Good health and the bridging of structural holes

Bridges that span structural holes are often explained in terms of the entrepreneurial personalities or rational motivations of brokers, or structural processes that lead to the intersection of social foci. I argue that the existence and use of bridges in interpersonal networks also depends on individuals’ health. Poor health may make it more difficult to withstand the pressures and to execute some of the common tasks associated with bridging (e.g., brokerage). I examine this possibility using egocentric network data on over 2500 older adults drawn from the recent National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP). Multivariate regression analyses show that both cognitive and functional health are significantly positively associated with bridging, net of sociodemographic and life-course controls. The relationship between functional (kinesthetic) health and bridging appears to be partially mediated by network composition, as older adults who have poorer functional health also tend to have networks that are richer in strong ties. Several potential mediation mechanisms are discussed. Cognitive function remains significantly associated with bridging net of network composition, suggesting that the inherent challenges of maintaining bridging positions may be more difficult to cope with for those who have cognitive impairments than for those who have functional impairments such as limited mobility. An alternative explanation is that cognitively impaired individuals have more difficulty recognizing (and thus strategically using) bridges in their networks. Theoretical implications and possibilities for future research are discussed.     

How social exclusion distorts social network perceptions

In two studies we investigate whether social exclusion—a well-studied, common and quite painful social experience-influences people's perceptions of novel social networks. In a first study, exclusion experiences led people to report that novel networks were more dense relative to those who had not been excluded. As predicted, this was true only for social networks; exclusion had no impact on perceptions when networks were described as geographical. In a follow-up experiment, participants watched a custom-created video, depicting avatars interacting in social scenes and they were asked to report the ties among the avatars in the video. Exclusion experiences led people to see network ties where none exist (i.e., false positives), though there was no effect for exclusion (versus inclusion) on reports of false negatives. Results indicate that common social experiences systematically shape network perceptions, leading people to seeing novel social networks as more densely connected than they are.     

Early social exposure and later affiliation processes within an evolving social network

BackgroundWhile short-term experiments have found that exposure to social contacts affects likeability, this study investigates its long-term effects on friendships in an emerging network.MethodsOne hundred psychology freshmen indicated whether they attended an introductory event before the start of the academic year to assess early exposure and reported on the friendships they formed with their peers at the beginning, middle, and end of their first semester.ResultsRSiena network models revealed that students taking part in the introductory event were more likely to form friendships throughout the first semester, but less likely to keep them.DiscussionWhile early exposure to people in an emerging network might provide a head start for forming friendships for at least a semester, these friendships appear less stable than those of students who did not have that exposure.     

Neighborhood conditions and social network turnover among older adults

Increasing research highlights heterogeneity in patterns of social network change, with growing evidence that these patterns are shaped in part by social structure. The role of social and structural neighborhood conditions in the addition and loss of kin and non-kin network members, however, has not been fully considered. In this paper, we argue that the residential neighborhood context can either facilitate or prevent the turnover of core network relationships in later life – a period of the life course characterized by heightened reliance on network ties and vulnerability to neighborhood conditions. Using longitudinal data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project linked with data from the American Community Survey, we find that higher levels of neighborhood concentrated disadvantage are associated with the loss of older adults’ kin and non-kin network members over time. Higher levels of perceived neighborhood social interaction, however, are associated with higher rates of adding non-kin network members and lower rates of adding kin network members over time. We suggest that neighborhood conditions, including older adults’ perceptions of neighborhood social life, represent an underexplored influence on kin and non-kin social network dynamics, which could have implications for access to social resources later in the life course.     

Moral bureaucracies and social network research

In the wake of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), research ethics governance does not just affect the ethical dimensions of social research but also the range of scientific decisions available to researchers. Because of the sensitive status of personal data and the aversion to even minimal risk by what we call “moral bureaucracies”, we are concerned that social network researchers will increasingly limit their research decisions to “safe” options, like reusing anonymized datasets, choosing target populations based on convenience rather than theoretical relevance, and routinely subcontracting fieldwork to professional data collection companies, among others. We also suggest that scientific associations and social scientists in general need to adopt a proactive role in preserving both scientific freedom and genuine ethics advice within this new regulatory framework.     

Enhancing community capacity: Roles of perceived bonding and bridging social capital and public relations in community building

This study examined whether two types of perceived social capital – bonding and bridging – can affect individuals’ belief in community capacity in the context of a corporate community relations program to develop rural areas in South Korea. The results of the study's Web survey showed that perceived community capacity to resolve problems was significantly affected by their perception of both bonding and bridging social capital. The findings suggest that social capital serves as a mechanism that can foster community capacity through norms of interaction, reciprocity, and trust as aspects of civil society.     

