The Effects of Community Size on Peer Interaction

This topic submitted by Renee Carollo, Julie Hess, Elisabeth Herron, Alexis Weitner, Sarah Woracheck ( weitneal@muohio.edu ) on 12/16/03 .

Natural Systems 1 Syllabus---Western Program---Miami University

Question
Are people on MiamiÕs Main campus or Western campus more or less likely to positively interact with peers that they do not know? Which community, Main or Western, is more likely to foster positive social interaction with strangers, and is that a result of social anxiety, environment, or predisposition in its citizens?

Hypothesis
We hypothesize that people on Western campus are more likely to act in a friendly manner toward unfamiliar peers. We believe that people who are based on Western campus have a broader group of friends as a result of their willingness to interact with others, which we predict is a product of the small community environment. Being such a community, Western has wider recognition among its students, which affects the comfort level of those who reside there. Because Main campus does not share in this small community environment, it does not exude the same friendly environment and thus does not have the same comfort level, leading to a less friendly persona among its residents.

Introduction
Into.1
The way people interact with each other is very diverse. There are many factors that can influence reactions when coming in contact with others. How well a person knows another person, the community they live in, and how a person has acted with strangers in their past as well as how he or she carries himself or herself in the presence of others are all factors that can sway a person to be more or less friendly with others. These are all factors that contribute to how the community on Main campus as well as the community on Western Campus conduct themselves.
Students coming to Miami University often find themselves in unfamiliar and awkward situations in which they have to form new social groups. This unfamiliarity is often reacted to in a variety of ways; some students will thrive on new acquaintances, while others will withdraw from the community. Miami is unique in its dual environment; the two different parts of campus provide a unique setting for a study of interaction among populations of small and large communities.
Familiarity can play a huge role in peer interaction. If a person does not recognize another, that person may not be as receptive to a friendly gesture from the other as if he or she did recognize the other person. Because all of the students conducting this experiment live on Western Campus, this factor may play into parts of our study. We will have to carefully plan how we will take data on Western Campus to avoid personal recognition.

Adjustment
Intro.2
A 1979 study by Taft of immigrants in Australia can easily relate to college students. This report is comparable to our study if you relate immigrants to freshman. It analyzes the stresses on immigrant children in the school systems of Australia and their various forms of maladjustment while they seek approval from their new peers. Some seem to adjust well in all situations, because they branch out and interact well with others around them, even though they may not be familiar with them at first, they are accepted and learn to interact with others even though they are not as well known at first.
Bagley and Mokhtarian (2002) address this topic as well. They say that students usually obtain a different taste in friends and they may look for different qualities in their friendships when at college, but may have a difficult time in establishing long-term friendships because of a fear of rejection. In order to create ties with other students the student must branch out and interact with their peers despite these fears. Because these young adults are in a new and different environment they feel like they have to make new friends. This longing helps them to be more diverse and rounded individuals. In order to discover whether or not students who feel more pressure to find friends are friendlier, we will research how students who come to Miami with a large friend base react differently to strangers than those who come with few or no previous acquaintances.
In an article written by Ponzetti in 1990, he states that college students usually suffer from effects of loneliness. One of the conclusions he comes to is that college students are generally lonely because they are worried about not being able to find a romantic relationship and being hurt or rejected in an intimate setting. These factors cause lower self-esteem as well as a greater pessimism and dissatisfaction with their interpersonal networks. However the effects are magnified in males. College studentÕs long for interaction with others, which leads them to make friends and relationships with others more readily. In our study we will take into account sex and see if it correlates with friendliness. We believe there will be a difference in similar feelings among Western students and Main campus students due to greater acceptance on Western.

