Poster #226 - Social Status Insecurity: Subtypes and Relations to Relatedness and Children’s Behavior

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Social Relationships

Integrative Statement

Social status insecurity (SSI), which concerns the anxious and insecure feelings about one’s social standing, has received increasing attention in recent studies (Dawes & Xie, 2017; Li & Wright, 2014). Research has found that SSI influences one’s choice of social goals and predicts aggression (Li, Wang, Wang, & Shi, 2010). Despite this advancement, the precursor of SSI is still unknown. The literature on the self-determination theory (SDT) offers some plausible explanations for SSI. SDT proposes that the satisfaction of these basic needs has been found to be important for youth’s social development and well-being (Ryan & Deci, 2000). In particular, relatedness, the need for close relationships and connectedness, is essential when children interact with peers. Relatedness has been negatively associated with anxiety and insecure attachment in previous research (Allen & Hauser, 1996; Lynch & Cicchetti, 2002). In this study, we hypothesized that the level of satisfaction on the need for relatedness would be negatively related to SSI, which in turn is positively related to aggression and negatively related to prosocial behaviors. SSI would mediate the association between relatedness and social behaviors. Furthermore, the previous research lacks a differentiation of SSI in different peer status domains. The current study will address this limitation by examining subtypes of SSI corresponding to popularity, likability, and the general peer status.

Participants were 347 4th and 5th graders (153 boys) from a public primary school in China. They reported their social status insecurity regarding popularity, likability, and general social status using the Adolescents Interpersonal Relationships measure (Li & Hu, 2018), their relatedness using the Basic Need Satisfaction at School (Deci et al., 2001; Kasser, Davey, & Ryan, 1992), and their social behaviors.

The results showed that relatedness was negatively related to SSI in all status domains (rs < -.140, p < .05). Further, SSI was negatively related to prosocial behaviors (rs < -.161, p < .05) and sociability (rs < -.199, p < .05), but positively related to relational aggression (rs < .214, p < .05). Bootstrapping results (see Table 1) showed that SSI in any of the three status domains mediated the negative association between relatedness and relational aggression. Furthermore, SSI regarding the general status also mediated the positive association between relatedness and prosocial behaviors. SSI regarding likability mediated the positive association between relatedness and sociability.

The findings suggested that when children’s needs for relatedness is fulfilled to a greater degree, they become less worried about their social standing among peers and their social behaviors become more prosocial, more sociable, and less aggressive. This sheds light on our understanding of the factors that might influence SSI. An increased SSI may be a result of unfulfilled needs for relatedness, which is consistent with previous findings that relatedness is associated with anxiety and insecure attachment. Discussions will be provided regarding the implications of SDT and in relationship to the cultural context.

Author

• Ziyue Cui, DePaul University
  Presenting Author