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This study investigates among ethnic minority adolescents how friendships with ethnic minority and majority group peers are related to their attitudes towards the majority outgroup.Friendships with majority group peers are proposed to be indirectly related to outgroup attitudes through host society identification. Friendships with ethnic ingroup peers are proposed to be indirectly related to outgroup attitudes through ethnic ingroup identification.Hypotheses were tested longitudinally among ethnic minority adolescents (. n=. 244) who recently entered middle schools in the Netherlands. Lagged structural equation models showed that friendships with majority group peers were related to stronger identification with the host society which was in turn related to improved attitudes toward the majority outgroup. Ingroup friendships and ingroup identification was not related to outgroup attitudes. Additional analyses indicated that the relation between host society identification and majority group friendships was bidirectional.

AbstractSimilar peers are more likely to become friends, but it remains unclear how the combination of multiple characteristics, known as multidimensional similarity, influences friendships. This study aimed to investigate whether similarity in gender (attribute) and bullying or victimization (network position) contributes to friendships. The school-level networks of friendships and victim-bully relationships in 17 Dutch elementary schools (2,130 students) were examined using multiplex longitudinal social network models (RSiena). The results showed that friendships were more likely to occur between same-gender peers and between bullies sharing their targets of victimization. Multidimensional similarity (similarities in gender as well as bullying) increased the likelihood of friendships for same-gender bullies targeting the same victims, but not for same-gender victims sharing bullies. The findings underline the importance of unraveling the interplay between different dimensions of similarity for children's relationships and surpass unidimensional similarity based on single attributes.

"Die 'neue Netzwerkforschung' argumentiert, dass große soziale Netzwerke in unterschiedlichsten Kontexten (zum Beispiel das World Wide Web, Sexualkontakte, Koautorschaften) sehr ähnliche, hocheffiziente Struktureigenschaften aufweisen ('small world' oder 'scale free' Strukturen). Darüber hinaus werden diese Strukturen als das Resultat einfachster individueller Verhaltensmechanismen gesehen, die die makroskopische Struktur als unbeabsichtigtes Nebenprodukt individueller Beziehungswahlentscheidungen erzeugen. Die Verfasser behaupten, dass diese Forschung aus Sicht der Soziologie zwei Defizite aufweist. Erstens sind die verwendeten Verhaltensmodelle soziologisch wenig plausibel. Typischerweise werden mechanistische - oftmals an physikalischen Modellen orientierte - individuelle Verhaltensregeln angenommen und die zugrundeliegenden Motive individueller Beziehungswahlen nicht explizit modelliert. Die Modelle bieten daher wenig Einsicht in die Bedingungen der behaupteten Strukturresultate. Zweitens untersuchen empirische Arbeiten üblicherweise nur, ob globale Netzwerkmerkmale in dem Bereich liegen, der durch die theoretischen Modelle vorhergesagt wird, testen aber nicht Mechanismen der Netzwerkdynamik auf der individuellen Ebene. Sie schlagen daher vor, dass soziologische 'neue Netzwerkforschung' das Instrument 'agentenbasierter Modellierung' einsetzt. Agentenbasierte Modelle beschreiben explizit die individuellen Verhaltenziele und -regeln bestenfalls beschränkt rationaler Akteure, die nur über unvollständige lokale Information verfügen. Sie zeigen an einem Beispiel auf, wie eine agentenbasierte Modellierung der Dynamik großer Netzwerke mit soziologisch plausiblen Verhaltensannahmen nicht nur die Entstehung von 'small world' und 'scale free' Strukturen erklären kann, sondern darüber hinaus auch Bedingungen identifiziert, unter denen die zugrundeliegenden Verhaltensregeln zu verschiedenen Strukturen führen. Sie gehen dann auf statistische Ansätze ein, insbesondere auf die 'actor oriented statistics', die es möglich machen, konkurrierende Verhaltenshypothesen an Netzwerkdaten zu testen." (Autorenreferat)

In 1997, Robert Axelrod wondered in a highly influential paper "If people tend to become more alike in their beliefs, attitudes, and behavior when they interact, why do not all such differences eventually disappear?" Axelrod's question highlighted an ongoing quest for formal theoretical answers joined by researchers from a wide range of disciplines. Numerous models have been developed to understand why and under what conditions diversity in beliefs, attitudes and behavior can co-exist with the fact that very often in interactions, social influence reduces differences between people. Reviewing three prominent approaches, we discuss the theoretical ingredients that researchers added to classic models of social influence as well as their implications. Then, we propose two main frontiers for future research. First, there is urgent need for more theoretical work comparing, relating and integrating alternative models. Second, the field suffers from a strong imbalance between a proliferation of theoretical studies and a dearth of empirical work. More empirical work is needed testing and underpinning micro-level assumptions about social influence as well as macro-level predictions. In conclusion, we discuss major roadblocks that need to be overcome to achieve progress on each frontier. We also propose that a new generation of empirically-based computational social influence models can make unique contributions for understanding key societal challenges, like the possible effects of social media on societal polarization.