Sociometric types, behavioral categories and intellectual abilities in adolescents

The aim of this study was to analyze the relationship between sociometric types, behavioral categories, and intellectual abilities in a sample of 1349 (51.7% boys) Spanish adolescents, ranging in age from 12 to 16 years. The students' sociometric nomination was performed by the Programa Socio and academic self-concept was measured by the Primary Mental Abilities Test (PMA; Thurstone, 1938; TEA, 1996). The hypotheses of the study suggest, firstly, that students positively nominated by their peers will present significantly higher scores on different scales of the PMA than students negatively nominated by their peers and, secondly, that intellectual skills will be a predictor variable statistically significant of sociometric types and behavioral categories. Results show that students nominated positively obtained significantly higher scores on the different intellectual abilities that nominees negatively. Intellectual abilities were a significant predictor of sociometric types because with increasing the score on the different intellectual abilities students were more likely to be nominated by their peers positively.