It is bad news for the rebels without a cause and mean girls.
Being a ‘cool kid’ can come back to bite you in later life, researchers have warned.
They found that teens who ‘acted cool’ at school were far more likely to struggle as an adult, and were at higher risk of alcohol and drugs, and more likely to have taken part in criminal activities.
Overall, teens who tried to act cool in early adolescence were more likely than their peers who didn’t act cool to experience a range of problems in early adulthood.
‘It appears that while so-called cool teens’ behaviour might have been linked to early popularity, over time, these teens needed more and more extreme behaviours to try to appear cool, at least to a subgroup of other teens,’ says Joseph P. Allen, Hugh P. Kelly Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, who led the study.
‘So they became involved in more serious criminal behavior and alcohol and drug use as adolescence progressed.
‘These previously cool teens appeared less competent–socially and otherwise–than their less cool peers by the time they reached young adulthood.’
The new decade-long study, by researchers at the University of Virginia, appears in the journal Child Development.
Teens who were romantically involved at an early age, engaged in delinquent activity, and placed a premium on hanging out with physically attractive peers were thought to be popular by their peers at age 13.
But over time, this sentiment faded, the team found.
By 22, those once-cool teens were rated by their peers as being less competent in managing social relationships.
They were also more likely to have had significant problems with alcohol and drugs, and to have engaged in criminal activities, according to the study.
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