I entirely agree with you -- it is far too trivial to place adolescents into distinct subpopulations. However, I think this study did a pretty good job defining the traits of youth they tracked, see the abstract:
>Pseudomature behavior—ranging from minor delinquency to precocious romantic involvement—is widely viewed as a nearly normative feature of adolescence. When such behavior occurs early in adolescence, however, it was hypothesized to reflect a misguided overemphasis upon impressing peers and was considered likely to predict long-term adjustment problems.
The authors used these criteria to determine whether a specific set of early life behaviors are predictive of later life decisions. In this case, the statistics say that this is the case. While that may not be true in every sense (the "nerd" can get into drugs, the "cool" kid can also get a 1600 on the SAT), it is more common than not based on these data.
The "cool"/"nerd" labels themselves seem mainly to be injected by the media atop the findings of this particular study.
Yes, that is a great point, I should have been more clear. I am tired of this narrative in the mainstream media. From a brief glance at the study, it looked like it took a more nuanced and scientific view.
>Pseudomature behavior—ranging from minor delinquency to precocious romantic involvement—is widely viewed as a nearly normative feature of adolescence. When such behavior occurs early in adolescence, however, it was hypothesized to reflect a misguided overemphasis upon impressing peers and was considered likely to predict long-term adjustment problems.
The authors used these criteria to determine whether a specific set of early life behaviors are predictive of later life decisions. In this case, the statistics say that this is the case. While that may not be true in every sense (the "nerd" can get into drugs, the "cool" kid can also get a 1600 on the SAT), it is more common than not based on these data.
The "cool"/"nerd" labels themselves seem mainly to be injected by the media atop the findings of this particular study.