Academic Self-Presentation Strategies and Popularity in Middle School

Abstract

This study examined early adolescents’ beliefs about which academic self-presentation strategies hypothetical hard-working, high-achieving students should use with popular peers, adolescents’ own use of self-presentation strategies, and links between popularity and self-presentation strategies. In response to scenarios in which popular classmates ask high-achieving students about their grades, most seventh- and eighth-grade participants (N = 312) believed they should be honest or give a vague response. In their own interactions, participants reported using strategies that hid grades more frequently than strategies that involved lying. Popularity was not related to adolescents’ use of self-presentation strategies, but self-presentation strategy beliefs varied by popularity, grade, and gender. Popular seventh-grade students believed high-achieving students should be honest about their grades and effort, whereas popular eighth-grade students believed they should claim to have studied less. Among popular eighth-grade students, girls were more likely than boys to believe they should give a vague response.

Keywords

self-presentation strategies popularity academic performance academic effort middle school

The importance of peer acceptance peaks in early adolescence (Brown, Eicher, & Petrie, 1986), as does the importance of belonging to a popular crowd (Gavin & Furman, 1989; Kinney, 1993). This creates a dilemma for some diligent middle school students, as early adolescents tend to perceive students who work hard in school as less popular (Juvonen & Murdock, 1993; 1995). Adolescents who believe that academic success will jeopardize their social standing with peers may try to mitigate negative social consequences by using self-presentation strategies to hide their grades or effort from peers. Self-presentation strategies, or tactics used for impression management, have been studied extensively in the social psychology literature (see Leary & Kowalski, 1990 for a review), but most studies are laboratory or field experiments involving individuals who are unacquainted with one another. Relatively little empirical data exists that describes the use of self-presentation strategies in everyday life. Despite the fact that self-presentation strategy use could be expected to increase during middle school as concerns about social evaluation intensify, few studies of self-presentation have focused on adolescents. In this study, we investigated early adolescents’ use of academic self-presentation strategies with peers as well as their beliefs about which academic self-presentation strategies should be used by hard-working, high-achieving students. Further, we explored how these self-presentation strategy beliefs and the frequency of self-presentation strategy use were related to peer-rated popularity during middle school.

Popularity and Academic Achievement

In elementary school, children tend to be attracted to peers who display good classroom behavior, but upon entry into middle school, attraction to well-behaved peers declines and attraction to aggressive peers increases (Bukowski, Sippola, & Newcomb, 2000). As early adolescence is an age when many seek independence from adults, middle school students often admire those who engage in behaviors that conflict with the perceived values of adult authorities (Moffit, 1993). Adolescents who do not do school work or who act up in class frequently are perceived by peers as popular (Juvonen, 2001; Juvonen & Cadigan, 2002; Juvonen & Murdock, 1993), whereas conscientious, studious students are seen as “nerdy” (Lasane, Sweigard, Czopp, Howard, & Burns, 1999) and run the risk of being given the socially detrimental labels of “brain” (Brown & Steinberg, 1990) or “teacher’s pet” (Juvonen & Cadigan, 2002).

Although effort in school and good classroom behavior are often associated with lower popularity, the relationship between grades and popularity is not as clear. Sussman, Pokhrel, Ashmore, and Brown’s (2007) review of the literature on crowds revealed that membership in high status crowds was usually associated with academic success. Adler, Kless, and Adler (1992) reported that very smart, high-achieving fifth-grade boys were only stigmatized as “brainy” if they lacked status-enhancing traits, such as coolness, toughness, or athletic ability. Students with high grades can be popular and “skirt the brain-nerd connection” (Brown & Steinberg, 1990, p. 58) by getting into trouble or being a class clown (Adler, Kless, & Adler, 1992; Juvonen & Cadigan, 2002). Thus, getting good grades does not necessarily jeopardize popularity as long as adolescents also possess desirable characteristics and are not perceived as overly studious and unsociable. In fact, if students can demonstrate the ability to earn high grades without studying (what we call being an “effortless achiever”) they may be perceived as naturally intelligent (Dweck, 2002) and admired by peers.

