“Tell Me who You Hang Out with and I'll Tell You Who You Are”: Analysis of How the Social Contacts´ Gender Predicts Self-Concept as a Socially Engaged Person and Intention of Future Social Participation Among Young People

Abstract

The purpose of this work was to study the effect of gender on the social influence processes that explain the young people’ social participation. A total of 962 Spanish undergraduate students completed a questionnaire assessing their likelihood of engaging in social participation in the future, their self-concept as socially engaged people, and the number of socially involved contacts in their social networks, distinguishing between male and female contacts. We found that gender homophily characterised the social networks of both women and men. Consistent with gender stereotyping, being female predicted self-concept and the intention to be civically engaged, and being male predicted the intention to be politically engaged. For both genders, the number of female contacts predicted the intention to be civically engaged only, and the number of male contacts predicted the intention to be politically engaged. Moreover, for males, having a more gender-heterogeneous social network predicted to a greater extent their self-concept as socially engaged. The findings provide new insights for targeting interventions designed to foster social participation in women and men.