The unstable social networks of students: Where does dissimilarity drive tie dissolution?
Published in Sociological Forum, 2024
We investigate the impact of ego-alter dissimilarity on the stability of friendships, confidant, and study and sport relations, while acknowledging multiplexity – the phenomenon where the same alter serves multiple roles.
We analyzed ego-network data from Dutch students participating in the ‘Sports & Friendships’ study to explore whether dyadic dissimilarity on key identity markers—age, gender, and educational level—is associated with tie dissolution. We show that, generally, dissimilarity does not drive tie dissolution, at least not consistently across demographic dimensions and relationship layers. However, age differences do consistently lead to the dissolution of ties. We found that the better embedded alters are within an ego’s network, the more stable their ties. Specifically, relational embeddedness (emotional closeness and role overlap) primarily stabilizes confidant and friendship relations, while structural embeddedness (alters having ties to ego’s other alters) primarily stabilizes study relations. The weaker relational embeddedness of differently-aged alters partly explains their faster dissolution. For a deeper dive into these dynamics, read the full paper!