Although many popular students earn high grades, some studies suggest that there is a subgroup of popular students where academic achievement is not valued. The high status students in this subgroup tend to be tough, aggressive, and earn poor grades (Rodkin, Farmer, Pearl, & Van Acker, 2000; Troop-Gordon, Visconti, & Kuntz, 2011). These aggressive popular students appear to have what Kiefer and Ryan (2008) called “dominance goals.” Students with dominance goals want peers to be afraid of them and they were found to earn lower grades and be less engaged in school than students with popularity goals (i.e., those who want to be “cool”).

Academic effort and high levels of academic achievement often have more negative effects on boys’ popularity than on girls’ popularity (Adler et al., 1992). Masculine gender role expectations can contribute to a male academic culture where academics are not valued and studying is perceived as feminine (Czopp, Lasane, Sweigard, Bradshaw, & Hammer, 1998; Jackson, 2003; Lasane et al., 1999). Czopp and his colleagues (1998) found that academically indifferent “hypermasculine” students were viewed as higher in social status. Furthermore, although they were perceived as lacking motivation, they were not seen as less intelligent. Lasane and his colleagues (1999) found that conscientious and organized students were perceived as more feminine, less sociable, and lower in social attractiveness. During middle school, when pressure to act in a gender-prescribed manner increases (Galambos, Almeida, & Peterson, 1990), early adolescent boys who want to be popular may be particularly concerned with demonstrating their masculinity to peers by acting as if they do not care about school.

Academic Self-Presentation Strategies

The use of academic self-presentation strategies with peers has been found as early as elementary school (Banerjee, 2002), but becomes more common during middle school (Juvonen & Murdock, 1993; 1995). Banerjee (2002) reported that, compared to younger children, 10- and 11-year-old children’s self-descriptions more frequently included physical skills when talking with a peer, but included academic skills more frequently when talking with an adult. Juvonen and Murdock (1995) compared fourth-, sixth-, and eighth-grade students’ willingness to portray themselves as diligent to popular peers and teachers. While fourth- and sixth-grade students wanted to be perceived as effortful by both teachers and peers, eighth-grade students were reluctant to present themselves as hardworking to peers. In a similar study, Juvonen and Murdock (1993) examined how students explained a successful academic outcome to a popular peer. Eighth-grade students were less likely than younger students to attribute their success to effort. Together, these studies indicate that by middle school, early adolescents realize that academic effort is valued more by adults than peers and adjust their self-presentations accordingly.

The type of academic self-presentation strategy adolescents choose to use with peers can be expected to vary depending on their motive, their level of achievement and effort, their audience, and the level of achievement and effort of their audience. Some adolescents may present themselves as not working hard if they believe their audience thinks that school effort is “nerdy.” Others may use strategies that hide or minimize effort as a way to save face after academic failure, or to enhance perceptions of intelligence after academic success (Juvonen & Murdock, 1993). Some adolescents may downplay their grades in an attempt to appear modest (Leary & Kowalski, 1990) or enhance their grades to appear smarter. Due to norms of equality in peer groups (Berndt, 1988; Merten, 1997), some adolescents may try to present their level of academic performance as similar to that of peers. These adolescents may choose self-presentation strategies that inflate their grades when they are performing worse than others and strategies that hide or downplay their grades when they are performing better.

Academic Self-Presentation Strategies and Popularity

To date, little research addresses the question of whether adolescents who use academic self-presentation strategies with peers are more popular than adolescents who do not, and if so, which strategies are most effective for enhancing popularity. On one hand, some evidence suggests that presenting a false self to others (i.e., using deceptive self-presentation strategies) is related to low self-esteem (Harter, Marold, Whitesell, & Cobbs, 1996; Thornton, Audesse, Ryckman, & Burckle, 2006). Thornton and colleagues (2006) suggest that “high reliance on self-presentation strategies may be indicative of poor social and mental health in general and emotional insecurity and lack of self-confidence in particular” (p. 40). These findings would lead one to expect that self-presentation strategy use would be negatively related to status with peers.

On the other hand, knowing how to maintain high status indicates an ability to understand others’ goals, needs, and intentions in various social situations and to behave accordingly (Meijs, Cillessen, Scholte, Segers, & Spikerman, 2010). As such, using self-presentation strategies could be considered an adaptive social skill expected to be associated with social success. Some support for this position comes from Banerjee (2002), who found that children who scored highest on audience differentiation (i.e., those with the most developed self-presentation skills) had the most reciprocated friendships. Students high in popularity have been described as “Machiavellian” (Hawley, 2003) and as manipulative (Meijs et al., 2010). To the extent that self-presentation tactics reflect attempts to manipulate peers’ perceptions, these studies suggest that students who use these strategies would be perceived by peers as higher in status.

