Parental views of popularity and stress among adolescents

The present study takes a first step in identifying those factors that parents believe to affect their adolescent's popularity and level of stress. Data collected from 742 parents revealed that about half of the parents chose open and friendly behaviour towards classmates and strong personality as the most important factors contributing to adolescent popularity, followed by high grades, acceptance by members of the opposite sex and physical attractiveness. Parents chose high grades and desire to pursue high education as major actual or potential sources of stress among their adolescents, followed by interpersonal issues, personal problems and pressure from parents. Analysis of the data by parents' SES, and adolescents' gender and age, revealed some interesting differences that merit further discussion and research.