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A review by moadore
Popular: The Power of Likability in a Status-Obsessed World by Mitch Prinstein
3.0
I've got a little of a (completely non-sordid) confession to make. When I return back to Aberdeen I'm always asked "was it nice catching up with your friends/did you go for a night out?". I mutter off an awkward spiel about some of my friends now having children, some friends also moved away else where etc etc. That is only a half truth. The full truth is, while some friends have had kids and also moved on past my childhood village, I wasn't popular at high school and didn't really have a big friends group to hang out with in the first place.
For some reason I don't feel comfortable being honest about this, despite having grown into a likeable mid-20s woman who does have a solid friends group that was build post-school. But Mitch Pristein's book focuses on exactly this kind of thinking: how our popularity at school effects us as adults (and a few tips on un-doing the baggage).
There was nothing in this book that particularly surprised me. I'm someone who was unpopular at school but seems to have done well in adult life largely because I woke up one day, identified the reasons why I had been not widely likeable at school, and strove to fix them. I do live as proof that someone's social status at school doesn't have to carry on into adult life, but that you do need to take active steps to re-wire your outlook, social skills and emotional intelligence (and, in some cases, no longer being caught in the constraints that your maybe-not-cool parents set for you, such as an early curfew and not buying you a car).
Saying that, it is nice to have a professional psychologist confirm that my hunches on popularity and peer relations had largely been correct. But throughout his pages, he shared examples of the way popularity effects us as adults that I hadn't considered, and they made me realise that I still have some self-confidence issues that stem from my unpopular childhood that I need to shred.
Overall, I only knocked off a star because I kind of already knew most of it anyway and felt it could have been a bit more in-depth (I personally would love for him to write a self-development book that focuses on how to avoid continuing the cycle of low-likeability and low social status post school).
For some reason I don't feel comfortable being honest about this, despite having grown into a likeable mid-20s woman who does have a solid friends group that was build post-school. But Mitch Pristein's book focuses on exactly this kind of thinking: how our popularity at school effects us as adults (and a few tips on un-doing the baggage).
There was nothing in this book that particularly surprised me. I'm someone who was unpopular at school but seems to have done well in adult life largely because I woke up one day, identified the reasons why I had been not widely likeable at school, and strove to fix them. I do live as proof that someone's social status at school doesn't have to carry on into adult life, but that you do need to take active steps to re-wire your outlook, social skills and emotional intelligence (and, in some cases, no longer being caught in the constraints that your maybe-not-cool parents set for you, such as an early curfew and not buying you a car).
Saying that, it is nice to have a professional psychologist confirm that my hunches on popularity and peer relations had largely been correct. But throughout his pages, he shared examples of the way popularity effects us as adults that I hadn't considered, and they made me realise that I still have some self-confidence issues that stem from my unpopular childhood that I need to shred.
Overall, I only knocked off a star because I kind of already knew most of it anyway and felt it could have been a bit more in-depth (I personally would love for him to write a self-development book that focuses on how to avoid continuing the cycle of low-likeability and low social status post school).