Instability of Social Status as a Motivator to Engage in Problematic Behaviors

• In Event: Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Topic - Social Relationships

Abstract

Early adolescents exhibit heightened sensitivity to peer feedback and social rewards. This attunement to social evaluation leads to greater motivation to fit in (Somerville, 2013). Some youth model the behaviors of their high-status peers; and frequently the most salient behaviors are precarious (e.g. delinquent behavior, substance use; Allen, et al., 2005). However, not all peers are as motivated to emulate the problematic behaviors of their high-status peers. The current study examines how social status instability in middle school (M.S.) might moderate the association between high status and negative school-related behaviors and selecting risky contexts.

Relying on longitudinal data (6th through 12th grades), we examined the interaction between social status and status instability in M.S. as predictors of problematic adolescent behaviors in high school (H.S). We presumed that negative school behaviors and gravitating to risky contexts function as a strategy to maintain high (“cool”) status throughout the transition to H.S.. We hypothesized that 1) higher social status is positively associated with more frequent reports of subsequent precarious behaviors, 2) such links are stronger for those whose social status fluctuated across M.S. and 3) the effect of M.S. status experiences to wane soon after the transition to H.S..

Participants were drawn from a longitudinal study of 5,991 adolescents from 26 urban California M.S.’s. Data were collected annually starting in 6th grade. Social status was derived from peer nominations: participants provided unlimited “cool” nominations, which were averaged across the three M.S. years (6th grade – 8th grade) to compute the average M.S. social status (peer nominations ceased when participants shifted to 200 H.S.’s). Social status instability was calculated as the individual variation for cool nominations received; higher values indicate greater dispersion around the mean, (less stability of status). Two outcomes of problematic behaviors were examined: 1) Deviant School Behaviors (e.g. cutting class) and 2) Selecting Risky Contexts (e.g. attending parties with drugs available).

Multilevel analyses examined the status associations with precarious behaviors at each grade level in H.S.; covariates included sex, ethnicity and parental education. Consistent with our hypotheses, a significant interaction effect between M.S. social status and instability of status on both outcomes of problematic behaviors during the transition to high school, 9th and 10th grade, exists (see tables 1 & 2). Simple slope analysis revealed social status to be significant when status instability was at the mean, and 1 standard deviation above for 9th grade deviant school behavior, and at all observed values in 10th grade. Similarly, the slope of social status was significant at all observed values of status instability in 9th and 10th grade selection of risky contexts. Contradictory to our hypotheses, the main effects of M.S. status and instability of status independently predicted precarious behaviors beyond the transition to H.S., 11th and 12th grade (see tables 1 & 2).

These results support literature indicating high-status adolescents are at increased risk for precarious behaviors and adds to existing literature by indicating the nuanced value of social status instability as a reliable and important predictor for problematic behaviors in middle adolescence.

Authors

• Sophia Pashtunyar, University of California - Los Angeles
  Presenting Author

• Jaana Juvonen
  Non-Presenting Author