This work explores the influence of social connections on young people’s political knowledge. Extending previous research on individual and interpersonal predictors of political learning, the study examines relational characteristics and their role in informed citizenship. Factors expected to affect social contagion in political behavior include conversation content, interaction frequency, relational closeness, mutual communication partners, and shared ideology. The analyses were based on longitudinal network data from 13 residential student communities. The study found evidence consistent with social contagion. The political knowledge of participants was predicted by the knowledge of their strong social ties. Political discussants were not as influential as high-frequency general conversation partners. These findings have important implications for research exploring social influence on political behavior. They signal that the contacts we tend to identify as political are not necessarily the ones that matter most in shaping our opinions and attitudes.

这项工作探讨了社会关系对年轻人的政治知识的影响。该研究扩展了先前对政治学习的个人和人际预测因素的研究，研究了关系特征及其在知情公民中的作用。预期会影响政治行为中的社会传染的因素包括对话内容，互动频率，关系亲密性，相互交流的伙伴以及共同的意识形态。分析基于来自13个居住学生社区的纵向网络数据。该研究发现与社会传染相符的证据。参加者的政治知识是通过了解他们强大的社会纽带来预测的。政治讨论者的影响力不及高频普通对话伙伴。这些发现对探索社会对政治行为的影响的研究具有重要意义。它们表明，我们倾向于认定为政治接触的联系不一定对塑造我们的观点和态度最重要。