The Current Study

In the current study, we assessed seventh- and eighth-grade middle school students’ beliefs about which academic self-presentation strategies should be used by hypothetical hard-working, high-achieving students when asked by a popular classmate about their grade. We also assessed early adolescents’ own use of a variety of academic self-presentation strategies with peers, such as hiding test scores or lying about how much they had studied. Finally, we examined how adolescents’ self-presentation strategy beliefs and self-presentation strategy use were associated with popularity. We hypothesized that popularity would be positively related to self-presentation strategy use, and that this relationship would be stronger for boys than for girls.

Method

Participants

Students attending a seventh- and eighth-grade middle school in a predominantly middle-class rural western New York town participated. With approval of the Institutional Review Board and in cooperation with the school principal, we included a detailed letter describing the study in a school newsletter mailed to all parents. The letter informed parents that all information collected would be kept confidential and that only the research team would have access to it. Children would be asked to give assent to participate and would be allowed to withdraw from the study at any time. Parents were asked to sign an attached form and return it to the school only if they did not want their child to participate. Parents of six out of 355 adolescents in the student body (2%) returned forms declining participation. Of the remaining 349 students, 37 chose not to participate or were absent on the day of data collection. The final sample consisted of 312 students or 87.8% of the student body. Participants included 160 seventh-grade students ( ${\bar{X}}_{age}$ = 12.5 years), 151 eighth grade students ( ${\bar{X}}_{age}$ = 13.5 years), 159 boys and 153 girls. The majority of participants (85.4%) identified themselves as Caucasian. No other race was selected by more than 2% of participants, although 9% indicated “Other.”

Procedure

Data were collected by one male and one female researcher over 2 days during physical education classes at the participants’ school. Classes ranged in size from 15 to 30 students. Researchers began each session by informing students about the study, telling them that participation was voluntary, and asking for their agreement to participate. After receiving oral assent, researchers asked all participating students to spread out so that their responses would not be seen by others before distributing the questionnaires.

Measures

Self-presentation strategy beliefs

This measure was developed by the first author for the current study to assess adolescents’ beliefs about the best ways for middle school students to present themselves academically to popular peers if they wanted to be popular. We presented participants with three hypothetical scenarios depicting a same-sex student in an academic evaluation situation. Because students would be expected to use different self-presentation strategies in different situations, we decided to use hypothetical scenarios in order to ensure that all students were responding to the same set of circumstances. The hypothetical students in the scenarios varied in academic effort and grades. In this way, we were able to assess adolescents’ beliefs about academic situations in which some adolescents rarely find themselves (such as getting the highest grade in the class). Steven Asher and his colleagues have demonstrated the validity of using hypothetical vignettes for assessing a variety of children’s beliefs and goals (e.g., Erdley & Asher, 1998; Troop-Gordon & Asher, 2005), and hypothetical scenarios have been used frequently by Jaana Juvonen and her colleagues to study self-presentation strategies (Juvonen, 2001; Juvonen & Murdock, 1993; 1995).

For the purposes of this study, we focused on only one scenario—one involving a hard-working, high-achieving student—because we were most interested in adolescents’ beliefs about how excellent students should present themselves if they want to be popular. The scenario (for boys) read:

Mr. Myer, an 8th grade history teacher, just passed back a test to his class. Mike studied really hard for it and got a score of 98%—the highest grade in the class. A popular classmate asks Mike how well he did on the test. What do you think Mike should do if he wants to be popular?

Each scenario was followed by a series of possible actions the hypothetical student could take. For this scenario, there were five possible responses: (a) honesty: “Mike should give his true score, and explain that he worked very hard to get it;” (b) hide grade: “Mike should quickly put the test into his folder so none of his classmates can see how well he has done;” (c) vague response: “Mike should give a vague response, like ‘pretty good,’ ‘alright,’ or ‘not bad’;” (d) claim lower grade and effort: “Mike should tell the classmate that he got a ‘B’ and claim that he really didn’t try very hard;” and (e) claim lower effort: “Mike should give his true score but claim that he only studied for a little while.” Participants rated each action on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Self-presentation strategy use

