Where Does Homophily Come From?

This study evaluates the evolution of friendship networks amongst first year undergraduate students at the beginning of college. While homophily, or the tendency to associate with similar others, is a network trait that sociologists have extensively studied, less is known about how it arises. Current research focuses on homophily dynamics but fails to adequately address if it plays a direct role in match selection or whether it arises indirectly. I address this gap by employing a qualitative, semi-longitudinal approach to evaluate college student personal networks as they naturally form and evolve due to random happenstances and individual choices. Specifically, I ask how does homophily arise in personal networks, and how do these contexts affect subsequent patterns of interaction? Participants, recruited through a combination of random and snowball samples, were interviewed periodically over their first two quarters of college to determine who they are associating with, how they are associating with them, and where they are looking for friends. These answers were then compiled and analysed to evaluate trends in network evolution with respect to homophily, heterophily, and propinquity. The findings suggest that individuals engage in a dual filtering exercise to identify friends. First, they choose environments based on the desired level of baseline similarity and then filter the subset based on personal preferences. By considering how the concept of shared experiences varies between different spaces, I explain common patterns in collegiate personal networks