Conference Abstracts

Children navigate a dense social obstacle course with many challenges: fitting in, avoiding bullies, and importantly, learning what’s cool. How do children learn what their peer group thinks is “cool” to facilitate their own social success?  In six preregistered studies (N=575), we test whether children view popular kids as “sages of cool.” That is, do they look to popular peers to learn what is desirable and copy them to gain the peer group’s favor?

The Cognitive Developmental Society is a child research conference that promotes research across many areas. But at its core, their focus is cognitive development. So, I opened by establishing popular kids as role models. This framework integrates my findings with existing research on social learning in children.

"From classroom cliques to influencer culture, popularity is a potent form of social status that emerges early and persists into adulthood. Popular kids have been called “prestigious” because they are copied by peers (Cillessen, 2011), like prestigious leaders (Henrich & Gil-White, 2001)."

Here, I opened by establishing popularity as a lifelong phenomenon, not just a juvenile concern. I connected my work to influencer culture to establish its practical significance and established how this theorizing relates to Henrich and Gil-White (2001)’s Dominance-Prestige Model. These are both hot topics in Social Psychology, and both inform my thinking about popularity. I could have discussed the more cognitive developmental literature relating to this topic, but I will have plenty of room for that in the talk itself. 

• Establish why the talk is interesting for this audience. Present the question you are going to address in a way the audience will care about.

• Include your sample size (N) and number of studies. Some conferences may also want demographic information such as gender. Check the submission requirements, but this is often an unwritten standard across different societies. Ask your advisor if you are unsure how to prioritize your limited word count.

•  Describe the studies as concisely and clearly as possible. Remember that the abstract may be published in an abstract book. Someone may later remember your talk but not the details, or they may have seen the title but not had time to attend. They will refer back to the abstract book to learn about your work. Ask someone who is not familiar with your work to read it and explain back to you what they think you actually did.

• Highlight the implications of your work. At the end of your abstract, your audience should understand what the findings mean and why they matter.

Sample Short Abstract

“Cool” Sages: Social Influence is a Core Feature of Popularity. From classroom cliques to influencer culture, popularity is a potent form of social status that emerges early and persists into adulthood. Popular kids have been called “prestigious” because they are copied by peers (Cillessen, 2011), like prestigious leaders (Henrich & Gil-White, 2001). But most popular people have many positive traits (e.g., athleticism, wealth), making it unclear what drives their influence. Who do people copy: the fittest athlete, the richest magnate, or the most popular icon? In four preregistered studies (N=380), we isolated popularity from its confounds by presenting 5–10-year-olds with novel kids. Children compared a popular kid, who lacked a trait (athleticism in S.1, wealth in S's.2-4) to someone who was not popular but had that trait. We asked, “Who do all the kids in the class copy?” Between ages 7-9, children chose the popular kid, not the athletic or rich kid. Specifically, they copy their style, not homework (S.4). We argue being copied is a defining feature of popularity, distinguishing it from other forms of social status. This early copying prepares them for the adult social world, with norms curated by powerful peers and influencers. Presented as a talk to the Society for Research in Personality and Social Psychology (1200 characters or fewer, with spaces)

• All of the same principles for short abstracts apply. Establish the question, clearly explain what you did, and make the implications clear.

• Use the additional space to develop the research question and explain the implications more fully. You may cite more literature and/or provide different kinds of implications.

• Back up your results with statistics such as binomial tests, t-tests or regressions.

• If you have additional relevant studies that speak to the interests of the conference audience, you may want to add them, even if you consider them a different project!

Sample Long Abstract

Sages of Cool: What Children Learn from Popular Kids. Children navigate a dense social obstacle course with many challenges: fitting in, avoiding bullies, and importantly, learning what’s cool. How do children learn what their peer group thinks is “cool” to facilitate their own social success? In six preregistered studies (N=575), we test whether children view popular kids as “sages of cool.” That is, do they look to popular peers to learn what is desirable and copy them to gain the peer group’s favor?

Children (at least adolescents) often copy popular peers (Sandstrom, 2011). But popular kids share many positive traits that could motivate copying (e.g., athleticism; wealth; Closson, 2009). In the first four studies (N=380, Studies 1-2: 5-10-year-olds | Studies 3-4: 7-8-year-olds), we stripped away these confounds by asking children about novel characters described as popular or not. We also pit popularity against a positive confound (athleticism, Study 1) and another domain of high-social status (wealth, Studies 2-4). So, children contrasted a popular kid and either an athletic or rich kid. By age 9, children said the popular kid was more copied than the others (p’s<.001). They also did not demonstrate a popular-kid halo effect. For example, they thought the athletic kid was nicer (p<.001) and rich kid had an easier life (p’s<.001). They also thought the copying was specific, saying people would copy popular kid’s style, not their homework (p’s<.001). Taken together, children think popular kids are copied because of their popularity; they think being copied is a defining feature of this kind of high social status.

Studies 1-4 provide evidence for a connection between popularity and copying. But what motivates this copying? One thought is that this behavior is a signal aimed at the popular kid. Kids may copy popular kids as a way to affiliate with them. This could work because copying signals similarity (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999), which increases liking. But they may also copy popular kids to avoid their scorn (Henrich & Gil-White, 2001). Popular kids can be mean (Pellegrini et al., 2011), so children might conform to avoid teasing. Both accounts predict children’s copying directed toward the popular kids and so they should want popular kids to see the copying. 

In Studies 5-6 (N=195, 7-10-year-olds), a character copied a popular kid’s outfit. In Study 5, children predicted who she would show the outfit to, the popular kid or other classmates. At all ages, children did not opt to show the outfit to the popular kid (17%, p<.001). In a control condition, in which children were told the copier wanted to affiliate with the “Tulus”, they said the copier would show a Tulu her outfit, not others (89%, p<.001). Children do not think this copying is a signal directed toward popular kids, ruling out the above explanations. Study 6 explored if children think this copying is for reputational reasons, asking children if the character’s peers think copying is “cool.” Children said the wider peer group thought the copying was cooler than the popular kid did (p<.001) and there was marginal evidence that copying a popular kid was cooler than copying the Tulus (p=.066).

These findings suggest that popular kids function as social role models. Children think of them as people who can be copied to impress the broader group, not other popular kids. We discuss the implication of these results for theories about popularity and social signaling. Presented as a talk to the Cognitive Development Society (500 words or less)