Triadic Closure In Preschools
In 2010, researchers at Arizona State University and the Oregon Research Institute studied the basic principles behind the formations of social relationships between preschoolers. They chose preschoolers because children in this age group (3-5 years old) are beginning to interact with each other and form relationships. More importantly, the preschool classroom setting offers them the opportunity to choose who they want to play and connect with.
Although the study addresses a couple of different principles related to network formation, the point about triadic closure is the most relevant to the content covered in the course thus far. Chapter 3 in our course textbook goes into detail about the concept of triadic closure – if two people have a mutual friend in common, then it is likely that those two people will become friends with each other at some point later in the future.
In this study, researchers found that the network of preschool children actually exhibited the principle of triadic closure, which grew in prominence over the course of the school year. Preschoolers were likely to be exposed to (and thus become friends with) playmates of their friends. The continued growth of strong triad formations during the school year suggested that preschool children were more inclined to spend time with friends of their friends.
Link to paper:
https://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~snijders/siena/SchaeferLightfabesHanishMartin2010.pdf