Gregariousness, Group Membership, and the Flow of Information

The influence of gregariousness (the range of social contacts) and integration in an informal group (indexed by self-defined membership) on the diffusion of information are compared with data from a national sample of graduate students. The information advantage of highly gregarious individuals is found to be explained primarily by the fact that they are more likely to be group members. Information is found to be more diffused in highly cohesive departments (characterized by the presence of many groups), especially among non-integrated students, thus indicating the importance of the relative density of group interaction in the flow of information. The importance of group interaction is attributed to (1) the number and heterogeneity of sources of information available in a group and (2) the continuity of group relations.