Personal Factors in Relationships and Interaction
Intro.3
Huffman and Quigley (2002) take a different approach in their research. They address the idea that a long-term residency or a residency in which one is content makes a person more apprehensive to leave or move. They associate this to the feeling of being comfortable which comes from the ties they make in their community. If a person feels comfortable where he or she is living then it is not necessary for him or her to leave and go elsewhere. This concept also ties into already being friendly within a comfortable community. The friendships they make which are the result of their daily interactions have a big impact on whether or not they want to leave and how they interact with others. People tend to establish roots and which keep them grounded in the fact that they want to stay where they are. Because they are in a community setting they have the feeling of belonging and loving relationships, but citizens are willing to positively interact with others from other communities because of their comfort level. The community setting makes its dwellers feel more settled and at ease. The relationships students on Western Campus have with their peers make them more comfortable and therefore lead them to act in a friendly way toward unfamiliar peers.
Along with environment, inborn traits greatly influence people. The personality of the individual has a huge impact on how the individual reacts to others. Creed (1998) says socially anxious individuals tend to get more nervous when they are faced with situations in which interaction with strangers is necessary. Some individuals tend to be shyer than others, which can affect their treatment and reactions towards others. If a person is self-conscious or insecure with whom they are, they will be less likely to branch out and try to interact with people around them.

Community Values
Intro.4
One key researcher to our topic, Wandersman (2001), makes an interesting point when he addresses the issue of community values. He discusses the effects of general community values and how they are shared among the citizens of the population. He also states that in order to better understand the community one has to reach out and go to the community area. By going out to do research in our first ÒhelloÓ test, we will be able to candidly interact with students and accurately gauge their responses. Only the people in the community know how the community works and in order to better understand a community we must interact with the people there.
Shinn and Toohey (2003) describe the way that a community influences the behavior of its citizens. They claim that environment plays a major part in the way people act. A social capitol is also a large part of communities. This social capitol is associated with lower crime rates and a greater sense of security within the community, which allows for more interaction between the people who live there. This interaction makes for more contact and thus more friendships. Community values affect the people who dwell there. Because the community makes the person feel more comfortable it has influences on that person. Smaller communities may foster an environment that will be more likely to positively effect dwellers in this way; Western Campus may mimic such a community.
Wilder (1978) also believes that a group can influence how individuals act. When a person is involved in a group he or she becomes more like that group. This relates in that the small community of Western may influence people to be more focused on small community values, and a large community like Main Campus may influence people to be more focused on the individual because of the number of people. These different focuses may cause people to react differently to others. Some people, because they are on the smaller campus, may be very open to the small community values; others may reject the closeness and veer towards main campus ideals. This hypothesis is a large part of what we will be testing, are students on Western Campus more friendly because of the effect the community has on them, or does Western Campus draw them because of their inherent personality.

Group Influence on Interaction
Intro.5

Fuller (1999) speaks to collective self-esteem as well as personal. He says that the self-esteem of an individual can make how they interact with others very different than would be expected otherwise. If a person is very confident then he or she does not have to worry about branching out and making more friends as much. If a person is not confident then he or she will not branch out very easily. How involved a student is in his or her environment can add to or detract from their self-esteem, and thus their interaction with others. When groups get together with collective self-esteems they are able to adjust better to college, they help each other and are making friends in the process, which helps their peer interaction. Being connected with a group brings collective self-esteem up, and therefore makes a member of a group more willing to interact with others outside that group. Western Campus may be such a group for its citizens and therefore may help those who live with in its community interact more readily with strangers.
Li and Hong conducted a study in 2001 in which they compared small and large communities. Working with students from Mainland China and Hong Kong, Li and Hong studied intergroup relations among the students in each group. They discovered that citizens in smaller communities (the Mainland students) were more connected with one another than those in bigger communities (Hong Kong). Smaller community members were also better at perceiving the emotions, making them more comfortable and willing to interact with others. We expect that Western, the smaller community, will be more connected and thus friendlier than Main campus, the bigger community.

Methods
General Population Survey
Methods.1
We will do a general population test to roughly ascertain the levels of friendliness among the students of MiamiÕs campuses. Their responses will then be ranked Ònot friendlyÓ or Òfriendly.Ó We define friendliness as a willingness to interact with peers and strangers. Data will be taken at locations on both Main Campus and Western Campus to determine how students on the different campuses interact when coming into contact with strangers. Alexis will take data at Bell Tower and Shiver on November 4, 2003 and on November 7, 2003. Julie will take data at Alexander Dining Hall and Peabody on November 3, 2003 and November 5, 2003. Elisabeth will take data at Dorsey and Morris on November 11, 2003 and November 12, 2003. Renee will take data at Simms on November 5, 2003. Sarah will take data at Thompson on November 6, 2003. A third-party who does not live in Mary Lyon will take data on November 5, 2003 to prevent recognition of the tester. The times of these tests will all be between 2 and 7 in the afternoon and will be recorded on the data sheet.

