The Effects Of Ability Homophily on Individual Performance (Paperback)

Homophily is a powerful social force that can cause people to surround themselves with similar others (McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Cook, 2001). Homophily of ability could lead to grouping of people who have similar performance levels. Groupingby ability is of interest because it has been linked to increased performance inexperiments involving undergraduate (Goethals, 2001) and primary (Lou et al., 1996;Tieso, 2003) school students. However, previous studies have not examined theconsequences of ability grouping when it results from homophily occurring naturallyrather than being imposed by a researcher or teacher. To determine if performancebenefits are associated with ability homophily, a longitudinal study was conducted tomeasure the advice and friendship relationships of 404 adults in a military managementtraining course. Performance was measured by an end of course formative test, instructorevaluations, and peer evaluations. The results confirm that ability homophily in advicerelationships is related to increased performance. Ability homophily among friendshiprelationships was not related to increased performance.