Popularity

In sociology, popularity is how much a person, idea, place, item or other concept is either liked or accorded status by other people. Liking can be due to reciprocal liking, interpersonal attraction, and similar factors. Social status can be due to dominance, superiority, and similar factors. For example, a kind person may be considered likable and therefore more popular than another person, and a wealthy person may be considered superior and therefore more popular than another person. There are two primary types of interpersonal popularity: perceived and sociometric. Perceived popularity is measured by asking people who the most popular or socially important people in their social group are. Sociometric popularity is measured by objectively measuring the number of connections a person has to others in the group. A person can have high perceived popularity without having high sociometric popularity, and vice versa. According to psychologist Tessa Lansu at the Radboud University Nijmegen, "Popularity [has] to do with being the middle point of a group and having influence on it."