When it comes to assigning seats, most teachers prioritize academic considerations. A new study by Florida Atlantic University psychology researchers is the first to show that classroom seat assignments have significant implications for children’s friendships.
The study’s findings, which were published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, revealed that friendships reflect classroom seat assignments. Students seated next to or near one another were more likely to be friends than students seated elsewhere in the classroom. Furthermore, longitudinal studies found that classroom seating proximity was related to the formation of new friendships. Students were more likely to become friends with newly near-seated classmates than with those who remained or became seated further away after seat assignments changed.
“The students in our study spent most of every day with the same 15 or so classmates. By the middle of the school year, there were no unfamiliar peers,” said Brett Laursen, Ph.D., senior author and a professor of psychology in FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. “Yet when seat assignments changed, new seatmates were apt to become new friends, consistent with claims that exposure alone is not a sufficient condition for friendship. Apparently, proximity transcends familiarity by providing new opportunities for the kind of exchanges that form the basis of a friendship.”
The students in our study spent most of every day with the same 15 or so classmates. By the middle of the school year, there were no unfamiliar peers. Yet when seat assignments changed, new seatmates were apt to become new friends, consistent with claims that exposure alone is not a sufficient condition for friendship.
Brett Laursen
Participants in the study included 235 students (129 boys, 106 girls) in grades 3 – 5 (ages 8-11) who nominated friends at two time points (13 -14 weeks apart). Children attended a public primary school in South Florida that reflected public school students in the state in terms of ethnicity and family income.
Teacher seating charts were used in the study to calculate three types of proximity for each pair of students in a classroom. Classmates seated directly beside one another in a row or at a table were described as having neighbor proximity, as were those seated directly across from one another at a table. Classmates who were identified as neighbors as well as those who were near neighbors were either one seat away in the same row or diagonal to one another at the same table. The findings for group proximity were the most robust, implying that children are willing (and able) to overlook their nearest neighbors in favor of those seated close enough to communicate for extended periods of time.
“Of course, students were not glued to their seats; interactions with far-seated peers occurred undoubtedly during lunch, recess, and (in some classes) free time activities,” Laursen said. “Despite opportunities for engagement with other classmates, the fact that new friends tended to emerge among the newly near-seated underscores the power of proximity in friendship formation.”
Because children this age have few other sustained opportunities to meet (and engage with) friends, and because companionship is central to the definition of friendship, classroom proximity assumes an outsized importance during the elementary school years. Most children report that the majority of their friends are in the same classroom, which has long been known. We now know they are most likely seated nearby.
Elementary school students spend the majority of their days in assigned seats, surrounded by classmates. Teachers decide who sits next to whom in most elementary school classrooms, and thus who interacts with whom.
“Taken together, our findings highlight the enormous influence that teachers have on children’s interpersonal lives. Great power comes with great responsibility “Laursen stated. “We urge teachers to use their authority wisely. When adults meddle in the social lives of children, unintended social consequences have been observed.”
