Striving for social dominance over peers: The implications for academic adjustment during early adolescence.

Abstract

This study investigated the proposal that social dominance goals are an important, but overlooked, aspect of social goals for young adolescents' academic adjustment. Self-reports of social goals (dominance, intimacy, and popularity goals) early in the school year were used to predict subsequent engagement (self-reports and peer nominations of effort toward school work and disruptive behavior) and achievement (i.e., grades) when students were in 6th grade (N = 718) and again after the transition to middle school when students were in 7th grade (N = 656; 52% African American and 48% White; 52% female and 48% male). In line with hypotheses, social dominance goals were associated with maladaptive forms of engagement and low achievement in 6th and 7th grades. For intimacy goals, relations were more limited, but when found, these goals were associated with adaptive forms of engagement in 6th and 7th grades. Popularity goals were not generally associated with engagement or achievement. The exception was 6th-grade African American girls, for whom popularity goals were associated with maladaptive engagement, (i.e., low effort, high disruptive behavior, and low peer nominations for trying hard and getting good grades).

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