Presentation Strategies and Popularity in Middle School

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 stu-dents 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 fre-quently than strategies that involved lying. Popularity was not related to ado-lescents ’ use of self-presentation strategies, but self-presentation strategy beliefs varied by popularity, grade, and gender. Popular seventh-grade stu-dents 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