More about being fun: Making friends to maximize social status

Abstract

Objective

Children perceived by peers as someone who is fun reap interpersonal rewards, but little is known about what makes someone fun or how being fun leads to social success. The present study is designed to identify what qualities makes someone fun and how being fun leads to social success.

Method

Two studies of children in primary and middle school are reported. Participants in the present investigation attended a public-school representative of Florida school children in terms of ethnicity and income. In the first study, 351 (179 girls, 172 boys) students (8–11 years old) completed surveys twice (M = 8.5 weeks apart) during an academic year, describing the qualities of “someone who is fun.”

Results

At both time points, kindness and humor were rated as more important than buffoonery. In the second study, 394 (210 girls, 184 boys) students (8–13 years old) completed peer nomination surveys thrice (M = 8.5 weeks apart) during an academic year. Replicating previous findings, being fun predicted increases in social status (i.e., likeability and popularity).

Conclusions

Unique to this study, full longitudinal mediation analyses indicated that being perceived as fun early in the school year predicted friend gain from the beginning to the middle of the school year, which, in turn, predicted increases in perceived likeability and popularity from the middle to the end of the school year. The findings were unique to being fun. Kindness and humor did not predict friend gain.