Adult education class social networks

Name: Adult education class social networks
Published: 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z
License: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/terms_of_use

Pearce, E

Documentation:: These data relate to 7 adult education classes. Questionnaires were filled in at three timepoints during these 7-month-long courses (month 1, 3 and 7). Participants were asked to list the classmates who they could name and whether they felt connected to them and/or had talked to them during their class that day. These questions were used as a proxy for whether social ties existed between classmates. The total number of classmates named, connected to and talked to were taken as the size of a participant's network within their class. To take account of differently sized classes, these totals were divided by total class size to get the proportion of their classmates with whom participants had social ties.

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APA Style

Pearce, E. (2016). Adult education class social networks. University of Oxford.

MLA Style

Pearce, E. Adult Education Class Social Networks. University of Oxford, 2016.

Chicago Style

Pearce, E. 2016. Adult Education Class Social Networks. University of Oxford.
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Files:: PEARCEetal_adult_education_networks_ORA.csv

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Authors/Creators

+ Pearce, E More by this author/creator

Institution:: University of Oxford
Division:: MSD
Department:: Experimental Psychology
Role:: Creator, Researcher

+ European Research Council More from this funder

Grant:: 295663

Publisher:: University of Oxford
Publication date:: 2016
Spatial coverage:: West Midlands, UK
DOI:: 10.5287/bodleian:4Jmen2KQg
Data collected:: 2013 - 2014

Language:: English
Pubs id:: 1480275
UUID:: uuid:6ee38fae-1371-4744-b5e6-053cc809c201
Local pid:: pubs:1480275
Deposit date:: 2016-05-24
ARK identifier:: ark:/29072/ora_6ee38fae13714744b5e6053cc809c201

Related item:: The ice-breaker effect: singing mediates fast social bonding
Description:: It has been proposed that singing evolved to facilitate social cohesion. However, it remains unclear whether bonding arises out of properties intrinsic to singing or whether any social engagement can have a similar effect. Furthermore, previous research has used one-off singing sessions without exploring the emergence of social bonding over time. In this semi-naturalistic study, we followed newly formed singing and non-singing (crafts or creative writing) adult education classes over seven months. Participants rated their closeness to their group and their affect, and were given a proxy measure of endorphin release, before and after their class, at three timepoints (months 1, 3 and 7). We show that although singers and non-singers felt equally connected by timepoint 3, singers experienced much faster bonding: singers demonstrated a significantly greater increase in closeness at timepoint 1, but the more gradual increase shown by non-singers caught up over time. This represents the first evidence for an ‘ice-breaker effect’ of singing in promoting fast cohesion between unfamiliar individuals, which bypasses the need for personal knowledge of group members gained through prolonged interaction. We argue that singing may have evolved to quickly bond large human groups of relative strangers, potentially through encouraging willingness to coordinate by enhancing positive affect.
Related item:: Tuning in to others: Exploring relational and collective bonding in singing and non-singing groups over time
Description:: Although it has been shown that singing together encourages faster social bonding to a group compared with other activities, it is unknown whether this group-level ‘collective’ bonding is associated with differences in the ties formed between individual singers and individuals engaging in other activities (‘relational’ bonding). Here we present self-report questionnaire data collected at three time points over the course of 7 months from weekly singing and non-singing (creative writing and crafts) adult education classes. We compare the proportion of classmates with whom participants were connected and the social network structure between the singing and non-singing classes. Both singers and creative writers show a steeper increase over time in relational bonding measured by social network density and the proportion of their classmates that they could name, felt connected with and talked to during class compared to crafters, but only the singers show rapid collective bonding to the class-group as a whole. Together, these findings indicate that the process of creating a unitary social group does not necessarily rely on the creation of personal relationships between its individual members. We discuss these findings in the light of social cohesion theory and social identity theory.

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