Journal ol Personality and Sochi Psychology

1974, Vol. 30, No. S, 654-657

ALPHABET AND ATTRACTION:

AN UNOBTRUSIVE MEASURE OF THE EFFECT OF
PROPINQUITY IN A FIELD SETTING1

MADY WECHSLER SEGAL 2

Department of Sociology, Eastern Michigan University

The relationship between propinquity and interpersonal attraction was studied

in a field setting. Place in alphabetical order was used as an unobtrusive
(and conservative) measure of propinquity. The effect of proximity on friend-
ship choice among 44 Maryland State Police trainees was found to be stronger
than the effects of a wide variety of other characteristics that have been
identified in the literature as determinants of interpersonal attraction.

Studies of interpersonal attraction have propinquity affects attraction, in a field set-

frequently found that attraction is affected by
propinquity: The smaller the physical and
functional distance between two people, the
more likely they are to be attracted to each
other. Support for the propinquity-attrac-
tion hypothesis is found in the research con-
ducted by Byrne and Buehler (19SS), Fest-
inger, Schachter, and Back (1950), Kipnis
(1957), Maisonneuve, Palmade, and Four-
ment (1952), and Priest and Sawyer (1967),
among others.
Several theoretical approaches lead to pre-
dictions of a positive relationship between
propinquity and interpersonal attraction.
Among these are exchange theory (Homans,
1961), balance and consistency theories
(Heider, 1958; Newcomb, 1956), and rein-
forcement theory (Berscheid & Walster,
1969). The propinquity-attraction relation-
ship is often assumed to be mediated by in-
teraction. On the other hand, Saegert, Swap,
and Zajonc (1973) have demonstrated ex-
perimentally that "mere exposure" is a suf-
ficient condition for the enhancement of inter-
personal attraction.
The present study tests the hypothesis that
1
This article is based on a doctoral dissertation
submitted to the Department of Sociology, Univer-
sity of Chicago. The author is indebted to Barry
Schwartz and David McFarland for their generous
advice and criticism, to John J. Mellinger for his
excellent statistical advice, and to Joel M. Savell
for his suggestions for revision.
2
Requests for reprints should be sent to Mady
Wechsler Segal, who is now at the Department of
Sociology, University of Maryland, College Park,
Maryland 20742.
654
ting, using an unobtrusive measure of pro-
pinquity.
METHOD
In 1966 a questionnaire was mailed to the $2
students in the Training Academy of the Maryland
State Police as part of a larger study of the
social organization and professionalization of the
force (Smith, 1968). The trainees (all of whom
were male) had known each other for approxi-
mately six weeks at the time of the study. Seven of
these students dropped out of the Academy and
therefore did not return their questionnaires. Only
one student who remained in the Academy failed to
respond to the questionnaire.
All but one of the 44 respondents were white.
They were all between the ages of 21 and 30 years
with a mean age of 23.4 and a median of 23. One
man (2.3%) reported no religious preference, 31
(70.5%) were Protestant, and 12 (27.3%) were
Catholic. There were 26 married men (59.1%) and
18 single men (40.9%). The modal family income
category was from $5,000 to $5,999 (n = 20 or
45.5%), with only 5 men (11.1%) reporting in-
comes of $10,000 or more. The occupation of the
head of the household in the respondent's parental
family was most likely to be blue collar (n = 28 or
63.6%), with the majority of these men being skilled
workers (n = 21 or 47.7% of all respondents).
There were 14 white-collar parents (31.8%), mostly
proprietors or managers, 1 farmer (2.3%), and 1 man
did not answer the question. In sum, the men were
largely in their early 20s, of blue-collar backgrounds,
Protestant, and married.
In addition to a large number of questions deal-
ing with the attitudes and social characteristics of
the men, they were asked to name their three
closest friends on the force. Of the 44 respondents,
30 named at least one friend in the academy.
Trainees are assigned to rooms and to seats in class-
rooms on the basis of the alphabetical order of their
last names. Therefore, the closer two trainees are to
each other in alphabetical order, the more likely they
 ALPHABET AND ATTRACTION 655

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 111213 14 1516 1718 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 363940 4142 43 44 45

I 3 2 2 2 1 2 2 1 1 1 3 1 2 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 2 0 1 0 2 2 1 1 1 5 1 1 0 1 2 1 2 5 1 0 1 0 1|65

FIGURE 1. Matrix of friendship choices. (Numbers across the top of the matrix indicate place
in alphabetical order of chosen. Numbers down the left of the matrix indicate place in alpha-
betical order of chooser.)