This measure was also developed for this study to assess the frequency with which participants used seven academic self-presentation strategies with their peers. Two items began, “How often have you . . . .” Strategies were (a) hide grade: “tried to hide a test score from your classmates?” and (b) keep grades secret: “tried to keep grades secret?” The rest of the items began, “When classmates ask you about your grades, how often have you . . . .” Strategies were (c) vague response: “given a vague response like, ‘pretty good,’ ‘alright,’ or ‘not bad’?” (d) claim lower grade: “said you got a lower score than you actually did?” (e) claim higher grade: “said you got a better score than you actually did?” (f) claim higher effort: “said that you studied harder than you really did?” and (g) claim lower effort: “said that you studied less hard than you really did?” Participants used a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (often) to respond.

Popularity

We used peer ratings to assess participants’ perceived popularity. Each participant was given a list of 25 randomly selected classmates in their grade and asked to rate each on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (unpopular) to 5 (popular). There was also a “do not know this person” option. Each participant’s popularity was rated by 15 to 22 classmates and agreement among raters was high (Cronbach’s α = 0.97). We averaged peer ratings for each participant to calculate their popularity score. Data was missing for eight participants.

Results

Descriptive Statistics

Mean scores and standard deviations for all self-presentation strategy variables are presented in Table 1. Using paired sample t-tests to compare mean scores, we found that the highest self-presentation strategy belief scores were for the honesty and vague response variables, indicating that most participants believed hypothetical high-achieving students should be truthful about their high effort and grades or give a vague response like, “alright,” in response to inquiries from popular classmates if they want to be popular. The lowest rated self-presentation strategy belief score was for the claim lower grade and effort variable.

Table 1.

Means for Self-Presentation Strategy Variables and Correlations Between Self-Presentation Strategy Variables and Popularity.

			Correlation coefficient (r)
	Mean	SD	Overall	7th Grade	8th Grade
Self-Presentation strategy beliefs
Honesty	3.47_a	1.34	0.12*	0.22**	0.01
Hide grade	2.20_b	1.20	0.01	−0.02	0.04
Vague response	3.24_a	1.32	0.02	0.03	0.03
Claim lower grades and effort	1.83_c	1.06	−0.08	−0.12	−0.05
Claim lower effort	2.60_d	1.34	0.04	−0.11	0.20*
Self-Presentation strategy use
Hide test score	2.31_a	1.14	−0.01	−0.01	0.01
Keep grades secret	2.42_a	1.21	0.05	0.11	−0.01
Vague response	3.26_b	1.23	−0.03	−0.00	−0.05
Claim lower grade	1.60_c	1.00	0.07	0.08	0.06
Claim higher grade	1.86_d	1.13	0.03	−0.02	0.09
Claim higher effort	1.98_d	1.19	0.02	−0.05	0.11
Claim lower effort	1.96_d	1.18	0.06	−0.00	0.13

Note: Self-presentation strategy belief scores are responses to a hypothetical scenario with a hard-working, high-achieving student. Response scales ranged from 1 to 5; Means in each category sharing a common subscript are not statistically different at p < .05. Overall N = 312; 7th grade n = 160; 8th grade n = 151.

p < .05; **p < .01.

In their own interactions with peers, participants most frequently used the vague response self-presentation strategy and least frequently used the claim lower grade strategy. Strategies that involved hiding grades (i.e., vague response, hide grade, and keep grade secret) were used more often than those that involved lying about grades or effort (i.e., claim higher grade, claim lower grade, claim higher effort, and claim lower effort).

Links Between Self-Presentation Strategies and Popularity

To examine the relationship between self-presentation strategies and popularity, we first conducted a preliminary bivariate correlation analyses (see third column of Table 1). The only significant correlation was between popularity and the honesty self-presentation strategy belief variable, r(297) = 0.12, p = .037, indicating that popular adolescents were more likely to believe that high-achieving students should be honest about their high grades and effort.

Next, we ran a series of hierarchical regression analyses. For each analysis, we entered popularity, gender, and grade as predictors on the first step, all two-way interaction variables on the second step, and the three-way gender by grade by popularity interaction variable on the third step. All variables were mean-centered before creating interaction variables to avoid multicollinearity (Keith, 2006). Dependent variables were the five self-presentation strategy belief variables and the seven self-presentation strategy use variables. Results from all regression analyses are summarized in Tables 2 and 3.

Table 2.