Method for greeting process:
1. Go to specified location
2. Situate yourself to appear natural in selected environment i.e.- if at food court, eat food
3. As someone walks by you, casually smile and say ÒhelloÓ
4. Record their response on sheet
5. Repeat the previous two steps thirty times

Ranks of responses:

Not friendly: ignores hello and/or gives rude look

Friendly: responds in a manner equivalent to your salutation

Extremely friendly: A conversation stems from greeting
i.e.- ÒHow are you?Ó or ÒWhatÕs up?Ó

Name of Greeter: Gender (Circle one):
M / F
Location:
Time:

Number of
Person Gender (M/F) Not Friendly Friendly
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

Number of People in Ten Minutes:
Average Number of People per Minute:

In-depth Personality/Acclimation Survey
Methods.2
Pilot Study-
In order to compile a more concise and useful survey, we will do a pilot study to get feedback on the clarity of our survey. We will sample twenty students, ten from Main Campus and ten from Western at Alexander Dining Hall during the week of the 27th of October. We will also survey our NS class during the week of the 3rd and have a loose focus group during the class. The results of these studies and the responses we get will help us refine our questions and survey.

Survey Study-
In order to do a more in depth population study, 25 students will be surveyed from 6 dorms, two main campus dorms (Dorsey and Morris), two western dorms (Mary Lyon and Peabody), and two control dorms (Havinghurst and Clawson). Random students in the dorms will be asked to fill out the following survey about their social relationships and their personalities. The surveys will be done the week of November 10, 2003.

This is our final survey, edited after out pilot study.

Year First/Second/Third/Fourth/Fifth+
Gender M/F
Major___________________________________
Dorm-
Mary Lyon Peabody Havighurst
Clawson Dorsey Morris

Circle the appropriate response

How many friends do you have at Miami?

0-2 3-5 6-8 9-12 13-15 15+

How many friends would you consider close?

0-2 3-5 6-8 9-12 13-15 15+

Approximately how many people live in your corridor (under the same RA or CLA)? _______
How many friends do you have in your corridor? ________
How many clubs/activities are you involved in at Miami?
0 1 2 3 4 5+

How many friends have you made through a club/organization?
0-2 3-5 6-8 9-12 13-15 15+

How many of your fellow classmates from home attend Miami?
0 1-4 5-8 9-12 13-16 17+

How many of your close friends from home attend Miami?
0 1-4 5-8 9-12 13-16 17+

How many friends from home (people you knew before coming to Miami) do you spend time with in person on a regular basis (at least once a week)?
0 1 2 3 4 5+

How many friends from home do you still keep in touch with?
0 1-4 5-8 9-12 13-16 17+

Which group of people would you say is friendlier: Western Campus Students or Main Campus Students?

Western Campus Main Campus No difference

How do you respond when a strangers smiles at you, or says hello in
passing?

Ignore them/Disregard them Respond equally to them

Begin a conversation with them (e.g. How are you? WhatÕs up? Etc.)

The two most characteristic descriptions of friendly person are:
___Cheerful
___Talkative
___Outgoing
___Willing to Share
___Wants to spend time with others
___Smiles a lot

How do you feel the following statements apply to you on a scale of
1-10, 1 being does not apply at all, 10 being strongly applies?

