With Friends Like These: Aggression from Equivalence and Amity

• In Event: 565 - Regular Session. Social Networks: Substantive Applications

Abstract

Newly available data on negative tie networks has revived interest in the “enemy” tenets of balance theory, which has received at least mixed support in analyses of negative affect and bullying. We offer reasons why balance theory is unlikely to explain the relationship between networks of aggression and friendship. Friends, in balance terms, are also likely to be enemies. The pursuit of status, the struggle for control within friendships, and the competition with rivals for the same friends all make aggression more, not less, likely to occur between friends, at short social distances, and between structurally similar actors. We test our argument using Exponential Random Graph models on networks of aggression, conditional on prior networks of aggression and friendship, among 5,526 adolescents in 14 middle and high schools. We find that aggression is especially likely to arise between friends and others who are socially close in the friendship network. Moreover, we find an independent positive effect of structural equivalence in the friendship network, suggesting that those with friends in common are also likely to harm each other. We discuss the implications of our findings for bullying prevention efforts.

Authors

• Robert W. Faris, UC-Davis

• Diane H. Felmlee, Pennsylvania State University

• Cassie McMillan, Pennsylvania State University