Coercion isn’t the only route to power among teens, study suggests

A study of Ontario high school students has revealed that adolescents can attain social power through various means beyond coercion, including cooperation, admired traits, friendships, and alliances, according to research published in Evolutionary Psychological Science. During adolescence, peer status, dating opportunities, resource access, victimization protection, and group influence often hold significant social value.

However, power is not a one-dimensional concept. Some adolescents may acquire it through dominance, intimidation, or coercion, while others may obtain it through prestige, cooperation, admirable qualities, or supportive relationships. Tristan Chaderton Bowman and colleagues examined the connections between different routes to power and forms of power-holding among adolescents.

Prior research primarily focused on coercive or competitive paths to adolescent power, such as bullying and dominance, but the researchers aimed to understand if cooperative strategies could also facilitate influence that benefits both individuals and peer groups. The researchers recruited 458 adolescents aged 14 to 18 from a southern Ontario high school, with an average age of 15.9 years, of which 48% were girls.

The study was part of a larger project on peer relationships, involving classroom visits where students completed the research on electronic tablets. Peer-nomination measures were used, allowing students to nominate up to seven classmates for each category. Three "power-enhancing processes" were measured: coercive strategies, cooperative strategies, and peer-valued characteristics.

Coercion was measured by identifying those who force, threaten, or trick others into submission. Cooperation was evaluated through three items regarding helping, cooperating, leading fairly, and being kind. Peer-valued characteristics were assessed using six items describing traits like good looks, sports skills, academic success, humor, cool possessions, and physical toughness.

The research also measured four "power-holding features": dominance, prestige, friendship nominations, and alliances. Dominance was associated with those who can get what they want and influence others, while prestige was linked to being admired, respected, followed, and listened to. Friendships were measured by closest-friend nominations, and alliances captured who people tend to support during group conflicts.

The study found that different strategies were linked to distinct forms of adolescent power. Coercive strategies were strongly associated with dominance, suggesting that adolescents seen as threatening or manipulative were more likely to influence others. Coercion also moderately correlated with alliances and weakly with prestige, indicating that coercive individuals might occasionally garner support as powerful, useful allies or intimidating opponents.

Cooperation emerged as an important pathway to power as well. Adolescents perceived as kind, helpful, cooperative, and fair leaders received more friendship and alliance nominations and were more likely to be viewed as prestigious. Peer-valued characteristics were connected to both prestige and dominance, implying that admirable traits can support various types of social influence.

Cooperation was particularly strongly linked to friendship nominations when adolescents also possessed more peer-valued characteristics. Cooperation was also more strongly related to alliances when coercion was low, indicating that cooperative and coercive strategies did not combine into a stronger "best of both worlds" route to alliance-building.

Instead, cooperation appeared more useful for alliances when it wasn't accompanied by high coercion. Although this study is cross-sectional and cannot determine causation, it may have implications for anti-bullying programs that aim to replace coercive power-seeking with prosocial roles. The research, titled "Enhancing and Holding Social Power in Adolescence: An Evolutionary Perspective," was authored by Tristan Chaderton Bowman, Andrew V. Dane, Natalie Spadafora, and Anthony A. Volk.