A review by xinetr
Popular: The Power of Likability in a Status-Obsessed World by Mitch Prinstein

3.0

The idea that, in the U.S. at least there are two types of popularity one based on status one based on likability (there's one set of experiments in China where there wasn't even really an analogous concept for status-based popularity) is somewhat strained even by the author's own research. I say that because for about the first two-thirds of the book it feels as if either kind of popularity is something inherent in a person and he makes a lot of claims that it's relatively stable over the lifespan and even inter-generationally. While there may be some truth to how these experiments work, I'd like to see consideration of whether a person's likable versus unlikable social behaviors (listed on p.121 ) could be more situational and contextualized rather than a feature of what becomes one's "personality" (open offices and hospitals come to mind as contexts where I find it difficult to maintain Prinstein's version of likability, for instance). When he gets into people's popularity influencing and being influenced by the attributions they make to explain social interactions and how secure and age-appropriate an attachment their parents created with them, it definitely starts to feel like he doesn't have much of a unifying, underlying theory of Popularity. It's not even clear that any of his evolutionary hypothesizing works since being a "rejected" child or teen can make a person more alert to other's feelings (either that, or more aggressive, again some mechanism is missing here). Prinstein also introduces 4 quadrants in a matrix of likability: Accepted, Controversials, Neglecteds and Rejecteds with a large diamond drawn around the center labeled Average but spends no time on Average at all, says Controversials are rare (but remember, he doesn't test different situations), and essentially neglects Neglecteds except for one story of lay-offs. He's done some interesting reading and experiments, but I didn't love it or feel it added much to my knowledge base that I didn't already get from Subliminal by Leonard Mlodinow, Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman, Teach Only Love by Gerald Jampolsky, or even The Baby Book by William Sears and Martha Sears and (when my girls were teens) How to Win Friends and Influence People for Teen Girls by Donna Carnegie, etc.