Although many emerging adults spend considerable time with peers in groups, research has focused on their friendships and romantic relationships. Peer group-related constructs, like social status in the form of popularity and likeability, have received less attention in emerging adults. In this dissertation, I showed that childhood and adolescent popularity are related to social functioning in emerging adulthood. Focusing on peer groups of emerging adults, I examined various contexts in which they interact with peers, and confirmed previous findings showing that social status continues to play a role. Emerging adults themselves consider popularity and likeability to be salient, and both forms of social status are related to emerging adults’ experiences and behavior in their peer group. Although likeability seems to play a more consistent role across the peer groups of emerging adults than popularity, the findings suggest that popularity also remains relevant. Finally, I examined how popularity and likeability are related to other constructs that are more widely used to study social status in (emerging) adults, and showed they are distinct, yet related. Taken together, the findings of this dissertation suggest that there are many opportunities to expand the field of peer relationships and peer social status into emerging adulthood.
Nina Chmielowice-Szymanski completed a bachelor in Interdisciplinary Social Science, followed by the research master program Development and Socialization in Childhood and Adolescence at Utrecht University. From September 2020 to April 2025, Nina worked as a PhD candidate at the Social Development group within the Behavioural Science Institute at Radboud University, under the supervision of prof. dr. Toon Cillessen, dr. Tessa Lansu, and dr. Bill Burk. In August 2025, Nina started working as a post-doctoral researcher at the Social Development group within the Behavioural Science Institute. In her project, Acceptance, support & self-compassion in ADHD: Emerging adults navigating development (ASCEND), funded by the Anna Terruwestichting, she will study psychosocial factors related to difficulties that emerging adults with ADHD-symptoms experience, like actual and perceived rejection, and potential buffering factors, like social support and self-compassion.