and victimization and that self-perceived popularity strengthened this indirect effect for girls but not for boys. Overt aggression also partially explained the relation of popularity goals with victimization similarly for boys and girls. The findings suggest that motivations for popularity and self-perceived popularity are important to understanding variation in adolescent aggression and victimization.