Hierarchical Regression Analyses Predicting Adolescents’ Self-Presentation Beliefs From Grade, Gender, and Popularity.

	Honesty	Hide grade	Vague response	Claim lower grade & effort	Claim lower effort
Step 1
Grade	0.02	−0.03	−0.20**	−0.00	0.08
Gender^a	0.19**	−0.01	0.00	−0.27***	−0.13*
Popularity	0.11	−0.00	0.01	−0.10	0.02
Step 2
Grade by gender	0.08	−0.01	0.05	−0.06	−0.09
Grade by popularity	0.12*	−0.02	0.00	−0.07	−0.18**
Gender by popularity	−0.02	−0.11†	−0.05	−0.06	0.03
Step 3
Grade by gender by popularity	0.08	−0.02	−0.13*	0.00	0.06
Total adjusted R²	0.05	0.01	0.04	0.07	0.05

Note: Scores are standardized β coefficients.

Gender coded 1 for boys, 2 for girls.

†

p < .10; * p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001

Table 3.

Hierarchical Regression Analyses Predicting Adolescents’ Academic Self-Presentation Strategy Use From Grade, Gender, and Popularity.

	Hide score	Keep grades secret	Vague response	Claim lower grade	Claim higher grade	Claim higher effort	Claim lower effort
Step 1
Grade	−0.08	0.00	−0.06	0.04	−0.03	−0.09	−0.01
Gender^a	0.07	−0.01	0.10	−0.18**	−0.13*	−0.05	−0.13*
Popularity	0.01	0.05	−0.02	0.05	0.03	0.03	0.06
Step 2
Grade by gender	0.03	−0.01	0.06	−0.15**	0.07	0.03	−0.05
Grade by popularity	−0.02	0.05	0.02	0.00	−0.07	−0.09	−0.09
Gender by popularity	−0.07	0.05	−0.10†	−0.01	−0.08	−0.10	0.03
Step 3
Grade by gender by popularity	0.03	0.03	−0.11†	−0.01	−0.01	−0.03	−0.10
Total adjusted R²	0.01	0.01	0.02	0.04	0.01	0.01	0.02

Note: Scores are standardized β coefficients.

Gender coded 1 for boys, 2 for girls.

†

p < .10; * p < .05; ** p < .01.

Popularity, gender, and grade as predictors of self-presentation strategy beliefs

The first set of analyses examined predictors of participants’ responses to the hypothetical vignette about a hard-working, high-achieving student. Gender was a significant predictor of the self-presentation strategy belief variables of honesty, claim lower grade and effort, and claim lower effort (see Table 2). Girls were more likely than boys to believe that high-achieving students should present grades and effort honestly to popular peers, whereas boys were more likely than girls to believe they should present themselves as earning lower grades and/or exerting lower effort if they want to be popular.

There was a main effect of grade on the vague response self-presentation strategy belief. Seventh-grade participants were more likely than eighth-grade participants to believe that high-achieving students should give vague responses to questions from popular students about their grades. However, this main effect was moderated by a three-way grade by gender by popularity interaction. To explore this interaction, we used regression analyses to examine the effects of gender and popularity on the vague response belief for seventh- and eighth-grade participants separately. We found no significant gender, popularity, or gender by popularity interaction effects for seventh-grade participants, but among eighth-grade participants we found a gender by popularity interaction, β = −0.19, p = .032. We probed this gender by popularity interaction further by examining bivariate correlations between popularity and vague response beliefs for eighth-grade boys and eighth-grade girls separately. Results revealed a positive correlation between popularity and the vague response belief for eighth-grade girls, r(68) = 0.21, p = .102, and a negative correlation between popularity and the vague response belief for eighth-grade boys, r(77) = −0.14, p = .223. To summarize, although eighth-grade participants overall were less likely than seventh-grade participants to believe that high-achieving students should give a vague response to questions about their grades, this was particularly true for popular eighth-grade boys and less true for popular eighth-grade girls.

