Homophily, Social Status, and Friendship Choice: Same-Sex Friend Selection in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study

• In Event: 534 - Section on Children and Youth Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 08. Peers and Social Networks

Abstract

Friendship networks among adolescents have been shown to affect a wide range of life outcomes, but how friendship networks form in school is still not very well understood. Previous studies have focused on homophily on social categories such as sex, race, and grade, but even within those salient social categories, ties do not form randomly. Using the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, we examine how familial socioeconomic backgrounds and personal traits such as physical attractiveness and intelligence affect friendship choice among high school seniors. Our findings suggest that friendship choices among schoolmates are driven by both homophily and status dynamics. Because associating with high status individuals can enhance their own status, students tend to ‘nominate up’ in terms of socially desirable traits such as attractiveness, intelligence, and familial SES. However, we find that students avoid nominating classmates that are “out of their own league” because their affection is less likely to be reciprocated. As a result, friendship choice peaks when egos are lower in socially desired traits than potential alters, but not by a great margin.

Authors

• Michael Blix, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Chaeyoon Lim, University of Wisconsin-Madison