Luke Ford

NEWS: A path-breaking new study on how we seek similarity in relationships, co-authored by researchers at Wellesley College and the University of Kansas, upends the idea that “opposites attract,” instead suggesting we’re drawn to people who are like-minded. The study could lead to a fundamental change in understanding relationship formation—and it sounds a warning for the idea that couples can change each other over time.
The investigation’s findings are presented in “Similarity in Relationships as Niche Construction: Choice, Stability, and Influence Within Dyads in a Free Choice Environment,” in the current issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the field’s most respected journal. Assistant Professor of Psychology Angela Bahns (Wellesley College) and Professor of Psychology Chris Crandall (University of Kansas) are the paper’s lead authors.
In what might be considered a paradigm shift, the study’s most surprising discovery is that people in relationships change each other over time. Instead, Bahns and Crandall’s evidence places new emphasis on the earliest moments of a relationship—revealing that future friends or partners are already similar at the outset of their social connection, a major new finding, say the authors.
“Picture two strangers striking up a conversation on a plane, or a couple on a blind date,” says Bahns. “From the very first moments of awkward banter, how similar the two people are is immediately and powerfully playing a role in future interactions. Will they connect? Or walk away? Those early recognitions of similarity are really consequential in that decision.”
Whether or not a relationship develops could depend on the level of similarity the two individuals share from the beginning of their meeting. “You try to create a social world where you’re comfortable, where you succeed, where you have people you can trust and with whom you can cooperate to meet your goals,” Crandall said. “To create this, similarity is very useful, and people are attracted to it most of the time.”
Bahns adds, “Though the idea that partners influence each other is central in relationships research, we have identified a large domain in which friends show very little change— personality, attitudes and values, and a selection of socially-relevant behaviors.” She explains, “To be clear, we do not mean to suggest that social influence doesn’t happen in relationships; however, there’s little room for influence to occur when partners are similar at the outset of relationships.”
The data also suggests our drive to select like-minded others may be far stronger than previously assumed. “We’re arguing that selecting similar others as relationship partners is extremely common—so common and so widespread on so many dimensions that it could be described as a psychological default,” explains Bahns.
Bahns and Crandall stress the research shows people are not seeking shared similarity on one or two particular topics. “People are more similar than chance on almost everything we measure, and they are especially similar on the things that matter most to them personally,” Bahns said.
The study has major implications for how we grasp the foundations of relationships and approach relationships when the partners are different. Its findings were derived from real-world relationships. Data came from a field-research method dubbed “free-range dyad harvesting,” in which pairs of people interacting in public (romantic couples, friends, acquaintances) were asked questions about attitudes, values, prejudices, personality traits or behaviors that are important to them. The data were compared to see how similar or different the pairs were, and to test whether pairs who had known each other longer and whose relationships were closer and more intimate were more similar than newly formed pairs. They were not. Additionally, the researchers surveyed pairs who had just met (in a college classroom setting), and then surveyed the same pairs later. This allowed the benefit of longitudinal data, painting a picture of the same pairs over time.

The more diverse America becomes, the less people volunteer.

REPORT: The percentage of the population who has volunteered at least once in the past year has hit the lowest level ever recorded, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

There were about 62.6 million people who volunteered through or for an organization at least once between September 2014 and September 2015, representing 24.9 percent of the population. This declined by 0.4 percentage points from the previous year.

The agency has been tracking these data since 2002, and at that time, 27.6 percent of the population participated in some sort of volunteering work. Since then, volunteering participation hit its peak in 2003, 2004, and 2005, when it hit 28.8 percent.

Abstract: Studies demonstrate a negative association between community ethnic diversity and indicators of social cohesion (especially attitudes towards neighbours and the community), suggesting diversity causes a decline in social cohesion. However, to date, the evidence for this claim is based solely oncross-sectional research. This article performs the first longitudinal test of the impact of diversity,applying fixed-effects modelling methods to three waves of panel data from the British Household Panel Survey, spanning a period of 18 years. Using an indicator of affective attachment, the findingssuggest that changes in community diversity do lead to changes in attitudes towards the community. However, this effect differs by whether the change in diversity stems from a community increasing diversity around individuals who do not move (stayers) or individuals moving into more or less diverse communities (movers). Increasing diversity undermines attitudes among stayers.

