Changing climates of conflict: A social network experiment in 56 schools

Significance Despite a surge in policy and research attention to conflict and bullying among adolescents, there is little evidence to suggest that current interventions reduce school conflict. Using a large-scale field experiment, we show that it is possible to reduce conflict with a student-driven intervention. By encouraging a small set of students to take a public stance against typical forms of conflict at their school, our intervention reduced overall levels of conflict by an estimated 30%. Network analyses reveal that certain kinds of students (called “social referents”) have an outsized influence over social norms and behavior at the school. The study demonstrates the power of peer influence for changing climates of conflict, and suggests which students to involve in those efforts. Theories of human behavior suggest that individuals attend to the behavior of certain people in their community to understand what is socially normative and adjust their own behavior in response. An experiment tested these theories by randomizing an anticonflict intervention across 56 schools with 24,191 students. After comprehensively measuring every school’s social network, randomly selected seed groups of 20–32 students from randomly selected schools were assigned to an intervention that encouraged their public stance against conflict at school. Compared with control schools, disciplinary reports of student conflict at treatment schools were reduced by 30% over 1 year. The effect was stronger when the seed group contained more “social referent” students who, as network measures reveal, attract more student attention. Network analyses of peer-to-peer influence show that social referents spread perceptions of conflict as less socially normative.

[1]  F. H. Hankins,et al.  The Psychology of Social Norms , 1937 .

[2]  D. Horvitz,et al.  A Generalization of Sampling Without Replacement from a Finite Universe , 1952 .

[3]  M. Sherif,et al.  Reference Groups: Exploration into Conformity and Deviation of Adolescents , 1964 .

[4]  M. Sherif.  The Psychology of Social Norms , 1937 .

[5]  M. Sherif,et al.  Reference groups : exploration into conformity and deviation of adolescents , 1966 .

[6]  井上 俊.  Muzafer Sherif and Carolyn W.Sherif;Reference Groups,Exploration into Conformity and Deviation of Adolescents,1964 , 1966 .

[7]  Clinton F. Fink.  Some conceptual difficulties in the theory of social conflict , 1968 .

[8]  W. Hamilton,et al.  The evolution of cooperation. , 1984, Science.

[9]  D. Rubin,et al.  The central role of the propensity score in observational studies for causal effects , 1983 .

[10]  Carl A. Kallgren,et al.  A focus theory of normative conduct: Recycling the concept of norms to reduce littering in public places. , 1990 .

[11]  T. Speed,et al.  On the Application of Probability Theory to Agricultural Experiments. Essay on Principles. Section 9 , 1990 .

[12]  D. Rubin.  [On the Application of Probability Theory to Agricultural Experiments. Essay on Principles. Section 9.] Comment: Neyman (1923) and Causal Inference in Experiments and Observational Studies , 1990 .

[13]  R. Nisbett,et al.  Violence and U.S. regional culture. , 1993, The American psychologist.

[14]  B. Laursen,et al.  Interpersonal conflict during adolescence. , 1994, Psychological bulletin.

[15]  S. Ennett,et al.  How effective is drug abuse resistance education? A meta-analysis of Project DARE outcome evaluations. , 1994, American journal of public health.

[16]  D. Olweus.  Bullying at school: basic facts and effects of a school based intervention program. , 1994, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[17]  Mark Schaller,et al.  Dynamic Social Impact and the Evolution of Social Representations: A Natural History of Stereotypes. , 1996 .

[18]  B. Latané.  Dynamic Social Impact: The Creation of Culture by Communication. , 1996 .

[19]  R. Cialdini,et al.  Social influence: Social norms, conformity and compliance. , 1998 .

[20]  Duncan J. Watts,et al.  Collective dynamics of ‘small-world’ networks , 1998, Nature.

[21]  W. Bukowski,et al.  The power of friendship: protection against an escalating cycle of peer victimization. , 1999, Developmental psychology.

