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Homophily (the preference for similar others) is a commonplace feature of social life. In this observational study, we recorded association patterns (based on spatial proximity or verbal or physical interaction) among children aged 3-4 years old during unstructured playtime in a university nursery. A basic social network analysis and a quadratic assignment procedure revealed gender and race to be significant predictive factors of social interaction, with girls seemingly displaying more racial homophily than boys. Age, parent occupation and number of siblings did not predict interaction patterns.
Key Words: Homophily, Social Network, Race, Gender, Children
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'Homophily' - which literally means "love of the same" (Laursen, 2017, p. 282) - is defined as preferential social contact towards those who are similar as compared to those who are different (McPherson et al., 2001). Homophily is a markedly powerful predictor of initial peer attraction and the subsequent establishment of friendships (McDonald et al., 2013). During childhood, friends typically share demographic characteristics, interests, behavioral and personality traits (McCormick et al., 2015).
There are benefits to homophily, such as higher academic achievement among girls socializing with other girls (Connolly, 2004) - but it may also lead to negative effects such as outgroup prejudice (McCormick et al., 2015) or sexism (Karpiak et al., 2007). There are numerous social and academic benefits to encouraging cross-group friendship formation (e.g. Crystal et al., 2008, McGill et al., 2012), and while homophily has been well-studied in older children and adolescents, Eivers et al. (2012) noted that there have been relatively few studies of the friendship choices of younger children. This is despite research showing that important friendships are formed and maintained at a very young age (Holder & Coleman, 2015). Studying younger children would afford us better knowledge on how to prevent the aforementioned negative effects of homophily from an early age (Laghi et al., 2013).
Our study aimed to fill this gap by exploring homophily among 3-4 year olds, specifically investigating which attributes are most salient in their friendship choices. Previous studies have shown that the most consistent predictors of friendship include age, gender, and race (e.g. McPherson et al., 2001; Rubin et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2019), but as perceptions of race, gender, and other attributes are...