I am a socially confident person
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I worry about my importance to others
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I am uncomfortable when I am unsure about whatÕs going on around me
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I get so anxious or worried that I sometimes become physically ill
(headache, stomach ache)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I compare myself to others
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I am talkative
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I am a happy person
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I can express my ideas well to others
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I easily fell into place and adjusted well when I first came to Miami
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I make friends with ease; I can easily find someone to talk to in a crowd
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Day in Class
Methods.3
During our class presentation, the students and Chris will take the survey we hope to use to analyze personality on the two campuses. We will discuss the results and the typical answers for each campus, thus allowing the participants to classify themselves as a Òtypical Main Campus studentÓ or Òa typical Western Campus Student.Ó We will discuss the success of our pilot study and look for ways to improve our survey, find vague questions and get other suggestions. Personal experiences with peers and the responses they often see that are relevant to our experiment will be shared.

Results
After completing the surveys and general population study of responses to peers, we analyzed the following data.
Contingency Analysis One: Campus by Declared Response
We performed a contingency analysis on the data for students from Western Campus, Main Campus and the control dorms to ascertain the differences in how students claimed they would respond to a stranger greeting based on the question in the survey ÒHow do you respond when a strangers smiles at you, or says hello in passing? Ignore them/Disregard them Respond equally to them Begin a conversation with them (e.g. How are you? WhatÕs up? Etc.)Ó Our tests showed that 90% of Western students claimed they would in fact respond equally and 10% said they would begin a conversation with the person. 96% of main campus students would respond equally, but only 4% said they would begin a conversation with the person. However, all the students on both Main and Western campuses said they would respond in some sort of friendly manner. In the control dorms, 5% claimed they would ignore the stranger, 87.5% said they would respond equally and 7.5% said they would begin a conversation with the person. The P Value of this test is .1622.

Contingency Analysis Two: Campus Opinion of Which Campus is Friendlier
We performed a contingency analysis on the data for students from Western Campus, Main Campus and the control dorms to ascertain how each campus viewed Main Campus and Western Campus. 60% of Western students thought that Western Campus was friendlier, 4% of Main students thought that Western Campus was friendlier, and 27.5% of the students from the control dorms thought that Western Campus was friendlier. 8% of Western students thought that Main Campus was friendlier, 46% of Main students thought that Main Campus was friendlier, 20% of the control dorm students thought that Main Campus was friendlier. 32% of Western students thought that neither campus was friendlier, 50% of Main students thought that neither campus was friendlier, and 52.5% of the control dorm students thought that neither campus was friendlier. Our P Value for this test is .0001.

Contingency Analysis Three: Response to General Population study by Campus
We performed a contingency analysis on the data for students on Western Campus and Main Campus to ascertain how each campus would respond to a stranger greeting them.
67.7% of Students on Western Campus responded to the greeter in a friendly manner, 32.3% responded in a less than friendly manner. 53.3% of students on Main Campus responded to the greeter in a friendly manner, 46.7% responded in a less than friendly manner. Our P Value for this test is .0365.

Bivariate Analysis One: Outgoing Versus Making Friends
There is not a significant difference in the correlation of people who felt that being outgoing was an important characteristic in friendly people versus people who said they made friends with ease. Our P value for this test is .1448.

Bivariate Analysis Two: Cheerful Versus Being a Happy Person
There is a significant difference in the correlation of people who felt that being cheerful was an important characteristic in friendly people versus people who said they were happy people. The more likely a person was to claim that Cheerfulness was an important characteristic in a friendly person; the higher they rated themselves on the scale of happiness. Our P Value for this test is .0085.

Bivariate Analysis Three: Outgoing Versus Being a Socially Confident Person
There is not a significant difference in the correlation of people who felt that being outgoing was an important characteristic in friendly people versus people who said they were a socially confident person. Our P Value for this test is .1457.

Bivariate Analysis Four: Talkative Versus Being a Talkative Person
There is not a significant difference in the correlation of people who felt that being talkative was an important characteristic in friendly people versus people who said they were a talkative person. Our P Value for this test is .2518.

Oneway Analysis One: Number of Friends Versus Campus
We compared the number of friends students on both campuses and the control dorms said they had according to the survey. We determined that there is a significant difference in the number of friends the average student in each group had. Students in the control dorms had the most friends, with an average of 12.6538 friends. Students on Western had the second most, with an average of 11.0357 friends, and students on main had the fewest friends, with an average of 10.3864. Our P Value for this test is .0421.