Abstract: This study examines how classroom and neighborhood ethnic diversity affect adolescents’ tendency to form same- versus cross-ethnic friendships when they enter middle school. Hypotheses are derived from exposure, conflict, and constrict theory. Hypotheses are tested among 911 middle school students (43 classrooms, nine schools) in the Netherlands. Multilevel (p2) social network analyses show that students were more likely to engage in same-ethnic rather than cross-ethnic friendships. In line with conflict theory, greater classroom and neighborhood diversity were related to stronger tendencies to choose same-ethnic rather than cross-ethnic friends, among both ethnic majority and minority students. Diversity did not hamper reciprocity, as students in more ethnically diverse classrooms were even more likely to reciprocate friendships.

MSUTODAY: For years, policymakers have attempted to create communities where a diverse group of residents not only live close to one other but also interact freely – in other words, neighborhoods that are both integrated and socially cohesive.

But that might be a lost cause, a Michigan State University sociologist argues in a new study.

As reported in the American Journal of Community Psychology, Zachary Neal found that neighborhood integration and cohesion cannot co-exist.

“Is a better world possible? Unfortunately, these findings show it may not be possible to simultaneously create communities that are both fully integrated and fully cohesive,” Neal said. “In essence, when it comes to neighborhood desegregation and social cohesion, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.”

The reason has to do with how people form relationships. Neal said people usually develop relationships with others who are close rather than far away, and similar rather than different from themselves (be it through race, religion, social class, etc.).

Neal ran computer modeling of different fictional neighborhoods and, after millions of trials, consistently found the same thing: The more integrated a neighborhood is, the less socially cohesive it becomes, and vice versa.

“These trends are so strong, it’s unlikely policy can change it,” Neal said.

He said policymakers should instead try to find the right balance between integration and cohesion, which may differ from community to community.

Neal said he started the project because past research had failed to turn up a city that is both truly integrated and cohesive – from the United States to the United Kingdom to Asia. But it’s not from lack of effort, he said.

“It’s not that local leaders and policymakers aren’t trying hard enough,” Neal said. “Rather, we now think it’s because the goals of integration and cohesion are just not compatible with each other.”

Robert Putnam: Ethnic diversity is increasing in most advanced countries, driven mostly by sharp increases in immigration. In the long run immigration and diversity are likely to have important cultural, economic, fiscal, and developmental benefits. In the short run, however, immigration and ethnic diversity tend to reduce social solidarity and social capital. New evidence from the US suggests that in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down’. Trust (even of one’s own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friends fewer. In the long run, however, successful immigrant societies have overcome such fragmentation by creating new, cross-cutting forms of social solidarity and more encompassing identities. Illustrations of becoming comfortable with diversity are drawn from the US military, religious institutions, and earlier waves of American immigration.

USNEWS: New research indicates that integrating schools to equalize access to teachers will not significantly close student achievement gaps.

This week, Dr. John B. King Jr. stepped into the role of acting secretary of Education, following Arne Duncan’s resignation last month. As a vocal proponent of reducing inequalities in American schools and a person of color, Dr. King’s leadership may open the door for the Department of Education to take a stronger position on one of the most persistent problems in American schools: segregation. He has been a proponent of integrated schools in the past and as State Education Commissioner in New York, he promoted integration as part of the state’s school turnaround efforts.

Dr. King’s new role, in light of the upcoming observance of the holiday celebrating another Dr. King, warrants the question: Would greater school integration actually be successful in closing long-standing achievement gaps based on race and income?

Abstract: Using data from Copenhagen school registers and other sources, I test the hypothesis that
Danes are more likely to opt out of their local public school if it has a large concentration of immigrant pupils. The results suggest that, when a rich set of covariates at student, school, and neighbourhood levels is controlled for, up to an immigrant concentration of about 35 per cent in the local school, opting out decisions of Danes are not affected. But, Danes are far more likely to opt out as soon as the concentration exceeds 35 per cent.
However, only the 20 per cent of the immigrant population who speak Danish at home respond to higher immigrant concentrations by opting out. These results lend support to the native-flight-from-immigrants hypothesis and suggest that ethnic segregation across
schools is increased by Danes’ and immigrants’ differing behaviour.

Abstract: The current paper focuses on White British students in lower secondary education and investigates the effect of school ethnic diversity on their levels of trust and inclusive attitudes towards immigrants. Use is made of panel data of the Citizenship Education Longitudinal Study (CELS) to explore these relationships. Ethnic diversity is measured with the proportion of students in a grade identifying with a minority. In agreement with contact theory, the paper initially finds a positive relation between diversity and inclusive attitudes on immigrants. However, this link disappears once controls for social background, gender and prior levels of the outcome are included in the model. This indicates that students with particular pre-enrolment characteristics have self-selected in diverse schools and that inclusive attitudes have stabilized before secondary education. Diversity further appears to have a negative impact on trust, irrespective of the number of controls added to the model.