Teenage Crushes Aren’t Random: Study Reveals Who Teens Are Most Attracted To

New research suggests that teenage crushes are far from random, instead following a recognizable social logic shaped by popularity, aggression and friendship networks. The study, published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, analyzed detailed survey data from Dutch high school students.

Crushes emerge early in adolescence, long before most teens form steady relationships, and can strongly influence how young people see themselves and others. Because they are often intense yet unreciprocated, crushes offer a kind of low-risk arena for exploring attraction and social status.

How the study was conducted

The research team drew on the Peers and the Emergence of Adolescent Romance (PEAR) project, which tracks how romantic interest develops within school networks. They surveyed 1,895 students from a single high school with four locations in a semi-rural region of the northern Netherlands.

The community was relatively homogeneous, with fewer than 5% of residents being non-Dutch, which helped researchers focus on social dynamics rather than cultural differences. Students, whose average age was 14.8, were treated as a single social network because they regularly mixed across school sites and in their neighborhoods.

Each participant received a roster listing all students at the school and was asked to nominate peers they had a crush on. They also named peers they considered popular, physically aggressive, relationally aggressive and physically attractive, as well as those they saw as their best friends.

Who gets a crush and who is chosen

About 35% of students reported at least one crush, and nearly 39% were nominated as someone’s crush. More than half of those who had a crush listed only one person, while a smaller share named two or more, indicating that most teens focused their romantic interest relatively narrowly.

Crushes were usually not reciprocated. Only 12% of students who named a crush were also nominated by the same person in return. Among the 39 students who reported being in a relationship, nearly 4 in 10 still admitted to liking someone else, underscoring how fluid adolescent attraction can be.

The researchers divided teens into four groups: those who neither had a crush nor were named as one (42%), those who were only nominated as crushes (22.7%), those who only nominated others (19.2%), and those who both nominated and were nominated (16.1%). This pattern revealed distinct social positions within the emerging romantic network.

Gender and sexual orientation patterns

Most romantic interest was directed at cross-gender peers. Of teens who reported crushes, 88% listed only cross-gender targets, reflecting conventional heterosexual patterns in early adolescence.

Just under 7% of participants reported only same-gender crushes, and 5% listed both cross- and same-gender interests. These figures point to a minority of students expressing same-sex or bisexual attraction, even in a relatively traditional, semi-rural environment.

Roughly 48% of those nominated as crushes were boys, indicating that both genders played a significant role as targets of romantic interest. However, the study did not find that one gender overwhelmingly dominated the crush landscape.

Popularity, aggression and social visibility

One of the clearest findings was that social visibility matters. Students with more friendship ties were more likely to become the object of a crush, suggesting that being well connected makes teens more noticeable and potentially more desirable.

At the individual level, adolescents were more likely to fancy a peer if they personally saw that person as popular or physically aggressive. This pattern fits with sexual selection theories, which propose that traits linked to dominance or visibility can increase someone’s perceived “mate value.”

However, the study found a sharp contrast between personal perception and group reputation. School-wide reputations for popularity or physical attractiveness did not reliably predict who would be named as a crush, indicating that private judgments may outweigh broader social labels.

Who sends crush nominations?

The analysis also examined which teens were most likely to report crushes. Adolescents with many friends tended to nominate more crushes, possibly because a larger social circle provides more opportunities to develop romantic feelings.

Those viewed as relationally aggressive at a group level, meaning they spread gossip or excluded others, also tended to send more crush nominations. This trend was especially strong among boys, hinting that some teens may combine assertive social strategies with a more active romantic pursuit style.

By contrast, students widely seen as popular were more selective and named fewer crushes. That pattern suggests high-status adolescents may guard their romantic interest more carefully, perhaps to protect their image or avoid social risk.

What the findings mean and limits

The authors argue that early romantic behavior follows principles similar to sexual selection in adults, where visibility, status and social strategy shape who is noticed and desired. Crushes, even when one-sided, appear deeply embedded in the social fabric of adolescence.

Still, the researchers caution that their cross-sectional design captures only a single moment in time. This limits their ability to determine whether popularity or aggression actually cause more crush nominations or simply develop alongside them.

Self-reported data may also be affected by social desirability bias, as teens could underreport crushes or aggression. Because the sample involved mostly Dutch adolescents in a semi-rural and culturally uniform setting, the findings may also not fully apply to more urban or diverse schools.

Lead author Melissa González-Loyola and colleagues conclude that understanding crushes offers a window into the early stages of romantic development. Their work highlights how closely attraction, status and everyday friendship networks are intertwined in shaping teenagers’ emotional lives.

Article prepared by Victoria Caldwell.