An agent-based model of network effects on tax compliance and evasion

Agent-based models are flexible analytical tools suitable for exploring and understanding complex systems such as tax compliance and evasion. The agent-based model created in this research builds upon two other agent-based models of tax evasion, the Korobow et al., 2007, Hokamp and Pickhardt, 2010 models. The model utilizes their rules for taxpayer behavior and apprehension of tax evaders in order to test the effects of network topologies in the propagation of evasive behavior. Findings include that network structures have a significant impact on the dynamics of tax compliance, demonstrating that taxpayers are more likely to declare all their income in networks with higher levels of centrality across the agents, especially when faced with large penalties proportional to their incomes. These results suggest that network structures should be chosen selectively when modeling tax compliance, as different topologies yield different results. Additionally, this research analyzed the special case of a power law distribution and found that targeting highly interconnected individuals resulted in a lower mean gross tax rate than targeting disconnected individuals, due to the penalties inflating the mean gross tax rate in the latter case.     

Through a glass darkly: Chronic illness in the therapist

This paper is about doing psychotherapy while suffering from a chronic illness. The purpose is to describe the manner in which ongoing irreversible pain integrates itself into the life of any human being, but specifically that of the therapist. The process of weaving the experience into the life narrative and in turn the therapeutic narrative is explored.     

Empathic people have more friends: Empathic abilities predict social network size and position in social network predicts empathic efforts

Living in large groups and maintaining extensive social relationships, as humans do, requires special social capabilities. Past research has shown that social cognitive abilities predict people’s social network size. To extend these findings we explored the role of a social emotional ability, and investigated how empathic abilities shape people’s social network. In line with the social brain hypothesis the findings show that dispositional empathic abilities (IRI), and empathic concern specifically, predict how many close relationships people maintain. The study also found that emphatic abilities are strategically used in people’s social network, with more empathy exercised in the support group with closer relationships. The findings further demonstrate the social function of empathy and highlight the importance of understanding empathy in terms of its strategic exercise among various social relationships.     

A comparative study of social network models: Network evolution models and nodal attribute models

This paper reviews, classifies and compares recent models for social networks that have mainly been published within the physics-oriented complex networks literature. The models fall into two categories: those in which the addition of new links is dependent on the (typically local) network structure (network evolution models, NEMs), and those in which links are generated based only on nodal attributes (nodal attribute models, NAMs). An exponential random graph model (ERGM) with structural dependencies is included for comparison. We fit models from each of these categories to two empirical acquaintance networks with respect to basic network properties. We compare higher order structures in the resulting networks with those in the data, with the aim of determining which models produce the most realistic network structure with respect to degree distributions, assortativity, clustering spectra, geodesic path distributions, and community structure (subgroups with dense internal connections). We find that the nodal attribute models successfully produce assortative networks and very clear community structure. However, they generate unrealistic clustering spectra and peaked degree distributions that do not match empirical data on large social networks. On the other hand, many of the network evolution models produce degree distributions and clustering spectra that agree more closely with data. They also generate assortative networks and community structure, although often not to the same extent as in the data. The ERGM model, which turned out to be near-degenerate in the parameter region best fitting our data, produces the weakest community structure.     

Trust and social capital in the regulation of lending activities

When a bank grants a loan, it takes the risk that the borrower will not honor his debt. To reduce this uncertainty, banks have created instrumental evaluation methods in order to try to evaluate the risk more objectively. An analysis of financial counselors’ practices shows the limits of these methods. To obtain information needed for the financial risk evaluation and to reduce the information asymmetry between bankers and borrowers, financial counselors integrate social networks to establish bonds of trust and to accumulate social capital. The quality of the social bond determines the quality of the gathered information and therefore the quality of the risk evaluation. Bank management is aware of the limits of instrumental methods and the importance of social risk evaluation. To improve their economic efficiency, they modify their work organization and their management practices so as to facilitate the emergence of a bond of trust and the accumulation of social capital by their financial counselors. The analysis of economic actors’ speech and behavior involved in activities of credit shows that behind the claimed altruism nature of the trust relationship exists an economic rationality whose social and temporal horizons of optimization differ from the model of the trade exchange seen in conventional economic theory.     

Estimating network structure via random sampling: Cognitive social structures and the adaptive threshold method

This paper introduces and tests a novel methodology for measuring networks. Rather than collecting data to observe a network or several networks in full, which is typically costly or impossible, we randomly sample a portion of individuals in the network and estimate the network based on the sampled individuals’ perceptions on all possible ties. We find the methodology produces accurate estimates of social structure and network level indices in five different datasets. In order to illustrate the performance of our approach we compare its results with the traditional roster and ego network methods of data collection. Across all five datasets, our methodology outperforms these standard social network data collection methods. We offer ideas on applications of our methodology, and find it especially promising in cross-network settings.     

