According to new research, there are important and systematic differences in the penumbras of various social groups. Further, entering a group’s penumbra is associated with changes in attitudes on policy questions related to the group. This work was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
In their new study, researchers Andrew Gelman and Yotam Margalit define a “social penumbras” as “the set of people who have personal familiarity with members of the group, be it as relatives, friends, or acquaintances.” This is distinct from one’s social network, which refers to the direct connections of an individual. Penumbras vary in their characteristics – some might be small, geographically concentrated, and consist of rich people, while others may be large, dispersed, and consist of low income individuals.
Extended contact between members of different groups could allow for learning opportunities about each other, appreciation of circumstances, and the development of affective ties between group members. However, in some instances, intergroup interactions could exacerbate apprehension and hostility. In this work, Gelman and Margalit examined the association between social penumbras and political attitudes.
Using a two-wave internet panel survey, 2,106 participants were interviewed at two time points, with 1 year in between. Participants were asked about their penumbra membership in 14 social groups (e.g., unemployed individuals, recent immigrants, National Rifle Association members) as well as questions pertaining to their attitudes on 12 related policies. For example, relating to the immigrant penumbra, participants were asked whether more or fewer immigrants should be allowed into the United States.
Participants indicated the number of people from the social group who were close family, close friends, and other people they knew by name and would interact with if they ever ran into them; this was used to construct penumbra membership. Participants were also prompted with eight first names and asked to count the number of people they knew by name – this was used to measure the size of participants’ social networks.
The researchers found that penumbra membership tends to be associated with positive attitudes on political issues that relate to the group. However, these observed correlations are high for only some of the 14 groups that were studied. For example, the association between knowing NRA members and opposing weapon bans, or knowing homosexual individuals and supporting same-sex marriage, were particularly strong. While associations between penumbra membership and attitudes toward social issues were strong, attitudes toward economic issues (e.g., tax breaks for caregivers, unemployment benefits) were only weakly, or not at all, associated with penumbra membership.
Gelman and Margalit argue that entering a group’s penumbra has a small – but positive – influence on attitudes on political issues that relate to the group. They suggest that a change in attitudes likely occurs over a longer time period than the 1 year span that was studied in this work. As such, the present analyses represent a floor estimate of the true impact of entering a social penumbra.
The researchers also note that there has been a dramatic increase in social media use, which can expand social penumbras to include individuals that have no personal contact with group members, but who they encounter online and grow to feel close to nonetheless (e.g., following people on social media platforms). Thus, they suggest that future work can examine the influence of indirect online contacts on social penumbras.
The research, “Social penumbras predict political attitudes”, was authored by Andrew Gelman and Yotam Margalit.
