Dating back to the 1960s, educational researchers have documented that students’ and teachers’ attitudes about students are more influenced by their characterization as athletic (versus not) than by their characterization as brilliant (versus not) or studious (versus not). In the current study, we build on past research by using continuous rating scales to investigate student attitudes toward student characteristics. We surveyed 468 college students about the extent to which they were athletic, smart, studious, physically attractive, and popular when they were in high school, and how much they and their peers wanted to be thought of as each of those characteristics. Students also rated how much their high school teachers favored and disfavored these characteristics. Preliminary analyses showed that students who reported liking intellectual engagement in high school also tended to want to be perceived as smart and studious. Further, students’ ratings of being popular, athletic, and physically attractive clustered together, as did their ratings of being smart and studious. They rated their own desire to be thought of as smart and studious as stronger than their peers’, and they rated their own desire to be thought of as popular, athletic, and physically attractive as weaker than their peers’.
