Early Adolescents Demonstrate Peer-Network Homophily in Political Attitudes and Values

Abstract

Research on political homophily has almost exclusively focused on adults, and little is known about whether political homophily is present early in life when political attitudes are forming and friendship networks are rapidly changing. We examined political homophily using a social network approach with rural middle school students (N = 213; mean age = 12.5 years; 57% female) from a remote U.S. community. Preregistered analyses indicated that early adolescents were more likely to spend time with people who shared similar political attitudes and values. These effects were most consistent for right-wing authoritarianism, patriotism, and anti-immigration attitudes. Our results show that political homophily is evident at an early age when young people are forming their political beliefs and making decisions about their friendships, suggesting that peer political-attitude socialization may emerge early in life.

Keywords

network analysis politics early adolescence political development open data open materials preregistered

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Andrews

N. C. Z.

Hanish

L. D.

Updegraff

K. A.

Martin

C. L.

Santos

C. E.

(2016). Targeted victimization: Exploring linear and curvilinear associations between social network prestige and victimization. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 45(9), 1772–1785. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-016-0450-1

Bizumic

Duckitt

(2018). Investigating right wing authoritarianism with a very short authoritarianism scale. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 6(1), 129–150. https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v6i1.835

Bowker

(2004). Predicting friendship stability during early adolescence. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 24, 85–112. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272431603262666

Burt

R. S.

(1987). A note on missing network data in the general social survey. Social Networks, 9(1), 63–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-8733(87)90018-9

Cheadle

J. E.

Schwadel

(2012). The ‘friendship dynamics of religion,’ or the ‘religious dynamics of friendship’? A social network analysis of adolescents who attend small schools. Social Science Research, 41, 1198–1212. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2012.03.014

Colleoni

Rozza

Arvidsson

(2014). Echo chamber or public sphere? Predicting political orientation and measuring political homophily in Twitter using big data. Journal of Communication, 64, 317–332. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12084

Dahl

van Zalk

(2014). Peer networks and the development of illegal political behavior among adolescents. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 24(2), 399–409. https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.12072

Duckitt

Sibley

C. G.

(2009). A dual-process motivational model of ideology, politics, and prejudice. Psychological Inquiry, 20(2–3), 98–109. https://doi.org/10.1080/10478400903028540

Flanagan

C. A.

Kim

Pykett

Finlay

Gallay

E. E.

Pancer

(2014). Adolescents’ theories about economic inequality: Why are some people poor while others are rich? Developmental Psychology, 50, 2512–2525.

10.

Galinsky

(1999). Ask the children: What America’s children really think about working parents. William Morrow.

11.

Godfrey

E. B.

Burson

E. L.

Yanisch

T. M.

Hughes

Way

(2019). A bitter pill to swallow? Patterns of critical consciousness and socioemotional and academic well-being in early adolescence. Developmental Psychology, 55, 525–537. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000558

12.

Goodreau

S. M.

Handcock

M. S.

Hunter

D. R.

Butts

C. T.

Morris

(2008). A statnet tutorial. Journal of Statistical Software, 24(9). https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v024.i09

13.

Helwig

C. C.

Prencipe

(1999). Children’s judgments of flags and flag-burning. Child Development, 70(1), 132–143. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00010

14.

A. K.

Sidanius

Kteily

Sheehy-Skeffington

Pratto

Henkel

K. E.

Foels

Stewart

A. L.

(2015). The nature of social dominance orientation: Theorizing and measuring preferences for intergroup inequality using the new SDO₇ scale. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109(6), 1003–1028. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000033

15.

McAvoy

Hess

Gibbs

(2017). Teaching and learning about controversial issues and topics in the social studies. In Manfra

M. M.

Bolick

C. M.

(Eds.), The Wiley handbook of social studies research (pp. 319–335). Wiley.

16.

Hooghe

Wilkenfeld

(2008). The stability of political attitudes and behaviors across adolescence and early adulthood: A comparison of survey data on adolescents and young adults in eight countries. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 37(2), 155–167. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-007-9199-x

17.

Hope

E. C.

Spencer

M. B.

(2017). Civic engagement as an adaptive coping response to conditions of inequality: An application of phenomenological variant of ecological systems theory (PVEST). In Cabrera

Leyendecker

(Eds.), Handbook of positive development of minority children (pp. 421–435). Springer.

18.

Huber

G. A.

Malhotra

(2017). Political homophily in social relationships: Evidence from online dating behavior. The Journal of Politics, 79, 269–283.

19.

Huckfeldt

Sprague

(1995). Citizens, politics and social communication: Information and influence in an election campaign. Cambridge University Press.

20.

Hunsberger

(1995). Religion and prejudice: The role of religious fundamentalism, quest, and right-wing authoritarianism. Journal of Social Issues, 51, 113–129. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1995.tb01326.x

21.

Ilmarinen

Vainikainen

Verkasalo

M. J.

Lönnqvist

(2017). Homophilous friendship assortment based on personality traits and cognitive ability in middle childhood: The moderating effect of peer network size. European Journal of Personality, 31(3), 208–219. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2095

22.