are to room near each other and to be near each RESULTS

other in training sessions. Thus, place in alphabetical
order serves as a measure of propinquity and expo-
sure, independent of any subjective judgments the
trainees might make about whom they spend time
with. This proximity clearly occurs prior to the
formation of friendships and serves as the inde-
pendent variable. Kendall (1960) has previously
noted an association between interpersonal choice
and closeness in alphabetical ordering of last names
among medical students, who were assigned class-
room sets on the basis of their names. It was
expected that the fewer the number of places in
alphabetical order between two police trainees, the
greater would be the likelihood that they would
choose each other as friends.
Alphabetical ordering did indeed have a
powerful effect on friendship choices, as
shown in Figure 1. Of the 65 friendship
choices made within the academy, 29 (or
44.6%) are given to others who are adjacent
to the chooser in alphabetical order. This is
all the more impressive when we recognize
that alphabetical ordering is a conservative
measure of propinquity. The assigned order-
ing defines which men live across the hall
from each other as well as which men are
656 MADY WECHSLER SEGAL
next door to each other, and it determines
who sits behind whom as well as who sits
next to whom. Without data on the length
of barracks halls and classroom aisles, alpha-
betical ordering does not tap these subtleties.
Thus, two men may in fact be physically
close and frequently interact even though
they are not in adjacent places in alpha-
betical order.
Of the 65 friendship choices, 38 were given
to others who named at least one friend in
the academy. Of those 38, 22 were recipro-
cated, yielding a 57.9% reciprocation rate
for friendship choices, regardless of propin-
quity. Of the 29 adjacent choices, 19 could
have been reciprocated and 14 actually were,
yielding a reciprocation rate of 73.7%. Thus,
choices to adjacent (propinquitous) others
are more likely to be reciprocated than those
to nonadjacent others (42.1% reciprocal).
In the previous analyses, the unit of analy-
sis is the choice rather than the individual.
To perform other statistical tests, especially
tests of significance, the data were trans-
formed in a number of ways. First, each
man's friendship choices were combined by
computing the mean place in alphabetical
order of his friends. The correlation between
the chooser's place in alphabetical order and
the mean place in alphabetical order of the
men he chooses as his friends was .917
(w = 30 choosers, dj - 28, /><.001). An
even stronger relationship existed between a
man's place in alphabetical order and the
mean place in alphabetical order of the men
who choose him as a friend (ra — .982, n — 40
chosen men, dj = 38, p < .001).
Both of the above analyses may, however,
misrepresent the proximity of a man's friends.
If a man is near the middle of the alpha-
betical order and he chooses two men who
are at the extremes (highly nonpropinqui-
tous), the mean place may be very close to
his own, thus making the choices appear
propinquitous. To solve this problem, the
mean absolute distance between a man's place
and those of his friends was computed
(X = 4.2). This was done for each chooser.
This was then compared to what would be
expected if choices were distributed ran-
domly, that is, without regard to place in
alphabetical order. This expected value was
computed as follows: For each man who
made at least one friendship choice, the mean
absolute distance in alphabetical order be-
tween himself and all other men was com-
puted ( X = 1 5 . 4 ) . Then, for each man, a
difference score was computed as his actual
mean minus the expected value. The mean of
these differences was then computed across
all choosers, .£=—11.22. A t test showed
this mean to be highly significantly different
from zero (t = -10.02, df = 29, p < .001).
Similar results were obtained when the
analysis was carried out from the point of
view of the 40 men who are chosen as
friends. The mean absolute distance from his
choosers was computed for each person chosen
(^ = 4.5). Then, for each chosen man, a
randomly expected absolute mean distance
was computed by taking the mean absolute
distance in alphabetical order between each
chosen man and all other men (X — 15.3).
The expected value was subtracted from
the observed value for each man chosen.
The mean of these difference scores was
— 10.82, which is significantly different from
zero (t = -11.31, df = 39, p < .001).
The propinquity effect was the most power-
ful determinant of interpersonal attraction
identified in the Maryland State Police Train-
ing Academy. A variety of other possible
determinants were examined. Although some
weak relationships were observed, there was
no consistent tendency for friends to be simi-
lar with regard to social characteristics (e.g.,
religion, frequency of church attendance,
age, marital status, ethnic background, par-
ents' education), organizational memberships,
leisure activity preferences, or certain atti-
tudes. All but one of the men were white, so
race was not a testable variable (the one
black made two friendship choices and re-
ceived none). None of these characteristics
can serve as an explanation of the rela-
tionship observed between propinquity and
friendship choice.
DISCUSSION
The results presented here support the
proposition that propinquity contributes to
positive affect. In a field setting, uncontami-
nated by the effects of experimental demand
 ALPHABET AND ATTRACTION
characteristics, using an unobtrusive (and
conservative) measure of proximity, we have
shown that proximity is highly related to
friendship choice. Moreover, this relationship
was stronger than that observed for a wide
range of other characteristics that have been
identified in the literature as possible alter-
native determinants of interpersonal attrac-
tion. The fact stands out that the closer two
Maryland State Police trainees are in the
physical structure of the group, the more
likely they are to choose each other as friends.
Caution must be exercised in generalizing
from the results found here to other groups.
The present subject population is relatively
homogeneous with respect to a large number
of variables. For example, there is not much
variance in age among the trainees. It is
quite possible that the more homogeneous a
group is on factors that are otherwise signifi-
cant for friendship formation, the greater the
effect of propinquity on friendship. Con-
versely, in a more heterogeneous group, mem-
bers may be more willing to expend the
greater cost required to become friends with
someone who is physically further away. This
would occur if the rewards produced by inter-
action with similar others are great enough
to more than offset the costs. Neither a study
of police trainees nor studies of college
sophomores provide us with populations that
are heterogeneous enough to evaluate this
possibility.
It must be recognized, however, that many
of the groups within which people spend
their time and with which they identify are
indeed homogeneous with respect to relevant
variables. Thus, the importance of propin-
quity as a determinant of friendship must
not be discounted.
657
Propinquity is also likely to be most highly
related to attraction during the early stages
of acquaintance. As people get to know each
other, other characteristics may become im-
portant to friendship choice, but proximity is
still likely to remain a strong determinant.
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