Principles of a Social Network Perspective
Three basic principles are particularly applicable for network work within social psychology:
A social network perspective emphasizes relations or ties among actors. The basis of these relations could be friendship, work ties, avenues of exchange, kinship, avenues of
communication, chains of command, or other social linkages. Social network analysts maintain that social relationships among sets of actors serve as the starting point for social research;
- The behavior of actors is interdependent with that of other actors within a social network. Quantitative work in the social sciences that uses the general linear model generally assumes that one case is independent of the other. However, a fundamental principle of the network perspective is that cases are not independent, that is, one network members' behavior is dependent on the others' behavior;
- Individual behavior is influenced by the network environment. The social network is a basic determinant of an individual's behavior. In any cases, the social capital inherent in a network provides opportunities, such as when social ties supply job information. In other situations, the network environment may curtail an individual's behavior and provide barriers, rather than opportunities. An example of this would be a family that refuses to allow a member to move to another community with particularly good job openings (Delamater, 2003).
Delamater, J. 2003. Handbook of social psychology . New York : Kluwer Academic.
Social Network Concepts:
- Weak ties
- Transitivity
- Cliques
- Size:
• i. The number of distinct individuals in a particular network
• ii. Begins with close connections, reaches out to acquaintances, and eventually may include a wider world of relationships
• Measurement requires definition of network
• Psychological network
• Interactive network
- Density
- Tie Strength
- Cliques
- Centrality
- Transitive
- Equivalence
Groups and Collectives
1. Transitivity or Balance
if actor a chooses actor b, and actor b chooses actor c, then actor a chooses actor c. If either of the first two parts of this statement is not true, that is if a does not choose b or if b does not choose c, then the cycle is “vacuously transitive” that is, it does not contradict the principle of transitivity. Otherwise, cycles are intransitive
2. Equivalence
3. Weak Ties
Subareas of Empirical Work
• Friendship
• Festinger, Schachter, and Back (1950) found that proximity was a major determinant of social ties in two new housing complexes and the individuals who lived in less centralized housing units were considered deviant
• Newcomb (1961) examined friendship patterns of male college boarding house students and found that similarity of age, background, and attitudes influenced mutual liking over time
• Feld (1991) examined a particular case of mathematical class size paradox and applied this to friendship. When comparing themselves to their friends most felt inadequate as far as the number of friends an individual retained. Empirically, most people do retain fewer friends than their friends have. Mathematically the mean number of friends of friends is always greater than the mean number of friends of individuals
• Social Influence
• Network Effects Model
• i. Actors opinions are a weighted average of influential opinions of other network members
• Social Support
• Emotional
• Services
• Financial
• Internet Networks
Dyadic Relationships
Social Cognition
• “The process whereby people make sense of other people and themselves” (Fiske and Taylor, 1991)
• Cognition goes beyond intra-individual information processing; it is socially structured and transmitted, mirroring the values and norms of the relevant society and social groups (Howard and Hollander, 1997)
• Candor and Antaki, (1997) reflect an interdisciplinary orientation in their approach to cognition, moving away from the mental processing of information and toward a definition of cognition as the social construction of knowledge
• Structures of knowledge, the interpersonal processes of knowledge creation and dissemination, the actual content of this knowledge, and the shaping of each of these aspects of cognition by social forces
Relation of Social Cognition to Other Key Theoretical Paradigms
• Psychological
• Sociological