Although no main effects of popularity on self-presentation strategy beliefs emerged, there were significant grade by popularity interaction effects for the honesty and claim lower effort beliefs. To explore the two-way interactions, we ran bivariate correlation analyses between popularity and self-presentation strategy beliefs for seventh- and eighth-grade participants separately. As shown in Table 1, among seventh-grade participants, popularity was positively correlated with honesty beliefs and negatively correlated with claim lower effort beliefs (although the correlation between popularity and claim lower effort did not reach statistical significance). Among eighth-grade participants, popularity was not related to the honesty belief but was positively correlated with the claim lower effort belief. In other words, popular seventh-grade students were more likely to believe that high-achieving students should be honest about their high grades and effort, whereas popular eighth-grade students were more likely to believe they should tell popular classmates that they got a high grade but only studied for a little while.

Together, grade, gender, and popularity accounted for between 1% and 7% of the variance in adolescents’ self-presentation strategy beliefs. Although these effects are small (Cohen, 1988), they indicate that boys and girls have different beliefs about the best self-presentation strategies to use in order to become popular and these beliefs differ for students in the seventh and eighth grades, especially for those who are popular.

Popularity, gender, and grade as predictors of self-presentation strategy use

Regression analyses examining predictors of participants’ use of self-presentation strategies with peers revealed main effects of gender on participants’ use of the claim higher grade, claim lower grade, and claim lower effort strategies (see Table 3). Boys reported using these self-presentation strategies more frequently than girls. However, the gender effect for claim lower grade was moderated by a grade by gender interaction. We explored this interaction by testing for gender differences in the use of this strategy among seventh- and eighth-grade participants separately. Seventh-grade boys and girls did not differ in the frequency in which they claimed to get a lower grade ( $\bar{X}$ s = 1.58 and 1.53, respectively), but in eighth grade, boys were more likely than girls to use this strategy, F(1, 148) = 16.65, p = .000 ( $\bar{X}$ s = 1.96 and 1.28, respectively).

We found no significant main effects of popularity on any self-presentation strategy use variables (see Table 3). There were also no significant popularity interactions, although the effect of the three-way gender by grade by popularity interaction on the use of the vague response strategy approached significance. We explored this interaction in the same way that we explored the three-way interaction for the vague response belief variable described above. Although effects did not reach statistical significance, the pattern of results was the same: popular eighth-grade boys were less likely to give vague responses to inquiries about grades, whereas popular eighth-grade girls were more likely to use this self-presentation strategy.

Discussion

In this study we investigated middle school students’ beliefs about which academic self-presentation strategies hypothetical hard-working, high-achieving students should use if they want to be popular. In addition, we examined adolescents’ own use of self-presentation strategies with peers and links between self-presentation strategy beliefs, self-presentation strategy use, and popularity. Many early adolescents in our sample believed that when hypothetical high-achieving students are asked by popular students about their grades they should be either truthful or vague. Giving a vague response to inquiries about grades was also the strategy most commonly used by participants in their own peer interactions. Contrary to our expectations, popularity was not related to adolescents’ use of self-presentation strategies with peers. However, we found that beliefs about which self-presentation strategies hypothetical high-achieving students should use varied by popularity, grade, and gender. Popular seventh-grade students were more likely to think high-achieving students should be honest about their high grades and effort if they want to be popular, whereas popular eighth-grade students were more likely to believe they should accurately state their high grades but claim to have studied less. Furthermore, among popular eighth-grade participants, boys were less likely than girls to believe high-achieving students should give a vague response in response to inquiries about their grades.

Self-Presentation Strategy Beliefs

In response to hypothetical scenarios with high-achieving students, participants rated honest self-presentations as most effective for enhancing popularity. Self-disclosure in friendship relationships increases in importance during early adolescence (Berndt, 2004), so adolescents who believe the key to popularity is being well-liked may think it is important to be sincere and truthful to make and keep friends. Indeed, previous research has shown that honest self-presentations are evaluated favorably by audiences (Schlenker & Leary, 1982) and tend to facilitate liking (Juvonen, 2001).

Participants also rated the vague response self-presentation strategy belief highly. Giving a vague answer to questions about grades is a diplomatic way to avoid social comparisons about achievement and could be considered a socially skilled way of hiding grades. It is interesting to note that early adolescents were more likely to believe high-achieving students should hide their grade by giving a vague response rather than by quickly putting their test in a folder. Perhaps adolescents believe that hiding a test in a folder would be perceived by peers as secretive and unfriendly, whereas giving a vague response would be perceived as modest.