Structural holes and bridging in two-mode networks

Social networks are often structured in such a way that there are gaps, or “structural holes,” between regions. Some actors are in the position to bridge or span these gaps, giving rise to individual advantages relating to brokerage, gatekeeping, access to non-redundant contacts, and control over network flows. The most widely used measures of a given actor’s bridging potential gauge the extent to which that actor is directly connected to others who are otherwise not well connected to each other. Unfortunately, the measures that have been developed to identify structural holes cannot be adapted directly to two-mode networks, like individual-to-organization networks. In two-mode networks, direct contacts cannot be directly connected to each other by definition, making the calculation of redundancy, effective size, and constraint impossible with conventional one-mode methods. We therefore describe a new framework for the measurement of bridging in two-mode networks that hinges on the mathematical concept of the intersection of sets. An actor in a given node class (“ego”) has bridging potential to the extent that s/he is connected to actors in the opposite node class that have unique profiles of connections to actors in ego’s own node class. We review the relevant literature pertaining to structural holes in two-mode networks, and we compare our primary bridging measure (effective size) to measures of bridging that result when using one-mode projections of two-mode data. We demonstrate the results of applying our approach to empirical data on the organizational affiliations of elites in a large U.S. city.     

Narrative foreclosure in later life: Preliminary considerations for a new sensitizing concept

The objective of the paper is to explore narrative foreclosure as a sensitizing concept for studying the ways in which narrative identity development falters in later life. Two main characters in famous movies are contrasted to provide a better understanding of narrative foreclosure. The concept is further clarified by discussing similarities and differences with other theories about lifespan identity development. Last, the concept is related to theories in social gerontology to provide a better understanding of narrative foreclosure in later life.It is concluded that narrative foreclosure can be defined as the conviction that no new interpretations of one's past nor new commitments and experiences in one's future are possible that can substantially change one's life-story. In terms of the metaphor of a book, one is not only convinced about its ending and does not add new chapters anymore, but also refrains from enjoying, rewriting, and editing earlier chapters. Several interpersonal–social and structural–ideological factors are identified that promote narrative foreclosure in later life.Finally it is discussed that the narrative study of later life and of narrative foreclosure in particular, should be conducted in an interdisciplinary framework. Narrative foreclosure only exists within a certain constellation of personal, social, and societal characteristics, drawn together in a mutually dependent system.     

Language variation on Internet Relay Chat: A social network approach

This paper examines linguistic variation on an Internet Relay Chat channel with respect to the hypothesis, based on the model of Milroy and Milroy (1992), that standard variants tend to be associated with weak social network ties, while vernacular variants are associated with strong network ties. An analysis of frequency of contact as a measure of tie strength reveals a structured relationship between tie strength and several linguistic variants. However, the variant features are associated with social positions in a way that does not correlate neatly with tie strength. An account of these results is proposed in terms of the social functions of the different variables and the larger social context of IRC affecting tie strength.     

Authoring aging: Personal and social constructions

The aim of this paper is to set out some of the context for the journey I have taken as a gerontologist, reflecting both on some of the decisive “turning points” and the links between personal and social constructions of aging. Along the way, the paper examines some questions about the relationship between analytical and biographical themes. The article reviews the various influences affecting my approach to issues about aging, and the contribution of these to my own thinking about critical gerontology. The latter I see as having a long gestation within my own maturing as a gerontologist, following engagement with debates in sociology and social policy. The article identifies a number of important actors and institutions that have shaped my understanding of the social, economic and political relationships underpinning old age.     

The subjective dimension of social isolation: A qualitative investigation of older adults' experiences in small social support networks

In the aging literature, social isolation has been primarily defined in terms of reduced support network size and low frequency of social contacts. Having a small social support network is associated with social isolation and an increased risk of physical and emotional vulnerability. However, this conceptualization ignores the contributions of a host of other factors, including life experiences, family dynamics, and long-term patterns of socialization. This paper argues that alongside quantitative assessments of support systems, the application of a life course perspective is needed to understand small social networks as lived experience. We report on findings from 28 in-depth interviews with older adults identified as being at risk of social isolation on the basis of the self-reported size of their social networks. We discuss these participants' experiences in the context of significant life course transitions such as marriage and widowhood.     

Attitudes and knowledge of social work students towards sexuality in later life

Background: Sexuality in later life may be compromised by restrictive attitudes, and lack of knowledge among professionals. This study examined social work students’ attitudes and knowledge towards sexuality and sexual expression in later life and investigated associated factors.

Method: Undergraduate social work students from Israel (n = 375) completed the Attitudes and Knowledge towards Older Adult’s Sexuality Scale and questionnaires regarding contacts and exposure to older adults, prior sexual education and sociodemographic.

Results: Attitudes and knowledge were correlated. First year students were the most conservative and demonstrated the least knowledge. No differences were found between men and women regarding attitude. However, men and married students had greater knowledge regarding older adults’ sexuality than women or non-married students did. Increased religious observance predicted more conservative attitudes. Age predicted more permissive attitudes and greater knowledge about sexuality in later life. A mediating process examined, suggested knowledge is a mediator variable between age and attitudes towards older adults’ sexuality.

Conclusion: As the population in Israel and in Western countries ages, it is important to examine the knowledge and attitudes of social work students regarding older adults’ sexuality and to develop educational and interventional programs aimed at increasing awareness, knowledge, and positive attitudes in this area.