Festinger, Schachter and Back (1950): Proximity

Aim

To investigate whether proximity increases the likelihood of friendship

Procedure

They studied residents of a large apartment complex (Westgate West). Residents did not choose where to live-they were assigned apartments as they became available. All residents were asked to indicate which people from the same apartment complex they were friends with.

Results

Results showed that proximity (literally the \n distance from door to door) was related to establishing friendship: \n - 41% of residents who lived next door to each other indicated that they were friends \n - 22% of those who lived two doors apart were friends \n - only 10% of residents who lived on opposite ends of the \n hall were friends.

Conclusion

Proximity effect may have several potential explanations.

• Friendship may be induced by simple courtesy norms: \n you run into each other, so you must engage in some sort of polite interaction.

• Friendship may be the result of the expectation of future interactions: you will keep running into each other, so for things not to be awkward you need to establish a friendly relationship.

Strengths

High ecological validity - natural environment

Achieved its researcher aim

Field experiment - Low internal validity as confounding variables were not controlled

Low external validity as the results cannot be widely generalised.