The lowest rated self-presentation strategy belief was for claiming a lower grade and less effort, indicating that participants did not believe hypothetical students should lie about their high achievement and studying if they want to be popular. Participants were more likely to endorse a strategy that was truthful about the high grade but downplayed the high effort. This claim lower effort strategy was also rated significantly higher than the hide grade strategy. Together, these findings suggest that early adolescents believe high effort is more damaging to popularity than high grades. They are consistent with previous research showing that hard-working students are perceived by peers as less popular (Juvonen & Murdock, 1993; 1995) even though many popular students earn high grades (Sussman, Pokhrel, Ashmore, & Brown, 2007). Thus, many adolescents believe high-achieving students can be popular as long as they are not overly diligent. Being perceived as an effortless achiever would reduce the likelihood of being labeled a “nerd” and increase the likelihood of being seen as naturally intelligent (Dweck, 2002).

Boys and girls differed in their beliefs about the self-presentation strategies hypothetical high-achieving students should use to become popular. Boys were more likely than girls to believe they should claim to have gotten a lower grade and/or to have studied less when queried by a popular classmate, whereas girls were more likely to believe they should be truthful about their high grade and effort. We also found that eighth-grade participants were less likely than seventh-grade participants to believe high-achieving students should give a vague response, but this grade effect was due mostly to low ratings of the vague response strategy belief by popular eighth-grade boys. Popular eighth-grade girls were more likely to believe in the effectiveness of the vague response strategy. These gender effects probably are due partially to the less academically supportive academic culture of boys’ peer groups (Adler et al., 1992), perhaps because academics are often perceived as feminine (Czopp et al., 1998; Jackson, 2003).

The gender effects may also reflect differences in boys’ and girls’ beliefs about the best strategies for achieving status with peers. For girls, developing friendships with popular girls is an important pathway to peer status (Eder, 1985), and because norms of self-disclosure are higher in girls’ friendship groups (Buhrmester & Furman, 1987), girls may believe that being open about their academic performance (i.e., the honesty strategy) would facilitate friendship formation and enhance popularity. The vague response strategy may have been endorsed by popular eighth-grade girls because of norms of equality in female friendships (Merten, 1997) that would discourage showing off a high grade. In contrast, because boys’ friendships are more competitive (Schneider, Woodburn, del Pilar Soteras del Toro, & Udvari, 2005), boys—particularly popular boys—may be more focused on demonstrating their strength and toughness by downplaying “feminine” studying and good grades (i.e., the claim lower grades and effort strategy) or demonstrating natural intelligence through effortless achievement of high grades (i.e., the claim lower effort strategy). These findings are consistent with previous research showing males to have a more boastful self-presentation style and females a more modest one (Heatherington, Townsend, & Burroughs, 2001).

Participants’ beliefs about whether high achieving students should use the honesty and claim lower effort strategies varied by grade and popularity. Popular seventh-grade participants were more likely to endorse the honesty strategy whereas popular eighth-grade participants were more likely to endorse the claim lower effort strategy. These findings suggest that both achievement and effort are considered important for popularity in the seventh-grade popular crowd, but by eighth grade, only high achievement is. In sum, popular eighth-grade students, compared to popular seventh-grade students, were more likely to believe high-achieving students should lie about how hard they studied, less likely to think they should be honest about grades and effort, and—among boys only—less likely to believe they should give a vague response about their high grade. Together, these grade changes in beliefs about self-presentation strategies suggest that the academic behaviors associated with popularity change over the course of the middle school years. Other researchers have noted a shift in academic norms during middle school that is consistent with our results (Bukowski et al., 2000; Juvonen, 2001). For example, when Juvonen (2001) asked fourth-, sixth-, and eighth-grade students to evaluate hypothetical students who were high in ability and low in effort, only those in eighth grade rated these students as more likable to peers.

Self-Presentation Strategy Use

The self-presentation strategies used most frequently by participants in their own peer interactions all involved hiding grades. The most commonly reported strategy was giving a vague response such as “alright” to questions from peers about grades. As mentioned above, this strategy is believed to be a socially skilled method of hiding one’s grades from peers. After giving a vague response, the next two most frequently used self-presentation strategies involved hiding test scores and keeping grades secret. It is difficult to interpret the motives of participants for using these self-presentation strategies because it is not clear if participants were trying to hide high grades or low grades. The fact that these hiding grades strategies could be used in a variety of situations for a variety of motives may explain the relative high frequency of their use.

