Early adolescents’ social goals and school adjustment

Being Popular and Being Liked: Goals, Behaviors, and Norm Salience

Youth's social status (popularity and likability) relates with social status goals as well as bullying and prosocial behaviors within the context of classroom norms for bullying and prosocial behaviors, but less clear is how each of these factors interrelates with each other. The current study empirically analyses the concurrent relationships among social status goals, bullying and prosocial behaviors, and classroom norms with social status. Participants were a nationally representative sample of 6,421 Slovenian early adolescents (50% females; Mage = 13 years; SD = 6 months). Findings indicated that popularity goals were related to bullying behaviors and bullying behaviors were related to popularity. In contrast, likability goals are related to prosocial behaviors, and prosocial behaviors are related to popularity and likability. The role of classroom norm salience was complex as bullying increased popularity in low-bullying environments, whereas prosocial behaviors enhanced likability in high prosocial classroom contexts. Students high on both bullying and prosocial behaviors (bistrategic controllers) demonstrated higher popularity and likability compared to their peers., but had similar relationships among their social status goals, bullying, prosocial behaviors, and social status as all other peers. The findings demonstrate a clear relationship among social status goals, bullying and prosocial behaviors, and social status (popularity and likability), while suggesting that classroom norms may differentiate how bullying/prosocial behaviors might align with social status.

Understanding the Dynamics of the Developing Adolescent Brain Through Team Science

One of the major goals for research on adolescent development is to identify the optimal conditions for adolescents to grow up in a complex social world and to understand individual differences in these trajectories. Based on influential theoretical and empirical work in this field, achieving this goal requires a detailed understanding of the social context in which neural and behavioral development takes place, along with longitudinal measurements at multiple levels (e.g., genetic, hormonal, neural, behavioral). In this perspectives article, we highlight the promising role of team science in achieving this goal. To illustrate our point, we describe meso (peer relations) and micro (social learning) approaches to understand social development in adolescence as crucial aspects of adolescent mental health. Finally, we provide an overview of how our team has extended our collaborations beyond scientific partners to multiple societal partners for the purpose of informing and including policymakers, education and health professionals, as well as adolescents themselves when conducting and communicating research.

Not Getting What You Want

Abstract. As adolescents desire the benefits of having greater social status, some teenagers cannot acquire their desired level of popularity. The current study uses a single high school to examine how the discrepancy between popularity goals and actual popularity aligns with aggression and prosocial behaviors. The current study suggests that the discrepancy between popularity and popularity goals aligns with having more aggression and prosocial behaviors when adolescents are in less popular peer groups. Within one’s own peer group, adolescents with greater discrepancy between popularity and popularity goals utilize more aggression. The results provide additional insight toward understanding how pursuing popularity might align with using aggression and prosocial behaviors toward peers in school.

The Effects of Social Achievement Goals on Social Withdrawal in Middle School Students: The Mediating Effect of Self-Efficacy

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the mediating effect of self-efficacy in the relationship between social achievement goals (mastery goal, performance-approach goal, and performance-avoid goal) and social withdrawal among middle school students.Methods: The participants in this study were 325 middle school students, ranging from first to third grade from seven middle schools. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Pearson’s correlation coefficients were calculated. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was also used to investigate the mediating model.Results: The results of this study were as follows. First, the level of the social mastery goal and social performance-approach goal decreased students’ social withdrawal, and the level of the social performance-avoid goal increased it. Second, the level of the social mastery goal increased self-efficacy, whereas the level of social performance-avoid goal decreased it. The level of self-efficacy had a significantly negative influence on middle school students’ social withdrawal. Further, the level of self-efficacy partially mediated the relationship between the social mastery goal and social withdrawal, and between the social performance-avoid goal and social withdrawal.Conclusion: In conclusion, the higher the level of social mastery goal, the higher the level of self-efficacy, and the lower the level of social performance-avoid goal, the higher the level of self-efficacy, and, consequently, the lower the level of social withdrawal. These outcomes suggest that it would be helpful to change the type of social achievement goals and that improving the level of self-efficacy of middle school students would contribute to reducing their social withdrawal.

The influence of social achievement goals on academic engagement: a cross-sectional survey in a Namibian primary school

Achievement goal researchers have primarily focused on mastery and performance goals, while goals concerning the social reasons for wanting to achieve academically have only been minimally explored. The aim of the current study was to extend previous research, by investigating the influence of social achievement goals on different types of academic engagement. Namibian primary school students ( N = 117) answered questionnaires regarding their mastery, performance, and work avoidance achievement goals, their social achievement goals (i.e., affiliation, approval, concern, responsibility, status), and their academic engagement (i.e., behavioral, emotional, agentic). Hierarchical regression analyses, that controlled for the effects of mastery, performance, and work avoidance achievement goals, prior achievement, as well as grade-level, revealed that social achievement goals were able to account for a significant additional proportion of variance in engagement. Social status goals predicted behavioral engagement, while social concern goals predicted emotional and agentic engagement. Our findings indicate that social achievement goals are a distinct construct that can contribute to the current understanding of student motivation and academic engagement.