The Homophily Effect of Demographic Attributes: Moderating Role of Demographic Salience and Time Effect
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This paper explores the role of homophily with respect to demographic attributes on the formation of friendships, focusing on the moderating effect of attribute salience and time effect. To address the research questions, we explored a data set collected from Master of Public Administration (MPA) students in four waves over a period of nearly a year. An actor-based model was employed to test various research hypotheses concerning the longitudinal evolution of a friendship network. As a result, we found that (1) salience of demographic attributes does not moderate the relationship between the attributes and friendship ties and (2) age homophily is associated with friendship formation only in the initial stage.