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Kids sample friends like a buffet
A kid who always liked butter noodles and chicken tenders suddenly faces a buffet of options, and everyone is raving about pizza with sausage. The options are other kids. They now understand that their friends reflect who they are and how classmates see them, so lining up with certain people tells the whole school they are older and cool now.
Kids develop at different rates. A girl who still wants imaginative play can end up beside friends who want to read books where people make out. Neither interest is wrong, and the gap still opens fast.
In a group of eight or nine, interests are guaranteed to spread out. Nothing keeps third-grade best friends who shared every interest matched forever, and a kid who decides that what another wants to do isn't as cool as what she is doing finds it awkward to keep hanging out with her.
Why do friends signal a kid's identity?
Social psychologists Henri Tajfel and John Turner proposed social identity theory in the 1970s. It holds that part of a person's self-image comes from the groups they belong to. Adolescents are especially tuned to this because they are building a sense of self while watching how peers see them. Research by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore at University College London finds that brain regions involved in thinking about other people keep developing through the teenage years.
Why do friends usually share interests?
Sociologists Paul Lazarsfeld and Robert Merton coined the word homophily in 1954 for the tendency of people to bond with those who resemble them. Studies of school friendships since then show that friends tend to match in age, interests, and habits. Part of the match comes from picking similar people, and part comes from friends influencing each other over time. Longitudinal studies of adolescents have found both effects at work.
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