TY - JOUR N1 - Copyright © 2020 Laakasuo, Rotkirch, van Duijn, Berg, Jokela, David-Barrett, Miettinen, Pearce and Dunbar. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. TI - Homophily in Personality Enhances Group Success Among Real-Life Friends UR - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00710 Y1 - 2020/05/04/ ID - discovery10098770 VL - 11 JF - Frontiers in Psychology KW - friendship KW - personality KW - Big Five KW - groups KW - group performance KW - inclusion-of-other-in-self N2 - Personality affects dyadic relations and teamwork, yet its role among groups of friends has been little explored. We examine for the first time whether similarity in personality enhances the effectiveness of real-life friendship groups. Using data from a longitudinal study of a European fraternity (10 male and 15 female groups), we investigate how individual Big Five personality traits were associated with group formation and whether personality homophily related to how successful the groups were over 1 year (N = 147?196). Group success was measured as group performance/identification (adoption of group markers) and as group bonding (using the inclusion-of-other-in-self scale). Results show that individuals? similarity in neuroticism and conscientiousness predicted group formation. Furthermore, personality similarity was associated with group success, even after controlling for individual?s own personality. Especially higher group-level similarity in conscientiousness was associated with group performance, and with bonding in male groups. A1 - Laakasuo, M A1 - Rotkirch, A A1 - Van Duijn, M A1 - Berg, V A1 - Jokela, M A1 - David-Barrett, T A1 - Miettinen, A A1 - Pearce, E A1 - Dunbar, R AV - public ER -