Friendship, Popularity, and Adolescent Dating in Mixed-Gender Peer Settings

Developmental theories suggest that adolescent romantic relationships are preceded by popularity in same-gender groups (Dunphy, 1963) and the establishment of mixed-gender friendship networks (Connolly & Johnson, 1996). This study investigates how peer context, in particular having friends and being perceived as popular by peers, affects adolescent’s chances of dating. Moreover, we examine whether the gender of the perceiver (i.e. same-gender or cross-gender ratings on various characteristics) matters in the association between popularity and dating. Building on the notions of previous research by Dunphy (1963) and Connolly et al. (2004), the aim of this study was threefold. First, we examined how having same-gender and cross-gender friendships relates differently to dating. Secondly, we focused on how popularity perceived by same-gender and cross-gender peers affects the chances of dating. Third, we were interested in the way characteristics that have been related to popularity (Dijkstra et al., 2009) might explain the expected associations between popularity and dating. To this end, we focused on risk behavior, aggression, athletic abilities, physical attractiveness, and prosocial behavior. To test our hypotheses we used a subsample from a longitudinal Dutch study TRAILS (Tracking Adolescents' Individual Lives Survey). We selected 590 adolescents (56% girls) who had information on both peer nominations (T2, M age = 13.6) and dating history (T3, M age = 16.3). Moreover, we selected only those respondents who started (or did not start at all) dating after the peer nominations were assessed in order to maintain the correct temporal ordering of our concepts. The outcome variable “dating” indicated if a respondent started a dating between T2 and T3. Predicting variables were constructed from peer nominations on various characteristics, including friendship and popularity. Pupils could make unlimited number of nominations from their classmates, and their selections were not gender-restricted. The number of nominations received from same-gender and cross-gender peers was divided by the total number of participating same-gender and cross-gender classmates respectively, resulting in proportion scores ranging from 0 to 1. A series of generalized linear models (logistic regressions with a “logit” link function) were tested in order to investigate whether friendships and popularity predicted dating, and how this association changed with the addition of other covariates related to popularity. First, we tested the main effects of same/cross-gender friendships (Model 1), then main effect of total popularity (not separated by gender, Model 2), the effects of same-/cross-gender popularity (Model 3), and finally, the effects of other related characteristics (Model 4). All models included control variables. Table 1 shows support for the hypothesis that cross-gender friendships increase chances of dating. However, we also found that, net of cross-gender friendships, cross-gender popularity predicted dating, whereas same-gender popularity did not. The effect of cross-gender popularity was largely driven by perceived physical attractiveness and prosocial behavior (providing someone with practical help such as homework or fixing a bicycle tire); however, the later had a negative effect. These results suggest that it is important to separate same-gender and cross-gender popularity, they have different effects and are related to different sources of gendered popularity.