When Difference Makes the Difference: Patterns of Perspective-Taking on Joint Friendship Diversity and Contact Frequencies

• In Event: Race, Gender, and Class Roundtables Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 3) Friendship, Parenting and Community Organizing

Abstract

Drawing on data from the Measuring Undergraduate Success Trajectories Project (MUST) at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), this study examines how characteristics of close friendships are associated with young adults’ perspective-taking abilities. Integrating intergroup conflict theory with social network frameworks, we conceptualize close friendships as key contexts in which sustained interaction with socially different peers intersect social-cognitive abilities. Using undergraduate survey data (N = 786), we focus on respondents’ first-order friend to capture dyadic relational patterns. Differences across social background characteristics (e.g. race, gender, SES, political orientation) between respondents and their first-order friend are examined alongside frequency of contact. Perspective-taking ability was assessed using a measure developed by the Educational Testing Service (ETS). OLS regression analyses assessed patterns of perspective-taking across social background characteristics under varying levels of social contact frequency. Results indicate that across same-race friendships, higher interaction frequency was associated with lower perspective-taking; however, this association reversed in cross-racial friendships. Similar patterns were seen across gender, where women were predicted to have higher perspective-taking abilities when frequently interacting with a close friend from a different socioeconomic background, whereas higher predicted perspective-taking abilities for men were associated with frequent interaction with a close friend of a different gender. Our results emphasize the joint conditioning of sustained interaction across social differences and perspective taking skills during young adulthood.

Authors

• Angeleia Do

• Jonathan Kosaka, University of California-Irvine

• Richard Arum, University of California-Irvine