Popularity
how much a person, idea, item or other concept is liked, attracts people, dominates or is regarded as superior
In sociology, popularity is how much a person, idea, place, item or other concept is either liked or accorded status by other people. Liking can be due to reciprocal liking, interpersonal attraction, and similar factors. Social status can be due to dominance, superiority, and similar factors. For example, a kind person may be considered likable and therefore more popular than another person, and a wealthy person may be considered superior and therefore more popular than another person.
There are two primary types of interpersonal popularity: perceived and sociometric. Perceived popularity is measured by asking people who the most popular or socially important people in their social group are. Sociometric popularity is measured by objectively measuring the number of connections a person has to others in the group. A person can have high perceived popularity without having high sociometric popularity, and vice versa.
According to psychologist Tessa Lansu at the Radboud University Nijmegen, "Popularity [has] to do with being the middle point of a group and having influence on it."
Introduction
The term popularity is borrowed from the Latin term popularis, which originally meant "common." The current definition of the word popular, the "fact or condition of being well liked by the people", was first seen in 1601.
While popularity is a trait often ascribed to an individual, it is an inherently social phenomenon and thus can only be understood in the context of groups of people.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Popularity” is how much a person, idea, item or other concept is liked, attracts people, dominates or is regarded as superior. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Popularity, much and person, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “how much a person, idea, item or other concept is liked, attracts people, dominates or is regarded as superior” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1357284. The Library of Congress control number is sh85104909. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1601.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Popularity” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.