Yet, this endeavor "started as almost an accident" while Festinger was conducting a study on the impact of architectural and ecological factors on student housing satisfaction for the university. Although the proximity effect (or propinquity) was an important direct finding from the study, Festinger and his collaborators also noticed correlations between the degree of friendship within a group of residents and the similarity of opinions within the group, thus raising unexpected questions regarding communication within social groups and the development of group standards of attitudes and behaviors. Indeed, Festinger's seminal 1950 paper on informal social communication as a function of pressures toward attitude uniformity within a group cites findings from this seemingly unrelated housing satisfaction study multiple times.