Our findings are pertinent for understanding the role of friendships in adolescent society. It is unquestionable that people select and influence each other, which confirms that social networks are powerful in spreading information, beliefs and behaviours.
Making friends is a key part of school life, often shaping our futures and helping us develop as individuals. With youngsters across the country returning to school this week, new research has identified the factors which influence these relationships, with academic achievement, mother's education and personality found to be essential in the friendship formation process. The University of Bristol study identified these as the three most influential factors when teenagers choose their friends, while income and parents? occupational class proved to be insignificant. Popularity, IQ, bad behaviour such as arriving late and skipping classes and the likelihood of going to university were also found to be characteristics which subconsciously attract friends to each other. Professor Simon Burgess from the University's Centre for Market and Public Organisation and colleagues Eleanor Sanderson and Marcela Umaña-Aponte, looked at an adolescent friendship network of 6,961 links in the West of England. Their focus was on homophily, which is the tendency to establish relationships among people who share similar characteristics and attributes. This behaviour is important to understand high levels of social segregation, criminal behaviour, the spread of information and the dynamics of the labour market.
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