学校里受欢迎的小孩长大后收入更高

Popular high school students such as Ferris Bueller, right, in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" are likely to earn more than their less-liked peers, according to a new report.

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.

(Read by Brian Salter. Brian Salter is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

双语资讯

(Agencies)

学校合唱团和乐队的小屁孩们，祝你们好运。一项新报告显示，读高中时被人群簇拥的那些人气学生未来将能有不错的收入。

这些在中学里受欢迎的学生几十年后所挣的钱比拿破伦•戴纳麦特这样的怪胎要多出2%。这种现象被称为“人气奖金”。

这些结果来自威斯康星州纵向研究的一份新的数据分析报告，该研究对1957年毕业于威斯康辛州秩序混乱中学的1万多人进行了跟踪调查。

毕业40年后，那些在人气链中位于第80百分位的人比位于第20百分位的同伴收入要多出10%。这相当于多上一年学所能增加的额外收入的40%

根据该报告，对于“逃学生”弗瑞斯•巴勒这样的人而言，“建立积极的人际和社会关系的技巧以及调整自己以适应社会形势需求的能力”可能会转化为和同事以及工作中的客户之间的良好关系。

研究人员评判一个学生是否受欢迎是基于有多少同学将其视为朋友。年纪大些、更聪明的学生，以及来自温暖家庭环境的学生通常社交等级更高。

不过，能在豪宅中举行未成年派对或是开豪车上学对于提升受欢迎程度并没多少帮助。家庭财富对于学生的受欢迎程度只起到“很小的作用”。

至于本国的人气女学生们长大后是否也能享有同样的收入优势就不得而知了——研究人员将分析对象限制在4000名男生内。他们也没有将受欢迎学生与朋友的关系是否亲密的因素考虑在内。

该报告对于人格特质没有做深入研究，并绕开了成群结队的校园小混混这类人群。不过去年的一项独立报告发现，老好人一般比没那么友善的同事挣得少。

芝加哥大学的加布里埃尔•康提、就业研究所的格利特•穆勒以及埃塞克斯大学的安德里亚•加里尔蒂和史蒂芬•普德尼共同编纂了这份威斯康星研究报告。

Vocabulary:

Gleek: Glee《欢乐合唱团》粉丝的称呼，这里用来形容受欢迎的乐团学生

dork: 呆子

bode well: 是好兆头

oddball: 怪人

Napoleon Dynamite: 电影人物，他和大人物同名，但他只是爱达荷乡下的一名普通高中生。

blackboard jungle: 黑板丛林

totem pole: 图腾柱；等级

delve: 探究