Killen

Mulvey

K. L.

Hitti

(2013). Social exclusion in childhood: A developmental intergroup perspective. Child Development, 84, 772–790. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12012

23.

Kornienko

Santos

C. E.

Martin

C. L.

Granger

K. L.

(2016). Peer influence on gender identity development in adolescence. Developmental Psychology, 52(10), 1578–1592. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000200

24.

Krosnick

J. A.

(1991). The stability of political preferences: Comparisons of symbolic and nonsymbolic attitudes. American Journal of Political Science, 35(3), 547–576. https://doi.org/10.2307/2111553

25.

Kunst

J. R.

Dovidio

J. F.

Thomsen

(2019). Fusion with political leaders predicts willingness to persecute immigrants and political opponents. Nature Human Behaviour, 3(11), 1180–1189. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-019-0708-1

26.

Luke

(2015). A user’s guide to network analysis in R. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23883-8

27.

McPherson

Smith-Lovin

Cook

J. M.

(2001). Birds of a feather: Homophily in social networks. Annual Review of Sociology, 27(1), 415–444. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.415

28.

Metzger

Oosterhoff

Palmer

C. A.

Ferris

(2014). Dimensions of citizenship: Associations among adolescents’ sociopolitical values and civic judgments. PS: Political Science & Politics, 47(2), 443–448. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096514000365

29.

Mooijman

Stern

(2016). When perspective taking creates a motivational threat: The case of conservatism, same-sex sexual behavior, and anti-gay attitudes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 42(6), 738–754. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167216636633

30.

Neal

J. W.

(2020). A systematic review of social network methods in high impact developmental psychology journals. Social Development, 29(4), 923–944. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12442

31.

Oosterhoff

Ferris

K. A.

Metzger

(2017). Adolescents’ sociopolitical values in the context of organized activity involvement. Youth & Society, 49(7), 947–967. https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118X14560528

32.

Oosterhoff

Poppler

Hill

R. M.

Fitzgerald

Shook

N. J.

(2022). Understanding the costs and benefits of politics among adolescents within a sociocultural context. Infant and Child Development, 31(2), Article e2280. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2280

33.

Oosterhoff

Wray-Lake

Palmer

C. A.

Kaplow

J. B.

(2020). Historical trends in concerns about social issues across four decades among U.S. adolescents. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 30(Suppl. 2), 485–498. https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.12493

34.

Rubin

Bukowski

Parker

(2006). Peers, relationships, and interactions. In Damon

Lerner

(Eds.), Handbook of child psychology (pp. 571–645). Wiley.

35.

Ryan

A. M.

(2001). The peer group as a context for the development of young adolescent motivation and achievement. Child Development, 72(4), 1135–1150. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00338

36.

Schaefer

D. R.

Simpkins

S. D.

Vest

A. E.

Price

C. D.

(2011). The contribution of extracurricular activities to adolescent friendships: New insights through social network analysis. Developmental Psychology, 47(4), 1141–1152. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024091

37.

Sijtsema

J. J.

Ojanen

Veenstra

Lindenberg

Hawley

P. H.

Little

T. D.

(2010). Forms and functions of aggression in adolescent friendship selection and influence: A longitudinal social network analysis. Social Development, 19(3), 515–534. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9507.2009.00566.x

38.

Steinberg

Monahan

K. C.

(2007). Age differences in resistance to peer influence. Developmental Psychology, 43(6), 1531–1543. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.43.6.1531

39.

Stewart

Suldo

(2011). Relationships between social support sources and early adolescents’ mental health: The moderating effect of student achievement level. Psychology in the Schools, 48(10), 1016–1033. https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.20607

40.

Tedin

K. L.

(1980). Assessing peer and parent influence on adolescent political attitudes. American Journal of Political Science, 24, 136–154. https://doi.org/10.2307/2110929

41.

van Buuren

Groothuis-Oudshoorn

(2011). mice: Multivariate imputation by chained equations in R. Journal of Statistical Software, 45(3). https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v045.i03

42.

Van der Graaff

Branje

De Wied

Hawk

Van Lier

Meeus

(2014). Perspective taking and empathic concern in adolescence: Gender differences in developmental changes. Developmental Psychology, 50(3), 881–888. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034325

43.

Van Zalk

M. H. W.

Kerr

Branje

S. J.

Stattin

Meeus

W. H.

(2010). It takes three: Selection, influence, and de-selection processes of depression in adolescent friendship networks. Developmental Psychology, 46, 927–938. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019661

44.

Westheimer

(2006). Politics and patriotism in education. Phi Delta Kappan, 87(8), 608–620. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172170608700817

45.

Xie

Boucher

S. M.

Hutchins

B. C.

Cairns

B. D.

(2006). What makes a girl (or a boy) popular (or unpopular)? African American children’s perceptions and developmental differences. Developmental Psychology, 42(4), 599–612. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.42.4.599

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.08 MB