Social networks in theory and empirical research
College 1: Do contexts make networks?
Focus theory (macro level, who you have the opportunity to meet) = Who interacts
with whom is not a question of preferences but of extra-individual conditions such as meeting
opportunities and foci for contacts.
- Theory on the supply of contacts; that is essentially sociological
- All those related to a focus tend to form a cluster; loose connections between clusters
are either based on less constraining foci, or not on foci at all
Focus = a social, psychological, legal or physical entity around which joint activities are
organized. Individuals whose activities are organized around the same foci will tend to
become interpersonally tied and form a cluster.
So, if individuals share the same focus they tend to become related to each other. And, when
individuals are related, they tend to create foci to organize their joint activities.
Thus: networks emerge within foci and across foci that are shared by individuals
Controlled for focused interaction, similarity on certain attributes may lead to selective
development of ties. However, structural features determine much more where interaction will
arise.
Characteristics of foci
- Restrictions, such as:
- Degree of forced interactions, time spent, compatibility with other foci
- Size
- Degree of local boundedness
- Degree of which boundaries exist
- Foci can also overlap (e.g. if people work in their neighbourhood)
Balance theory (micro level, individual and preferences)
- A network is balanced if the product of the signs of the relationships is positive
- Therefore: networks have a tendency for closure
- Balance theory start from triads (triadic closure), but more complicated networks are
possible (e.g. tetrads)
When does network closure emerge (or where do new ties form)?
- Balance theory the focal actor strives for cognitive balance
- Focus theory actors become involved in relationships because they share at least
one focus
Focus theory versus balance theory
- Focus theory can be applied to large networks. Balance theory fits best in the analysis
of small networks (triads)
- Focus theory argues for instance that when network members are all in the same focus,
and if this focus is more restrictive, the network members will be more interconnected –
balance theory does not take into account any contextual condition
Without the local bridge, the distance between the -now
connected- nodes would be much larger
Social capital = a theory on the creation of and returns to
relationships
Different forms of capital are resources for individuals for achieving
a good life. These resources are also dimensions of social stratification
- Financial capital
- Human capital
- Symbolic/cultural capital
, - (social capital)
Resources are necessity to guarantee and safeguard living conditions and to attain individual
goals. Social resources are 2nd order resources, they consists no of own resources but the
resources of those one knows.
Important difference between social capital and other forms of capital is the rights of
ownership of social capital are not by one person, yet by at least two persons.
The value of social capital depends on the value of 2 nd order resources and is related to the
costs which would have been made to achieve the goal via/with other resources.
The theory of social capital is in particular important because it gives networks a ‘meaning’.
Individuals are the producers of their own well-being and to produce that well being they
employ their social capital.
People invest in relationships with others while taking expected future benefits into account.
Social capital is based largely on alleged reciprocity.
Social capital can be described in the following dimensions:
- The presence of others
- Their ability to help
- Their willingness to help
- The structure of the network (e.g. the particular position of the local actor ‘ego’)
Community lost vs. community saved?
- Would urbanization/industrialization destroy communities and make them impersonal
and fragmented, or would we finally be able to find networks of likeminded others, in
which we would dwell among friends? Within cities, urban villages could arise im
neighbourhoods.
Or community liberated?
- Separation of workplace, residence and familial kinship groups causes urbanites to
maintain weak ties in multiple community groups that are further weakened by high
rates of residential mobility.
- However, the concentrated number of environments present in the city for interaction
increase the likelihood of individuals developing ‘secondary’ ties, even if they
simultaneously maintain distance from tightly knit communities.
Drouhot (2017) showed that ‘’community liberated’’ is a matter of degree. Not everyone’s
support system resembles this model, either within North America where it was originally
theorized or in other countries
- Both class and national context matter for personal networks being dispersed out of the
neighborhood
Drouhot: “How does variation in urbanization and physical geography at the country level
influence individual-level systems of social support? Do certain formal institutions like the
welfare state or organized religion influence the extent to which personal communities are
liberated?”
We all occupy ‘social fields’ in which we operate, shaped by many factors. We understand
little of how they influence us all combined, so maybe you might want to investigate this in
your papers.
Forms of immigrant integration
- Economic or structural integration = incorporation of immigrants in the education
and job market
- Cultural integration = adoption of the values/customs/language of the receiving
society
- Social integration = contacts between immigrants and natives (‘’interethnic
contacts’’)
Social integration can have implications for the economic and cultural integration of
immigrants:
, Interethnic contacts are a form of social capital (resources, information)
Contacts between immigrants and natives decrease prejudice/conflict and increase social
cohesion
People prefer to interact with other with whom they share certain characteristics:
- Similar cultural resources: similar lifestyle, norms, values, interests, knowledge, religion
- Similar socio-economic position: education, profession, income
- Higher socio-economic position is more desirable in the case of partner/marriage
Homophily is the principle that contact between similar people occurs at a higher rate than
among dissimilar people
- Age, gender (not for marraige1)
- Education, profession and income
- Religion, ethnicity
Even if people have a preference for contact with members of a certain ethnic group, this
contact cannot be established if there is no opportunity to meet them.Social context
determines opportunities for meeting people (casual contacts, friendships, marriages).
