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Personality and cognitive skills in network of friends, for multi-ethnic schools

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  • Rapallini, Chiara
  • Rustichini, Aldo

Abstract

In a multi-ethnic society, friendship among children might be expected to be overwhelmingly shaped by ethnicity and cultural heritage. Using an original panel data-set of classmate networks in multi-ethnic primary schools near Florence, Italy, (N=396 children in 2nd and 5th grade), we show instead that cognitive skills and personality traits matter as much as ethnicity in shaping friendships, thus playing the role of elective affinities. We test whether friends affect a child’s personality more than the other way round: to do this, we estimate peer effects. We only find non-significant effect of peers on math grades and a measure of intelligence (KBIT). For personality traits, peer effects are significant only for Extraversion. These findings are crucial for design of immigration policies: rather than emphasizing differences among ethnic groups, a farsighted policy could try to point these elective affinities among individuals.

Suggested Citation

  • Rapallini, Chiara & Rustichini, Aldo, 2019. "Personality and cognitive skills in network of friends, for multi-ethnic schools," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 1-14.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:reecon:v:73:y:2019:i:1:p:1-14
    DOI: 10.1016/j.rie.2019.01.001
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    Cited by:

    1. Nicola Campigotto & Chiara Rapallini & Aldo Rustichini, 2022. "School friendship networks, homophily and multiculturalism: evidence from European countries," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(4), pages 1687-1722, October.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cognitive skills; Personality; Multi-ethnic schools; Homophily; Networks;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

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