Children Who Overestimate Their Popularity Less Likely to Be Bullies

Children who overestimate their popularity are less likely to be bullies than those who underestimate or hold more accurate assessments of their social standing, finds new research to be presented at the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.

“The more kids overestimated their popularity, the less aggression they displayed,” said Jennifer Watling Neal, an assistant professor of psychology at Michigan State University. “This means that kids who were more accurate in their assessment of their number of friends or who underestimated their quantity of friends compared to peer report were more aggressive.”

Kirtland Peterson

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