Beyond Queen Bees, Wanabees, Masterminds and Wingmen
Mean kids—queen bees, wanabees, masterminds and wingmen—seem to be the stock characters in teen girls’ and boys’ worlds, as incisively depicted in Rosalind Wiseman’s books1 and Tina Fey’s movies and musicals. Does it have to be this way?
Do Kids’ Worlds Have to be Mean Worlds?
To begin, it’s clear from my research that young people don’t want to live in a mean world. This is a strong finding in response to an open-ended question I have asked in many of my studies—the one wish question. In the Breakthrough Years study, we asked a nationally representative group of nine- through nineteen-year-olds:
If you had one wish (besides having a lot of money) that would improve the lives of people your age, what would that wish be?2
We found that the largest proportion wish for a more peaceful, more accepting, and kinder world. In fact, 20 percent wish others would “be kind”:
People would get along with each other.
—Sixteen-year-old boy
It would be for everyone to treat each other with respect even though you may hate that person.
—Twelve-year-old girl
To be kind to everyone and give them all an equal chance no matter who they are.
—Ten-year-old girl
They specifically mention not gossiping or judging based on looks or popularity, and call for an end to bias:
To not belittle or talk about people. Just be nice.
—Seventeen-year-old boy
That people would like everybody (like as a crush) no matter what race, weight, height, skin tone, hair, acne, or anything.
—Eleven-year-old girl
I wish hate would just disappear.
—Nine-year-old boy
Another four percent wish for an end to bullying:
I wish there was a way that bullying could be outlawed and stopped. Everybody should be able to live like they want to and not be made fun of.
—Sixteen-year-old girl
The other main wishes are about improving the world. Specifically, seven percent wish for housing, food, and jobs for those in need. An additional five percent wished for cures for physical and mental illnesses.
Does this sound too altruistic? Possibly. There are also some adolescents who wish they were more physically attractive, had a romantic partner, and were more popular. There are others who wish not to have to go to school or have homework, to have bigger houses or a car, to have lots of wishes and gift cards, and to have more money for themselves. This group, however, represents only seven percent of the wishes.
More than being altruistic, adolescents can be idealistic and in this case, call for an end to a mean world and a mean culture.
Can Kid Culture Be Changed?
Yes, it is idealistic, but is it even possible? A wonderful study by Elizabeth Levy Paluck of Princeton University, Hana Shepherd of Rutgers University, and Peter Aronow of Yale University shows it is possible when young people and adults work together.
In a previous study, these researchers had found that adolescents whose behavior is more likely to be “noticed” by their peers—social influencers—have an outsized impact and can alter a culture of harassment.3
They followed up with an intervention in fifty-six New Jersey middle schools to change the culture of conflict to a culture of civility with 24,191 students.4 Schools were randomly selected to be intervention schools or control schools (i.e., business as usual with no intervention). The researchers highlight several key contributors to their success.
First, they identified effective messengers (social influencers). They surveyed everyone in each school, asking them to nominate up to ten students they’d chosen to spend time with in the last few weeks—in or out of school, or online. “Using student social networks to choose the peers,” Paluck states, was “the real innovation here.” They note that if adults had selected the messengers, they might have chosen the good kids, but when students chose, some of the leaders they selected are “right smack in the center of student conflict”:
These are the students whose behavior gets noticed more.5
In the intervention schools, they selected a group of students and randomly assigned half of that group to participate as a “seed group” (i.e., the group seeding change) in an anticonflict intervention. A random number of social influencers ended up in each seed group, enabling the researchers to test the impact of groups with more social influencers versus fewer. The seed groups received Roots training, an anticonflict program offering training in dealing with student conflict and templates for messaging campaign materials.
A second factor of importance was having influential adults on board. The governor of New Jersey had required teachers to have antibullying training, but there was no funding for it. This project enabled schools to comply with the mandate and thus the school leaders were on board.
The third factor of importance was involving students in the process. Paluck says that the best way to change social norms for young people is to have students speak in their own voices—a “grassroots approach can be very powerful.”
Throughout the school years, the seed group in each intervention school launched messaging campaigns. One campaign, for example, used posters with the hashtag “#iRespect,” highlighting the stories of intervention group students. Another gave rubber wristbands to students caught doing something great like intervening in a conflict. That active recognition truly was a culture changer, the authors write, because it countered students’ perception of conflict as “normative within their school’s social network” and thus changed students’ tendency to “perpetuate and tolerate” it.6
There was also a “Roots Day,” when students were encouraged to sign statements promising that they’d do something nice for someone in their school.
Thanks to this intervention, student disciplinary reports went down by 25 percent in the intervention schools compared with the control schools. The effects were stronger when seed groups had more social influencers in them.
Conclusion? Young people, especially those who are social influencers, can change the culture of conflict and create a nicer culture for young people. Importantly, it takes both adults and students working together.
“Just be nice,” a seventeen-year-old boy wrote in the Breakthrough Years study survey. It may sound like pie-in-the-sky, but this intervention shows it can be done.
Rosalind Weisman, Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and the New Realities of Girl World (New York: Harmony Books, 2009, 2016); Rosalind Wiseman, Masterminds and Wingmen: Helping Our Boys Cope with Schoolyard Power, Locker-Room Tests, Girlfriends, and the New Rules of Boy World (New York: Harmony Books, 2014).
The exact wording of this question (specifically excluding money as a potential wish) was suggested by young people I interviewed before conducting the study.
Elizabeth Levy Paluck and Hana Shepherd, “The Salience of Social Referents: A Field Experiment on Collective Norms and Harassment Behavior in a School Social Network,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 103, no. 6 (September 2012): 899–915, https://doi.org/10.1030/a0030015.
Elizabeth Levy Paluck, Hana Shepherd, and Peter M. Aronow, “Changing Climates of Conflict: A Social Network Experiment in 56 Schools,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113, no. 3 (January 2016): 566, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1514483113.
“Students with Influence over Peers Reduce School Bullying by 30 Percent,” Science Daily, January 4, 2016, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160104163206.htm.
Paluck, Shepherd, and Aronow, “Changing Climates of Conflict.”