When networks speak volumes: Variation in the size of broader acquaintanceship networks
Publication date: January 2019Source: Social Networks, Volume 56Author(s): Miranda J. Lubbers, José Luis Molina, Hugo Valenzuela-GarcíaAbstractPersonal network researchers have extensively studied the characteristics and effects of individuals’ closest relationships, but they have paid much less attention to broader acquaintanceship networks, despite evidence that weak ties can also provide social support. In this paper we focus on one aspect of these networks: acquaintanceship volume. We estimate its distributional parameters for a large, representative sample of the general population of Spain, explore its variation ...
Source: Social Networks - September 11, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Fast clustering for signed graphs based on random walk gap
Publication date: Available online 7 September 2018Source: Social NetworksAuthor(s): Jialin Hua, Jian Yu, Miin-Shen YangAbstractSigned graphs are often used as models for social media mining, social networks analysis and nature language processing. In this paper, we study clustering algorithms for signed graphs that can be scaled for use in large-scale signed networks. A proposed mechanism, called a random walk gap (RWG), is used to extract more cluster structure information. RWG uses two types of random walks on signed graphs. The first considers positive edges only. The second takes negative edges into account. Three typ...
Source: Social Networks - September 7, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Does panel conditioning affect data quality in ego-centered social network questions?
This article investigates the data quality of ego-centered social network modules in web surveys. It specifically examines whether these modules are subject to the effects of the repeated measurement of the same questions known as panel conditioning effects. Ego-centered social network modules are especially at risk of panel conditioning effects because many of the components in these modules are repetitive. Based on the theories of motivated underreporting and survey satisficing, we hypothesized that respondents reduce the length of the module by underreporting their network size and/or network density. To systematically ...
Source: Social Networks - September 7, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Bullying and victimization among majority and minority students: The role of peers’ ethnic perceptions
In this study, we investigate the associations between self-reported and victim-reported bullying and two dimensions of ethnicity (self-identification and ethnic perceptions) among non-Roma majority and Roma minority Hungarian secondary school students. Results of the meta-analysis of exponential random graph models for 12 classes (347 students, 4 schools) show that both self-declared Roma and non-Roma students are more likely to report that they bully peers they perceive as Roma compared to peers they perceive as non-Roma. This is after controlling for gender, socio-economic status, and structural characteristics of the b...
Source: Social Networks - September 6, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Betweenness to assess leaders in criminal networks: New evidence using the dual projection approach
Publication date: January 2019Source: Social Networks, Volume 56Author(s): R. Grassi, F. Calderoni, M. Bianchi, A. TorrieroAbstractBrokerage is crucial for dark networks. In analyzing communications among criminals, which naturally induce bipartite networks, previous studies have focused on the classic Freeman's betweenness, conceived for one-mode matrices and possibly biasing the results. We explore different betweenness centrality including three inspired by the dual projection approach recently suggested by Everett and Borgatti 2013. We test these measures in identifying criminal leaders in a meeting participation netwo...
Source: Social Networks - August 29, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Low status rejection: How status hierarchies influence negative tie formation
This study uses multiple measures of social status, sociometrically-measured negative ties, and multiple analytic approaches – MRQAP to control for structure and within-individual to control for heterogeneity – to help resolve this debate. We find: negative ties travel down status hierarchies and target low status individuals, and a negative tie between two people becomes more likely as their status difference increases. These results suggest a low-status rejection mechanism. (Source: Social Networks)
Source: Social Networks - August 29, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Editorial Board
Publication date: October 2018Source: Social Networks, Volume 55Author(s): (Source: Social Networks)
Source: Social Networks - August 28, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
External exposure, boundary-spanning, and opinion leadership in remote communities: A network experiment
Publication date: January 2019Source: Social Networks, Volume 56Author(s): Petr Matous, Peng WangAbstractAre boundary spanners opinion leaders in ethnically segregated remote low-income communities or are they shunned? Can external exposure create opinion leaders in such peripheral communities? To answer these questions, we invited randomly selected farmers from 16 randomly selected communities in Sumatra to three-day networking and training events outside of their villages. The substantive purpose of these events was for the farmers to learn new practices from their peers in the visited locations. Eighteen months later, w...
