學校裏受歡迎的小孩長大後收入更高

Good luck, Gleeks and band dorks. A new report suggests that running with the in crowd in high school bodes well for future earnings potential.

Those considered popular in secondary school earned 2% more decades later than oddballs such as Napoleon Dynamite – a so-called popularity premium.

So says a new analysis of data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, which follows more than 10,000 people who graduated from the blackboard jungle in Wisconsin in 1957.

Forty years after graduation, those who were in the 80th percentile of the popularity chain earned 10% more than their peers in the 20th. That’s equal to 40% of the extra income boost they’d get from an extra year of schooling (hat tip to the Washington Post).

For Ferris Bueller and his ilk, “skill in building positive personal and social relationships and adjusting to the demands of a social situation” likely translate into good relationships with colleagues and clients in the workforce, according to the report.

Researchers deemed students to be popular based on how many of their cohorts listed them as friends. Older and smarter students, as well as those who hailed from a warm family environment, tended to rank high on the social totem pole.

But being able to host underage parties at fancy homes or swerve onto campus in a slick car didn’t help much: Household wealth played “only a minor role” in popularity.

It’s unclear whether the Cher Horowitzes and Regina Georges of the country enjoy the same wage boost from popularity – researchers limited their analysis to some 4,000 male respondents. They also didn’t factor in whether popular students’ relationships with their friends were close.

And the report doesn't delve too deeply into personality traits, sidestepping the common trope of popular-guy-as-bully. But a separate report last year found that nice guys generally earn less than their meaner counterparts.

Gabriella Conti of the University of Chicago, Gerrit Mueller of the Institute for Employment Research, and Andrea Galeotti and Stephen Pudney of the University of Essex compiled the Wisconsin report.學校合唱團和樂隊的小屁孩們，祝你們好運。一項新報告顯示，讀高中時被人羣簇擁的那些人氣學生未來將能有不錯的收入。

這些在中學裏受歡迎的學生幾十年後所掙的錢比拿破倫•戴納麥特這樣的怪胎要多出2%。這種現象被稱爲“人氣獎金”。

這些結果來自威斯康星州縱向研究的一份新的數據分析報告，該研究對1957年畢業於威斯康辛州秩序混亂中學的1萬多人進行了跟蹤調查。

畢業40年後，那些在人氣鏈中位於第80百分位的人比位於第20百分位的同伴收入要多出10%。這相當於多上一年學所能增加的額外收入的40%（感謝華盛頓郵報的數據）。

根據該報告，對於“逃學生”弗瑞斯•巴勒這樣的人而言，“建立積極的人際和社會關係的技巧以及調整自己以適應社會形勢需求的能力”可能會轉化爲和同事以及工作中的客戶之間的良好關係。

研究人員評判一個學生是否受歡迎是基於有多少同學將其視爲朋友。年紀大些、更聰明的學生，以及來自溫暖家庭環境的學生通常社交等級更高。

不過，能在豪宅中舉行未成年派對或是開豪車上學對於提升受歡迎程度並沒多少幫助。家庭財富對於學生的受歡迎程度只起到“很小的作用”。

至於本國的人氣女學生們長大後是否也能享有同樣的收入優勢就不得而知了——研究人員將分析對象限制在4000名男生內。他們也沒有將受歡迎學生與朋友的關係是否親密的因素考慮在內。

該報告對於人格特質沒有做深入研究，並繞開了成羣結隊的校園小混混這類人羣。不過去年的一項獨立報告發現，老好人一般比沒那麼友善的同事掙得少。

芝加哥大學的加布裏埃爾•康提、就業研究所的格利特•穆勒以及埃塞克斯大學的安德里亞•加里爾蒂和史蒂芬•普德尼共同編纂了這份威斯康星研究報告。