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Study: Being Popular In High School Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be

Study: Being Popular In High School Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be

Well, well, well. How the tables have turned. A new report from the University of Virginia suggests that being popular in high school is actually a liability later on in life, with the “cool kids” going on to have more problems making friends and staying out of legal trouble. “We call it the high school reunion effect,” says Joseph Allen, a psychologist who led the study. “The student who was popular and was running with the fast crowd isn’t doing as great later on. It’s…the revenge of the good quiet kids.” That “fast crowd” will end up being 40% more likely to have substance abuse problems, 23% more likely to engage in criminal activity and even have more trouble managing their relationships.

For the purposes of the study, “cool kids” were determined by how many people the test subjects made out with in high school, how many friends they had, how important it was to them to be popular and what they did for fun on the weekends. So all those nights spent wishing you were cool may actually have paid off …

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