“The ability to discern whether other people are likely to be affiliated is crucial in everyday life,” said Ori Friedman, co-author and Professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Waterloo. “When an adult joins a new workplace, or a child joins a new classroom, these judgments help them assess whether people are friends.”
Across five studies, the researchers surveyed 528 adults and 135 children to examine their use of statistical information when assuming people have a social relationship. In the studies, researchers presented participants with diagrams of social networks that showed lines drawn between two main characters and other people in the group. Participants were told that these lines indicated friendship, and importantly, researchers did not show a line connecting the two main characters. Researchers then asked participants how likely it was that the two main characters were friends.
The paper, The Social Network: How People Infer Relationships From Mutual Connections, authored by UW Psych Grad Student, Claudia Sehl and co-authored by UWaterloo Psych Developmental Professors, Ori Friedman and Stephanie Denison, appears in the Journal of Experimental Psychology.
You can read the full write up in the UWaterloo Daily bulletin here