Spillover Effects of Friendships

What is it about?

Most of the previous studies on peer effects have focused on peer groups based on the assumption that “all individuals in the group have homogeneous interactions and influences, ” but the existing literature suggests that the peer effect is stronger for close friends. Therefore, in this paper, we focus on students’ friendship circles and attempt to answer the question of the effect of friend gender on students’ achievement and the mechanism of its effect on students’ performance, using Chinese middle school students. This paper finds that each additional friend of the opposite sex or the same sex significantly decreases junior high school students’ scores in language, mathematics, and English by 11.8 and 3.7 points, respectively, in the total score of the three subjects. The mechanism analysis showed that the decrease in performance was mainly explained by the time crowding out effect, and that hanging out with friends did not affect “compulsive learning” time, but the crowding out of “independent learning” time was the real reason for the negative effect of gender spillover of friends. The negative effect was exacerbated by the fact that having more friends of the opposite sex increased the likelihood of falling in love, which was partially offset by the fact that having more friends made students feel friendly at school. To fully understand the spillover effects of dating among middle school students, the paper further discusses the effects of friend gender on students’ cognitive and noncognitive abilities. This paper extends the applicability of the peer effect, which has important implications for understanding our students’ friendships in the compulsory education stage.

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Why is it important?

Most of the previous studies on peer effects have focused on peer groups based on the assumption that “all individuals in the group have homogeneous interactions and influences, ” but the existing literature suggests that the peer effect is stronger for close friends. Therefore, in this paper, we focus on students’ friendship circles and attempt to answer the question of the effect of friend gender on students’ achievement and the mechanism of its effect on students’ performance, using Chinese middle school students. This paper finds that each additional friend of the opposite sex or the same sex significantly decreases junior high school students’ scores in language, mathematics, and English by 11.8 and 3.7 points, respectively, in the total score of the three subjects. The mechanism analysis showed that the decrease in performance was mainly explained by the time crowding out effect, and that hanging out with friends did not affect “compulsive learning” time, but the crowding out of “independent learning” time was the real reason for the negative effect of gender spillover of friends. The negative effect was exacerbated by the fact that having more friends of the opposite sex increased the likelihood of falling in love, which was partially offset by the fact that having more friends made students feel friendly at school. To fully understand the spillover effects of dating among middle school students, the paper further discusses the effects of friend gender on students’ cognitive and noncognitive abilities. This paper extends the applicability of the peer effect, which has important implications for understanding our students’ friendships in the compulsory education stage.

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