Participants reported low use of self-presentation strategies that involved lying about their effort or grades. Reluctance to use deceitful strategies may result from a belief about the immorality of lying or it may be a manifestation of their concerns about being able to successfully change their classmates’ perceptions (Leary & Kowalski, 1990). Participants in this study attended a small school where students knew each other well. Because it is likely that their academic reputations were well-established by the time they entered middle school, the degree to which they could use academic self-presentation strategies to construct a different public image would be limited. Self-presentation motives tend to be lower among those who are highly familiar (Leary et al., 1994), and self-presentation is less frequent when individuals believe that disconfirming evidence will be made public (Leary & Kowalski, 1990)—a possibility that is quite likely in middle school classrooms.

Although overall use of deceitful strategies was low, boys were more likely than girls to report lying to peers about their grades or effort in school. Boys were more likely than girls to claim to get a lower grade, claim to get a higher grade, and claim to study less. This suggests that boys may be more strategic than girls in their interactions with peers, perhaps because boys are more concerned with status and competition (Gavin & Furman, 1989; Schneider et al., 2005) and girls are more concerned with intimacy (Buhrmester & Furman, 1987). Our findings are consistent with those of Thornton et al. (2006) who found that males were more likely than females to use both “playing dumb” and “knowing it all” self-presentation strategies, and that use of both strategies was positively correlated with a hypercompetitive personality.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research

Contrary to our hypotheses, we did not find any significant relationships between participants’ own use of self-presentation strategies with peers and popularity. We also found no support for our hypothesis that the relationship between self-presentation strategies and popularity would be stronger for boys than for girls. Our inability to find support for these hypotheses likely stemmed from a number of limitations in our study.

First, our sample came from a small school where familiarity among students may have inhibited widespread use of self-presentation strategies. Second, our measure of peer-rated popularity did not allow us to distinguish between aggressive and prosocial subtypes of popular students. As academic norms differ in these subtypes of popular students (Rodkin et al., 2000; Troop-Gordon et al., 2011), the academic self-presentation strategies associated with popularity are likely to vary depending on subtype. A fruitful direction for future research would be to sample participants from a larger school and examine differences between aggressive and prosocial popular students in self-presentation strategy use.

Finally, as a newly developed measure, our self-presentation strategy use measure has some weaknesses. We presented participants with a short list of self-presentation strategies to rate and we probably failed to capture the full range of possible tactics used by middle school students. Moreover, some strategies can be used for a variety of motives. Interviews, open-ended questions, or direct observations would provide more insight into a wider variety of self-presentation strategies as well as motives for using them. In addition, we questioned participants about strategies they used with “peers.” To understand the link between self-presentation strategy use and popularity, we may have gotten clearer results if we had asked participants to report specifically about strategies used when interacting with popular students. As the choice of self-presentation strategy likely varies with students’ level of achievement and effort compared to the peers with whom they are interacting, future measures should specify the audience and situation more clearly.

Despite these limitations, to our knowledge, this study was the first to utilize a self-report measure to directly assess early adolescents’ use of academic self-presentation strategies with their classmates at school. Although we did not find an association between popularity and self-presentation strategy use, we were able to demonstrate that popular students’ beliefs about the effectiveness of self-presentation strategies to enhance the popularity of hard-working, high-achieving students differ for seventh- and eighth-grade students and for boys and girls, particularly among popular students. Although longitudinal studies are needed to determine if these grade differences constitute a developmental change, it appears that there may be a shift in the academic norms of popular boys’ and girls’ peer groups during the middle school years. Most worrisome is the finding that popular eighth-grade students were most likely to believe that excellent students should downplay their academic effort to be popular. As we were only able to account for a small amount of variance in self-presentation strategy beliefs, these findings should be considered preliminary and more research is needed before applications based on them are made. However, because popular students are highly influential (Cohen & Prinstein, 2006), the potential impact of their beliefs on the academic values of other middle school students has important educational implications.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Joan M. Zook has a PhD in developmental psychology from Purdue University and is an assistant professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Geneseo. She regularly teaches a course on adolescent development and conducts research investigating peers’ influence on adolescents’ academic motivation.

Justin M. Russotti has a BA in psychology from the State University of New York at Geneseo and has been a Program Coordinator at Mt. Hope Family Center at the University of Rochester. Justin currently coordinates an NIMH-funded research grant investigating child abuse and trauma-related psychopathology.

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