Affinity (sociology) explained

Affinity in terms of sociology, refers to "kinship of spirit", interest and other interpersonal commonalities. Affinity is characterized by high levels of intimacy and sharing, usually in close groups, also known as affinity groups. It differs from affinity in law and Catholic canon law which generally refer to the marriage relationship. Social affinity is generally thought of as "marriage" to ideas, ideals and causes shared by a tight community of people.

Theories

In Social affinity in a modern world, Boston College professor, James Allan Vela-McConnell explores the emergence of the concept of "social affinity" bridging classical sociology and social psychology, identifying "the notion of social cohesion" based upon the sentiment of moral obligation.^[1]

Max Weber articulated "Elective Affinities".^[2]

Examples

Affinity is shown or demonstrated by an individual identifying with a subculture, ethnicity, or other groups, within a larger national culture. Self-identification with a group is a valid form of expressing affinity.^{[3] [4]}

Further reading

• Book: Vela-McConnell . James A. . Who Is My Neighbor?: Social Affinity in a Modern World . 1999 . SUNY Press . . 978-0-7914-4312-5 .
• Book: 10.1145/2124295.2124379 . 10.1.1.651.2517 . How user behavior is related to social affinity . Proceedings of the fifth ACM international conference on Web search and data mining - WSDM '12 . 2012 . Panigrahy . Rina . Najork . Marc . Xie . Yinglian . 713 . 978-1-4503-0747-5 . 15300350 .
• Shin . Eui Hang . Chin . Seung Kwon . Social affinity among top managerial executives of large corporations in Korea . Sociological Forum . 1 March 1989 . 4 . 1 . 3–26 . 10.1007/BF01112614 . . 684433 . 154932912 .
• Hong . Minsung . Jung . Jason J. . Camacho . David . GRSAT: A Novel Method on Group Recommendation by Social Affinity and Trustworthiness . Cybernetics and Systems . 3 April 2017 . 48 . 3 . 140–161 . 10.1080/01969722.2016.1276770 . 31874810 .
• Briseno-Jaramillo . M. . Ramos-Fernández . G. . Palacios-Romo . T. M. . Sosa-López . J. R. . Lemasson . A. . Age and social affinity effects on contact call interactions in free-ranging spider monkeys . Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology . 7 December 2018 . 72 . 12 . 1–17 . 10.1007/s00265-018-2615-2 . . 45132533 . 54452369 .
• Book: 10.1145/2836041.2836048 . Show me your phone, I will tell you who your friends are . Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia . 2015 . Reinhardt . Delphine . Engelmann . Franziska . Moerov . Andrey . Hollick . Matthias . 75–83 . 978-1-4503-3605-5 . 5910730 .
• Beach . Frank A. . Coital Behaviour in Dogs. VIII. Social Affinity, Dominance and Sexual Preference in the Bitch . Behaviour . 1 January 1970 . 36 . 1–2 . 131–147 . 10.1163/156853970X00088 . 4533323 .
• Luebker . Malte . Can the structure of inequality explain fiscal redistribution? Revisiting the social affinity hypothesis . Socio-Economic Review . 30 July 2021 . 19 . 2 . 735–763 . 10.1093/ser/mwz005 .

External links

• Using Group Composition Data to Measure Social Affinity: A New Method John Pepper, Santa Fe Institute

Notes and References

1. Vela-McConnell . James Allan . Who is my neighbor? Social affinity in a modern world . 1997 . . 39933294 .
2. Howe . Richard Herbert . Max Weber's Elective Affinities: Sociology Within the Bounds of Pure Reason . American Journal of Sociology . 1978 . 84 . 2 . 366–385 . 10.1086/226788 . 2777853 . 142983297 .
3. News: Carroll . Rebecca . Opinion Black and Proud. Even if Strangers Can't Tell. . The New York Times . 1 April 2017 .
4. News: McConnell . Scott . The Battle for France . The American Conservative . 20 April 2017 .