Researchers from Princeton, Rutgers and Yale universities sought out the most influential students in 56 New Jersey middle school and asked them to spread messages about the dangers of bullying and school conflict.
PRINCETON -- Middle school students who are the most socially well-connected in their school wield the influence to curb school bullying, according to a new study.
Researchers from Princeton, Rutgers and Yale universities sought out the most influential students in 56 New Jersey middle schools in 2012-13 and asked them to spread messages about the dangers of bullying and school conflict. The result was a 30 percent drop in student conflict reports at those schools, according to the study.
"We think the best way to change social norms is to have these student influencers speak in their own voices," said lead author Elizabeth Levy Paluck, associate professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton. "Encouraging their own messages to bubble up from the bottom using a grassroots approach can be very powerful."
The concept of peers influencing peers is widely accepted, but the researchers wanted to test whether certain kids have an outsized influence over behavioral patterns in their school.
Princeton said the study is innovative because it uses social networks to identify the student leaders, who aren't necessarily the most popular kids school-wide but have great influence within their social circle.
"When adults choose student leaders, they typically pick the 'good' kids," Paluck said. "But the leaders we find through social network mapping are influential among students and are not all the ones who would be selected by adults."
The researchers mapped school's social networks using a survey given to nearly 25,000 students from the schools. The survey asked students to nominate the top 10 students who they choose to spend time with both face to face or online.
Those students shared some common characteristics, such as having older siblings, having a boyfriend or girlfriend and having received compliments from peers about their home.
The students were invited but not required to participate in several messaging campaigns, including wearing brightly colored wristbands and using the #iRespect hashtag on the social media website Instagram.
Full fundings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
