By Pete Markakis
Linguistic
One of the most recent concepts that have arisen in academia and anthropological research is the tendency for housemates to have a linguistic effect on those they room or rent with. Simply living with a person is actually enough to take on their speech habits. Dr. Jennifer Pardo headed research that analyzed speech pattern changes in those that share lodging over time and discovered that the better a person gets along with a roomie, the more likely they are to pick up those linguistic habits.
Psychological
There has been much research in recent years that has documented the relationship between roommates and mental health. This has resulted in a great wealth of academic and journalistic literature that varies in opinion regarding just how much of an effect co-habitation has on psychological health. Research by the University of Michigan as well as the University of Minneapolis has shown that such concepts as happiness, depression, and anxiety have a noticeable rate of transfer between rent mates.
Social
Social awkwardness is something that nearly everyone has to deal with on some level. However, recent studies into multi-ethnic rent mate pairings show that the phenomenon can lead to a reduction in social anxiety. Additionally, simply living with a person of a different background also appears to have a measurable effect on later objectiveness and willingness to work in diverse environments, as exist in most modern businesses.
Physical
One of the most obvious effects of roommates on each other concerns physical health. High transmission of illness between those that share the same living space is well documented. While most of that research tends to focus on hospital patients, simply sharing living spacehas been shown by The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America to increase the likelihood of contraction of influenza by up to three times. Consequently, rooming with a person that is prone to illness is likely to influence the health of whomever they room with.
Behavioral
One of the most surprising areas of interplay between roommates is behavior, and there are few areas where this has been shown to be more evident than in grade performance. Many studies have suggested a statistically significant connection exists between dorm-mate choice and grades. A recent study has shown, however, that this effect may be specific to certain populations or depend upon additional social variables.
About the Author:
Web developer and software engineer, Pete Markakis, has made a recent emergence into the roommate and housing referral service market and has developed several referral sites. USARoomies.com provides users with tools for how to find prospective housemates. He is especially security-minded and all of his websites reflect this in their privacy, registration, and communication policies. USA Roomies' Blog has several roommate article topics relevant to this article and their main roommate referral site.
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