[22]  R. Inglehart,et al.  Modernization, Cultural Change, and the Persistence of Traditional Values , 2000, American Sociological Review.

[23]  Yoshihisa Kashima,et al.  The reproduction of culture: Communication processes tend to maintain cultural stereotypes , 2001 .

[24]  Hart Blanton,et al.  Deviance Regulation: A Theory of Action and Identity , 2003 .

[25]  E. Rogers,et al.  Diffusion of innovations , 1964, Encyclopedia of Sport Management.

[26]  R. Cialdini.  CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Crafting Normative Messages to Protect the Environment , 2022 .

[27]  P. Bearman,et al.  Cloning Headless Frogs and Other Important Matters: Conversation Topics and Network Structure , 2004 .

[28]  W. Sewell.  The concept(s) of culture , 2004 .

[29]  H. Barki,et al.  CONCEPTUALIZING THE CONSTRUCT OF INTERPERSONAL CONFLICT , 2004 .

[30]  R. Thaler,et al.  Save More Tomorrow™: Using Behavioral Economics to Increase Employee Saving , 2004, Journal of Political Economy.

[31]  Brian Wansink,et al.  Why Visual Cues of Portion Size May Influence Intake , 2004, Obesity research.

[32]  Nisha C. Gottfredson,et al.  School Climate Predictors of School Disorder: Results from a National Study of Delinquency Prevention in Schools , 2005 .

[33]  Antoni Calvó-Armengol,et al.  Centre De Referència En Economia Analítica Barcelona Economics Working Paper Series Working Paper Nº 178 Who's Who in Networks. Wanted: the Key Player Who's Who in Networks. Wanted: the Key Player Barcelona Economics Wp Nº 178 , 2022 .

[34]  Geoffrey D. Borman,et al.  Final Reading Outcomes of the National Randomized Field Trial of Success for All , 2007 .

[35]  R. Thaler,et al.  Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness , 2008 .

[36]  Christopher W. Larimer,et al.  Social Pressure and Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment , 2008, American Political Science Review.

[37]  A. Galván,et al.  Peer influence in involuntary social groups: Lessons from research on bullying. , 2008 .

[38]  Victor Lavy,et al.  The Effects of High Stakes High School Achievement Awards: Evidence from a Randomized Trial , 2009 .

[39]  Geoffrey L. Cohen,et al.  Supporting Online Material for Reducing the Gender Achievement Gap in College Science: A Classroom Study of Values Affirmation , 2010 .

[40]  Damon Centola,et al.  The Spread of Behavior in an Online Social Network Experiment , 2010, Science.

[41]  Peter S. Bearman,et al.  Social Influence and the Autism Epidemic1 , 2010, American Journal of Sociology.

[42]  H. Allcott,et al.  Social Norms and Energy Conservation , 2011 .

[43]  Cameron Marlow,et al.  A 61-million-person experiment in social influence and political mobilization , 2012, Nature.

[44]  David R. Schaefer,et al.  A dynamic model of US adolescents' smoking and friendship networks. , 2012, American journal of public health.

[45]  T. Valente.  Network Interventions , 2012, Science.

[46]  D. Prentice.  The Psychology of Social Norms and the Promotion of Human Rights , 2012 .

[47]  Tyler J VanderWeele,et al.  On causal inference in the presence of interference , 2012, Statistical methods in medical research.

[48]  Sinan Aral,et al.  Identifying Influential and Susceptible Members of Social Networks , 2012, Science.

[49]  E. Paluck,et al.  The salience of social referents: a field experiment on collective norms and harassment behavior in a school social network. , 2012, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[50]  Emily Bazelon,et al.  Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy , 2013 .

[51]  John G. Culhane.  Book Review Essay: Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy, by Emily Bazelon (Random House 2013) , 2013 .

[52]  Arun G. Chandrasekhar,et al.  The Diffusion of Microfinance , 2012, Science.

[53]  Alice E. Marwick,et al.  ‘It's just drama’: teen perspectives on conflict and aggression in a networked era , 2014 .