Using Social Network Position to Understand Early Adolescents’ Power and Dominance within a School Context

• In Event: Poster Session 05
  In Poster Session: PS 05 Topic - Social Relationships

Abstract

In social groups, such as school-based peer networks, youth often vie for power and control over others, resulting in the pursuit of social dominance being a central component within these groups. Having dominance over others offers some individuals a competitive advantage, such as providing youth with greater access to friends, alliance partners, dating partners, as well as benefits like informational resources and academic assistance (e.g., Hawley, 2003; Reijntjes et al., 2013). Different strategies may be used to gain this power and dominance (i.e., coercive and/or cooperative strategies), and different strategies may yield varying levels of social and reputational success (cite Farrell & Dane 2019 if you have room).
Therefore, in the current study, a social network approach was used to explore links between social dominance strategies, two indices of social network position (social network centrality and social network prestige), and different forms of power (explicit and implicit social power, popularity, and likability). This approach allows for a nuanced understanding of the structure of youths’ relationships, enabling us to differentiate whether and how youth use different types of dominance strategies to different social ends.
Participants were fifth to eighth grade elementary school students (N = 480, 51% girls, 63% White). Peer nominations were used to assess social network centrality and prestige (via friendship nominations), dominance strategies, social power, and peer reputation (popularity and likeability).
Three path analyses were conducted. The first model tested associations between social dominance strategies and social network position, and results indicated that the use of coercive, cooperative, or a combination of strategies was associated with both social network prestige and centrality. However, even if using similar dominance strategies, the second model (examining links between social network position and social power) indicated that not all youth enjoyed the same power and dominance. Centrality (particularly in the absence of prestige) was not associated with social power or peer reputation, whereas prestige was. The third, exploratory mediation model examined indirect effects from social dominance strategies to power/peer reputation through network position. Mediation analyses suggested that combined coercive and cooperative strategies strengthened the indirect effects through prestige to implicit power, popularity, and likability (see Table 1). Overall, results indicated that coercive and cooperative dominance strategies were used by youth high in both centrality and prestige, but that only high prestige related to power, popularity, and likeability.
Results have implications for the usefulness of a social networks approach to understanding the structure of youths’ social relationships and power in school settings. Indices of social network position have been underutilized by peer relationships researchers (Andrews, 2020), yet have the potential to contextualize social relationships within a whole classroom or grade-level social group (see Figure 1 for visual depictions of social network position). Finally, results have practical implications for teachers and other school staff, in that they suggest how dominance strategies may be used to secure social power by different youth.

Authors

• Naomi Andrews, Brock University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hannah McDowell, Brock University
  Presenting Author

• Natalie Spadafora, Brock University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Andrew Vance Dane, Brock University
  Non-Presenting Author