And opportunities even might shape preferences: “The larger the sizes of their own group, the
more likely minority members are to have same-race preferences or to exclude other racial
groups. Users living in racially heterogeneous regions have lower levels of racial homophily.”
Opportunities depend on:
1. Immigrant group size in the country
2. Spatial segregation (cities, neighborhoods)
3. Composition of local settings (school, study, work, associations)s
In line with the ideas from focus theory
Third parties can encourage or discourage interaction between immigrants and natives
(family, friends, ethnic)
In line with the ideas from balance theory
Mechanisms:
- Socialization = internalizing norms and values
- Social sanctions = norm violation is punished
General conclusion
- Contexts do make networks
- Preferences matter too, but are more stable and less easily manipulated
- Sociologists’ domain: explaining contextual effects, but using both individual and
contextual reasoning in a theoretical argument is most comprehensive
College 2: How big is our social world?
Complete network = contains egocentric networks on each actor involved. If egocentric
networks are sampled in small (geographical) unit, complete networks may be reconstructed
Advantages?
- Complete network: structural information but often little info on actor and context
- Ego network: context and actor information but little on structure
, Complete Personal
Delineation All relations in a specific Sample of relations in
context different contexts or domains
Respondent Little background information Focus on ego, much
information
Focus Structure Content
Data Case studies Survey research
Popular parameters Centrality, density, Networks: size, composition
betweenness, closeness Relations: multiplexity,
intensity
Popular statistical UCINET, PAJEK, STATNET SPSS, STATA, R
packages
Complete network data and ego network data is used to answer different types of questions
Networks can represent many things
Nodes Edges
Friendship network People Friendships
Co-authorship network Authors Co-authorships
Sexual network People Have had sex together
Movie actor network Actors Acted together in a film
Brain Neurons Synapses and gap junctions
Food web Animals Eats / is eaten by
Metabolic network Chemicals Reactions
Worldwide web Pages Hyperlinks
Email network Email addresses Emails
Power grid Generators, substations Transmission lines
Corporate network Corporations Shared directors / business
‘’It’s a small world’’ = you and someone you just met unexpectedly discover a mutual
friend
Small-world question = if only friends can shake hands, how many handshakes on average
does it minimally take to get from anyone to anyone in the world?
Answer 1: few handshakes
College 1: Do contexts make networks?
Focus theory (macro level, who you have the opportunity to meet) = Who interacts
with whom is not a question of preferences but of extra-individual conditions such as meeting
opportunities and foci for contacts.
- Theory on the supply of contacts; that is essentially sociological
- All those related to a focus tend to form a cluster; loose connections between clusters
are either based on less constraining foci, or not on foci at all
Focus = a social, psychological, legal or physical entity around which joint activities are
organized. Individuals whose activities are organized around the same foci will tend to
become interpersonally tied and form a cluster.
So, if individuals share the same focus they tend to become related to each other. And, when
individuals are related, they tend to create foci to organize their joint activities.
Thus: networks emerge within foci and across foci that are shared by individuals
Controlled for focused interaction, similarity on certain attributes may lead to selective
development of ties. However, structural features determine much more where interaction will
arise.
Characteristics of foci
- Restrictions, such as:
- Degree of forced interactions, time spent, compatibility with other foci
- Size
- Degree of local boundedness
- Degree of which boundaries exist
- Foci can also overlap (e.g. if people work in their neighbourhood)
Balance theory (micro level, individual and preferences)
- A network is balanced if the product of the signs of the relationships is positive
- Therefore: networks have a tendency for closure
- Balance theory start from triads (triadic closure), but more complicated networks are
possible (e.g. tetrads)
When does network closure emerge (or where do new ties form)?
- Balance theory the focal actor strives for cognitive balance
- Focus theory actors become involved in relationships because they share at least
one focus
Focus theory versus balance theory
- Focus theory can be applied to large networks. Balance theory fits best in the analysis
of small networks (triads)
- Focus theory argues for instance that when network members are all in the same focus,
and if this focus is more restrictive, the network members will be more interconnected –
balance theory does not take into account any contextual condition
Without the local bridge, the distance between the -now
connected- nodes would be much larger
Social capital = a theory on the creation of and returns to
relationships
Different forms of capital are resources for individuals for achieving
a good life. These resources are also dimensions of social stratification
- Financial capital
- Human capital
- Symbolic/cultural capital
, - (social capital)
Resources are necessity to guarantee and safeguard living conditions and to attain individual
goals. Social resources are 2nd order resources, they consists no of own resources but the
resources of those one knows.
Important difference between social capital and other forms of capital is the rights of
ownership of social capital are not by one person, yet by at least two persons.
The value of social capital depends on the value of 2 nd order resources and is related to the
costs which would have been made to achieve the goal via/with other resources.