Source: Social Networks - August 26, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Structural balance across the strait: A behavioral experiment on the transitions of positive and negative intergroup relationships in mainland China and Taiwan
Publication date: January 2019Source: Social Networks, Volume 56Author(s): Yen-Sheng Chiang, Lin TaoAbstractStructural balance theory explains how ties are formed in signed networks. A balanced triad, however, could be incidentally caused by balance-unrelated mechanisms. Teasing apart the multiple mechanisms that lead to balanced networks helps clarify the explanatory power of a theory. In a behavioral experiment, we investigated the transition of intergroup relations across the positive/negative boundary. Voluntary participants, recruited from mainland China and Taiwan, were placed in triadic networks, each facing two alt...
Source: Social Networks - August 21, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Duality of departmental specializations and PhD exchange: A Weberian analysis of status in interaction using multilevel exponential random graph models (mERGM)
Publication date: October 2018Source: Social Networks, Volume 55Author(s): Neha GondalAbstractWeber proposes that lifestyle similarities preserve status by producing interactional closure between status similar actors. I investigate this theory on academic status hierarchies by conceptualizing sub-disciplinary specializations as departmental lifestyles and PhD exchange networks as interdepartmental interactions. Multilevel exponential random graph models (mERGM) reveal that the more specializations departments share, the more likely they are to exchange personnel. On the flip side, departments that do not share specializat...
Source: Social Networks - August 8, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Ego centered social network and relationship quality: linking attachment security and relational models to network structure
We examined the two inner layers of the ego-network in 274 volunteers, the support and sympathy groups, as well as close family members in comparison to friends within the support group, in terms of attachment security and underlying relational models. (Source: Social Networks)
Source: Social Networks - August 2, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Investment communities: Behavioral attitudes and economic dynamics
Publication date: October 2018Source: Social Networks, Volume 55Author(s): Alessandro Spelta, Andrea Flori, Fabio PammolliAbstractUsing a real-world data set encompassing the daily portfolio holdings and exposures of complex investment funds, we derive a set of quantitative attributes to capture essential behavioral features of fund managers. We find the existence and stability of three investment attitudes, namely the conservative, the reactive, and the pro-active profiles, defining communities that respond differently when facing external shocks. The conservative community has behavioral similarities that tend to decreas...
Source: Social Networks - July 31, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Homophily of music listening in online social networks of China
In this study, two online social networks of the same group of active users who listened to complete songs over 1000 times and posted over 100 tweets are established, separately, in Netease Music and Weibo. Through presented multiple similarity measures, it is evidently demonstrated that homophily does exist in music listening for both online social networks. The unexpected listening similarity in Weibo also implies that knowledge from generic social networks can be confidently transferred to domain-oriented networks for context enrichment and algorithm enhancement. Comprehensive factors that might function in the formatio...
Source: Social Networks - July 14, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Editorial Board
Publication date: July 2018Source: Social Networks, Volume 54Author(s): (Source: Social Networks)
Source: Social Networks - July 10, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Personal networks typologies: A structural approach
Publication date: July 2018Source: Social Networks, Volume 54Author(s): Claire Bidart, Alain Degenne, Michel GrossettiAbstractBuilding typologies allows to compare networks on multiple dimensions, and to approach a generalization grounded on empirical data. In this article, we present a typology of personal networks only based on indicators related to the structure of relations between alters. It is designed from very detailed data on young French people who were involved in a longitudinal study. Our typology mobilizes a small number of indicators to discriminate the types that compose it. In so doing, we intend to make it...
Source: Social Networks - July 10, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
