Science! Psychology researchers discover that kids make friends with those who sit next to them in school
Your tax dollars at work! Psychology researchers at Florida Atlantic University have found to their shock that the friendships school children form are strongly influenced by their seat assignments in class.
Results of the study, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, revealed that friendships reflect classroom seat assignments. Students sitting next to or nearby one another were more likely to be friends with one another than students seated elsewhere in the classroom. Moreover, longitudinal analyses showed that classroom seating proximity was associated with the formation of new friendships. After seat assignments changed, students were more likely to become friends with newly near-seated classmates than with those who remained or became seated farther away.
You can read the actual paper here. The research itself was apparently funded by a grant from National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), apparently an agency within NIH, that stellar agency that pushed masks, lockdowns, and social distancing during the past two years based on zero data and contrary to research results going back decades.
It seems to me that this result would be obvious to any first grade teacher who is focused on teaching kids. It is also obvious to anyone who ever went to school and made friends there. To spend money on such research is utterly idiotic. Worse, it diverts funds from research that is considerably more important.
But no matter. What is really important is to get funding, no matter how trivial or useless the research. And our corrupt and bankrupt federal bureaucracy is most willing to oblige.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Your tax dollars at work! Psychology researchers at Florida Atlantic University have found to their shock that the friendships school children form are strongly influenced by their seat assignments in class.
Results of the study, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, revealed that friendships reflect classroom seat assignments. Students sitting next to or nearby one another were more likely to be friends with one another than students seated elsewhere in the classroom. Moreover, longitudinal analyses showed that classroom seating proximity was associated with the formation of new friendships. After seat assignments changed, students were more likely to become friends with newly near-seated classmates than with those who remained or became seated farther away.
You can read the actual paper here. The research itself was apparently funded by a grant from National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), apparently an agency within NIH, that stellar agency that pushed masks, lockdowns, and social distancing during the past two years based on zero data and contrary to research results going back decades.
It seems to me that this result would be obvious to any first grade teacher who is focused on teaching kids. It is also obvious to anyone who ever went to school and made friends there. To spend money on such research is utterly idiotic. Worse, it diverts funds from research that is considerably more important.
But no matter. What is really important is to get funding, no matter how trivial or useless the research. And our corrupt and bankrupt federal bureaucracy is most willing to oblige.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
As Zelda Gilroy explained to Doby Gillis on why their love was sure to be: Propinquity.
I was the weird kid, I formed alliances with kids in the next classroom to undermine the ones I sat next to.
They studied me too, that one was probably worth the $$$.
This works for the office place also.
I bet its linked to the amount to time you spend close to someone.
“Familiarity breeds” How many boy next door and girl next door couples have married?
Also, I think water is wet, winter is cold, daytime is brighter than nighttime. I want my research money!
“I bet its linked to the amount to time you spend close to someone.” Quick, get your research grant proposal into NIH! This is fun!!
If those scientists decided to hang around my fourth grade class, they would probably be shocked to learn that a teacher who cares about her job and cares even more about her students gets more effort and devotion from them.
As the alleged class brain, I had people sitting next to me because they thought that’s how they could get through their classes.
Oh the Flounderian trust in my infallibility, and the derivative risk to them …
Catch Thirty-Thr33 noted:
” . . . a teacher who cares about her job and cares even more about her students gets more effort and devotion from them”
Third Rule of Management (of Four): “People work to expectations.”
Jester,
I suffered the same fate. The jocks would cheat and look at my test answers. I got smart and started filling out the wrong answers and then change them right at the last minute.
“Flounderian trust” is a very cool reference and very apt. The really funny thing was they didn’t catch on at all. I guess it didn’t matter because “Football Team”.
Pawn & Jester:
I had it worse.
The geometry teacher would have the class grade the test papers.
Each student would get someone else’s test and the whole class would review the test with the teacher leading the effort. Thus each student got to review the correct answer and how it was reached. Very effective.
The worse part… the teacher used my test as the test key.
Fortunately I didn’t let him down!