Oneway Analysis Two: Number of Close Friends Versus Campus
We compared the number of close friends students on both campuses and the control dorms said they had according to the survey. We determined that there is a significant difference in the number of close friends the average student in each group had. Students on Western had the most close friends, with an average of 7.68367 close friends. Students on main had the second most close friends; with an average of 5.59783 close friends and students in the control dorms had the fewest close friends, with an average of 4.73750 Our P Value for this test is .0007.

Oneway Analysis Three: Participation in Clubs Versus Campus
We compared the number of clubs in which students on both campuses and the control dorms participated. We determined that there is a significant difference in the number of clubs students participated in. Students on Main participated in the most clubs with an average of 1.77551. Students on Western participated in the second most with an average of 1.36000. Students in the control dorms participated in the fewest clubs with an average of 1.19444. Our P Value for this test is .0277.

Conclusions
Our general population field test in which we observed the way peers interacted with strangers, we found that as we predicted in our hypothesis, students on Western Campus are more likely to interact with strangers. On Main Campus, we found that according to our definition, students were less friendly. Because our P Value for this test was .0365, we disproved the null hypothesis. There is only a 3.65% chance that the results we found when doing this test could be explained by chance alone. We documented the average number of people passing by each spot during the test taking period to determine whether or not test subject flow could affect the data. We found that the numbers were relatively comparable, and therefore probably did not have much of an affect on the data. However, because we did not record whether or not the participants in the general field test actually lived on Western Campus or Main Campus and were not simply visiting the other campus, we cannot conclusively say that the entire population we studied was in fact a member of the tested campus.
In trying to determine the cause of this difference, we compared many variables that we felt may have had an effect on the willingness of the students to interact with unfamiliar peers. However, we did not feel that any of the variables we studied could help explain the difference. In our Oneway Analyses of the number of friends and close friends among the student groups (Main Campus, Western Campus, and the control dorms) we found that students in the control dorms had more friends than both other groups. We thought this might have been a result of living in dorms on Western Campus but being Main Campus students, and therefore being able to relate to both campuses perspectives. This may cause the control dorm students to more willingly accept friends from both campuses, however we did not test to ascertain whether or not this was true.
We studied the perception of campuses by students living in each group and analyzed it with a contingency analysis. We found that students living on Western campus were likely to think Western was friendlier (60% of students felt this way) and students living on main were likely to think that Main Campus was friendlier (46% of students felt this way.) Few students from Main or Western thought that the opposite campus was friendlier (only 8% of Western Students thought that Main was friendlier, and only 4% of students on Main thought Western was.) However, students living in the control groups were more diverse in their viewpoints. 27.5% thought Western was friendlier, 20% thought Main campus was friendlier and 52.5% thought neither campus was friendlier than the other. We again think that this may be a result of a higher tolerance for each campus by students living in dorms on western who are Main campus students.
We also found that students on Western Campus had more close friends than students in either of the other groups. With an average of 7.68367 close friends, we rejected the null hypothesis. While we again did not test why this is the case, we surmise that it could be a result of the smaller community on Western and the interaction with fewer people on a daily basis, resulting in more close friends. This could also be a cause of the friendlier behavior on Western, as if students feel like close friends surround them, they may be more willing to interact with everyone.
However we also found data that did not coincide with our hypothesis. The number of clubs students in each group participated in was highest in students on Main Campus with an average of 1.77551 clubs per student, with a P Value of .0277. Students on Western participated in an average of 1.36000 clubs. We would have thought that students who were more willing to interact with strangers would also be more likely to participate in clubs because it requires being in an environment with strangers. However, we found the opposite to be true.
Despite rejecting the null hypothesis regarding friendliness on Western versus Main, we could not conclusively decide the causes for the discrepancy. There are many factors that go in to making a person react in a certain manner toward strangers and we would have to test many more factors to come to a conclusion on the reasons behind the data we found. The possible causes we did test did not lead us to any conclusions. In order to truly discover the reasons behind the results we would have to conduct very intensive sociological research in the students on both campuses and the reasons they live on their respective campus along with their background with sociability and personal characteristics.

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