The theory of social capital is in particular important because it gives networks a ‘meaning’.
Individuals are the producers of their own well-being and to produce that well being they
employ their social capital.
People invest in relationships with others while taking expected future benefits into account.
Social capital is based largely on alleged reciprocity.
Social capital can be described in the following dimensions:
- The presence of others
- Their ability to help
- Their willingness to help
- The structure of the network (e.g. the particular position of the local actor ‘ego’)
Community lost vs. community saved?
- Would urbanization/industrialization destroy communities and make them impersonal
and fragmented, or would we finally be able to find networks of likeminded others, in
which we would dwell among friends? Within cities, urban villages could arise im
neighbourhoods.
Or community liberated?
- Separation of workplace, residence and familial kinship groups causes urbanites to
maintain weak ties in multiple community groups that are further weakened by high
rates of residential mobility.
- However, the concentrated number of environments present in the city for interaction
increase the likelihood of individuals developing ‘secondary’ ties, even if they
simultaneously maintain distance from tightly knit communities.
Drouhot (2017) showed that ‘’community liberated’’ is a matter of degree. Not everyone’s
support system resembles this model, either within North America where it was originally
theorized or in other countries
- Both class and national context matter for personal networks being dispersed out of the
neighborhood
Drouhot: “How does variation in urbanization and physical geography at the country level
influence individual-level systems of social support? Do certain formal institutions like the
welfare state or organized religion influence the extent to which personal communities are
liberated?”
We all occupy ‘social fields’ in which we operate, shaped by many factors. We understand
little of how they influence us all combined, so maybe you might want to investigate this in
your papers.
Forms of immigrant integration
- Economic or structural integration = incorporation of immigrants in the education
and job market
- Cultural integration = adoption of the values/customs/language of the receiving
society
- Social integration = contacts between immigrants and natives (‘’interethnic
contacts’’)
Social integration can have implications for the economic and cultural integration of
immigrants:
, Interethnic contacts are a form of social capital (resources, information)
Contacts between immigrants and natives decrease prejudice/conflict and increase social
cohesion
People prefer to interact with other with whom they share certain characteristics:
- Similar cultural resources: similar lifestyle, norms, values, interests, knowledge, religion
- Similar socio-economic position: education, profession, income
- Higher socio-economic position is more desirable in the case of partner/marriage
Homophily is the principle that contact between similar people occurs at a higher rate than
among dissimilar people
- Age, gender (not for marraige1)
- Education, profession and income
- Religion, ethnicity
Even if people have a preference for contact with members of a certain ethnic group, this
contact cannot be established if there is no opportunity to meet them.Social context
determines opportunities for meeting people (casual contacts, friendships, marriages).
And opportunities even might shape preferences: “The larger the sizes of their own group, the
more likely minority members are to have same-race preferences or to exclude other racial
groups. Users living in racially heterogeneous regions have lower levels of racial homophily.”
Opportunities depend on:
1. Immigrant group size in the country
2. Spatial segregation (cities, neighborhoods)
3. Composition of local settings (school, study, work, associations)s
In line with the ideas from focus theory
Third parties can encourage or discourage interaction between immigrants and natives
(family, friends, ethnic)
In line with the ideas from balance theory
Mechanisms:
- Socialization = internalizing norms and values
- Social sanctions = norm violation is punished
General conclusion
- Contexts do make networks
- Preferences matter too, but are more stable and less easily manipulated
- Sociologists’ domain: explaining contextual effects, but using both individual and
contextual reasoning in a theoretical argument is most comprehensive
College 2: How big is our social world?
Complete network = contains egocentric networks on each actor involved. If egocentric
networks are sampled in small (geographical) unit, complete networks may be reconstructed
Advantages?
- Complete network: structural information but often little info on actor and context
- Ego network: context and actor information but little on structure
, Complete Personal
Delineation All relations in a specific Sample of relations in
context different contexts or domains
Respondent Little background information Focus on ego, much
information
Focus Structure Content
Data Case studies Survey research
Popular parameters Centrality, density, Networks: size, composition
betweenness, closeness Relations: multiplexity,
intensity
Popular statistical UCINET, PAJEK, STATNET SPSS, STATA, R
packages
Complete network data and ego network data is used to answer different types of questions
Networks can represent many things
Nodes Edges
Friendship network People Friendships
Co-authorship network Authors Co-authorships
Sexual network People Have had sex together
Movie actor network Actors Acted together in a film
Brain Neurons Synapses and gap junctions
Food web Animals Eats / is eaten by
Metabolic network Chemicals Reactions
Worldwide web Pages Hyperlinks
Email network Email addresses Emails
Power grid Generators, substations Transmission lines
Corporate network Corporations Shared directors / business
‘’It’s a small world’’ = you and someone you just met unexpectedly discover a mutual
friend
Small-world question = if only friends can shake hands, how many handshakes on average
does it minimally take to get from anyone to anyone in the world?
Answer 1: few handshakes
