Proximity Can Induce Diverse Friendships: A Large Randomized Classroom Experiment

Julia M. Rohrer, Tamás Keller () and Felix Elwert
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Julia M. Rohrer: Department of Psychology, University of Leipzig & International Max Planck Research School on the Life Course (LIFE), Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin
Felix Elwert: Department of Sociology & Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, University of Wisconsin-Madison

No 2053, CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS from Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies

Abstract: Can outside interventions foster socio-culturally diverse friendships? We executed a large field experiment that randomized the seating charts of 182 primary-school classrooms (N=2,996 students) for the duration of one semester. We found that being seated next to each other increased the probability of a mutual friendship from 15% to 22% on average. Furthermore, induced proximity increased the latent propensity toward friendship equally for all students, regardless of students’ dyadic similarity with respect to educational achievement, gender, and ethnicity. However, the probability of a manifest friendship increased more among similar than among dissimilar students. Our findings demonstrate that a scalable light-touch intervention can affect face-to-face networks and foster diverse friendships in groups that already know each other, but they also highlight that transgressing boundaries defined by ethnicity and gender remains an uphill battle.

Keywords: Friendship formation; Social networks; Diversity; Homophily; Randomized field experiment; Deskmates (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 I21 I24 J18 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2020-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-net, nep-soc and nep-ure
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