Social Intelligence as a Predictor of Unpopularity The Moderating Effect of Ethnicity

Abstract

Popularity is an important and well-studied factor in social sciences. However, determinants of unpopularity have rarely been studied. Therefore this study examined the relation between unpopularity and social intelligence with ethnicity and academic achievement as potential moderators. It was hypothesized that unpopularity had a negative relation with social intelligence. Furthermore for the interaction effects of academic achievement and ethnicity it was hypothesized that there was a stronger negative relationship between social intelligence and unpopularity for the adolescents with lower academic achievement and for ethnic minorities. The participants of this study were 806 adolescents (353 boys, 453 girls; M age = 13.37, SD =.57) in Grade 8 of two secondary schools in the Netherlands. Bootstrap regression analyses revealed that there was a negative relationship between social intelligence and unpopularity. This indicated that unpopular participants were less socially intelligent. The results also indicated that there was an interaction effect of ethnicity. This indicated that there was a stronger relationship between less social intelligence and unpopularity for ethnic minorities. The interaction effect of ethnicity is a new finding and therefore highlights the importance of the role of ethnicity in relation to unpopularity.