Behavioral Correlates of Social Status and Functioning in Emerging Adulthood: An Observational Study Employing the Unfamiliar Peer Group Paradigm

Whereas social status and functioning have been studied extensively in childhood and adolescence by means of peer reports, less is known about status and functioning in emerging adulthood and in novel peer groups. Although youths’ peer groups are relatively stable and primarily interact within structured school settings, emerging adults experience greater variability in their social contexts, which makes obtaining peer reports during this life phase more challenging. Moreover, previous research has shown that emerging adults’ social status and functioning are related to their interpersonal adjustment, but the behavioral correlates of social status and functioning remain understudied. Therefore, it was investigated how social behaviors were associated with emerging adults’ perceptions of peers’ social status and functioning. Employing the traditional unfamiliar peer group paradigm, 301 unfamiliar emerging adults (52% female, 46% male, 2% other, M age = 22.89, SD age = 2.12, age range = 18–25 years) interacted in 79 groups of three or four participants. Participants and independent observers rated all group members’ social behaviors (i.e., social engagement, friendliness, skillful leadership, and influence). Participants also rated each other’s social status and functioning. Mixed effects models demonstrated that peer-reported social engagement was consistently and positively linked to all dimensions of social status and functioning (i.e., visibility, vulnerability, inhibition). The social behaviors in this study were least related to the vulnerability dimension. The current study showed that even in the more variable social contexts of emerging adulthood, social behavior with peers is systematically linked to perceptions of social status and functioning.