The attractive, the aggressive and the withdrawn student in the university: Social network and content analysis.

Abstract

The aim of this study is to detect and analyse relationships of attractiveness, social power and aggressiveness in the PE university community. A sample of 197 PE university students from University of Thessaly, Greece participated in the social network study, answering about the relationships developed with their fellow students and providing demographic non-network data as well. After the extraction of results, 8 of them were interviewed to further clarify the motives and thoughts that underlie their behaviour regarding attractiveness, social power and aggressiveness. Social network analysis, carried out with Visone 1.1, statistical analysis, carried out with SPSS 26 and content analysis of the qualitative data – interviews, carried out with MaxQDA 2020 led us to the following conclusions: Scientific attractiveness is related to social power and vice versa, protecting from verbal aggressiveness. Aggressiveness is negatively related to attractiveness and social power. Argumentativeness is important for the position one holds in their network and argumentational deficiency may lead to marginalization. Gender, body characteristics and academic distinction affect attractiveness and aggressiveness emergence.

Keywords

• attractiveness
• aggressiveness
• social power
• social network analysis
• content analysis