Exploring the role of network diversity and resources in relationship to generalized trust in Norway

Several studies suggest a positive relationship between social capital and generalized trust. Employing a network understanding of social capital (Lin, 2001), this study questions which aspects of social networks may be linked with generalized trust. It investigates whether the diversity of social networks and the socio-economic status of one’s contacts are linked with generalized trust in the Norwegian, egalitarian context. The analyses examine these patterns in relationship to both kin and non-kin contacts. The study employs data from the first Norwegian survey that includes the position generator (PG). The empirical analyses show that extensive social networks are indeed linked to higher levels of generalized trust, but that this relationship is limited to non-kin contacts. Concerning the link between network resources and generalized trust, there is evidence of a more general association with generalized trust that holds when considering both kin and non-kin contacts. These results are a first step in developing a more nuanced discussion of the mechanisms associated with generalized trust and highlight the importance of employing measures that account for the homophily of networks when investigating their relationship to trust.     

Question-order effects in social network name generators

Social network surveys are an important tool for empirical research in a variety of fields, including the study of social capital and the evaluation of educational and social policy. A growing body of methodological research sheds light on the validity and reliability of social network survey data regarding a single relation, but much less attention has been paid to the measurement of multiplex networks and the validity of comparisons among criterion relations. In this paper, we identify ways that surveys designed to collect multiplex social network data might be vulnerable to question-order effects. We then test several hypotheses using a split-ballot experiment embedded in an online multiple name generator survey of teachers’ advice networks, collected for a study of complete networks. We conclude by discussing implications for the design of multiple name generator social network surveys.     

Class inequalities in access to social capital in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires

this paper analyzes social class inequalities in access to social capital. Quantitative methodology was used with data from the PI-Clases “Reproduction and social mobility in family trajectories and life courses” survey, conducted in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires in 2015 (n = 1065). Social capital measures where derived from the Position Generator (Lin, 2001) to identify the volume, status and range of the respondent’s networks. Results show that there are class inequalities in access to social capital in terms of the number of contacts, mean status of contacts, range of contact’s status and highest status of contacts. Also, the working class is more heterogeneous in its access to social capital, suggesting it has a sector that has network ties with people from the middle class and a sector with lower social capital. The observed trend is of gradational differences between class strata, with more marked inequalities between the service, intermediate and working class, but with fluid class boundaries without social segregation. Also, social capital is conditioned by intergenerational mobility trajectory, showing a trend of elasticity in the class composition of social relationships. The upwardly mobile can increase their access to social capital but don’t reach the same level as the intergenerationally stable, while the downwardly mobile retain some social capital from their class origins.     

More or less guanxi: Trust is 60% network context, 10% individual difference

The strong ties known in China as guanxi can be distinguished by a high level of trust relatively independent of the surrounding social structure. Using network data from a stratified probability sample of 700 entrepreneurs citing 4664 contacts, we study guanxi relative to other relations to learn how much individual differences such as well-being, business differences, political participation and demographic factors matter for the guanxi distinction. Two findings stand out: First, the connection between trust and social network is robust to most differences between individuals, especially business and political differences. Trust variance is 60% network context, and 10% individual differences. Trust increases within a relationship as network closure increases around the relationship, but some relationships mature into guanxi ties within which trust is high and relatively independent of the surrounding social structure. Second, when individual differences matter, they concern social isolation. Guanxi ties are more distinct in the networks around entrepreneurs with small, marginal families, and around those with small, closed networks. Both categories of entrepreneurs are likely to experience difficulties with respect to resource access and doing business with people beyond their network, which may explain why longstanding guanxi ties linked to important events are particularly distinct for these entrepreneurs.     

The content of the General Social Survey discussion networks: an exploration of General Social Survey discussion name generator in a Chinese context

This study focuses on the discussion network name generator used in the 1985 General Social Survey (GSS). Based on the data from a Chinese survey, it explores the content of the discussion networks by examining the overlapping of names generated by the GSS discussion name generator and the exchange name generators. It finds that the GSS discussion question has generated a range of social ties, which accounts for an important part of a Chinese personal network. Specifically, the people with whom the Chinese respondents discussed important matters are also likely to spend leisure time with the respondents and to be the confidants for personal matters. Some of them are expected to offer substantial help or to possess important social resources; however, they are least involved in what are considered family affairs.     

From attitudes to social networks: National gender-role attitudes and gender differences in late-life social relationships

Studies often find gender differences in social networks in later life, but are these findings universal, or do they differ in various cultural contexts? To address this research gap, the current study examines the association between gender differences in social relationships and country-level gender-role attitudes. We combined data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) of individuals aged 50 years and older with country-level data on gender-role attitudes from the European Values Survey (EVS) for 15 European countries. We estimated a series of multivariate hierarchical regression models that predicted the size of the personal social network, its emotional closeness, and the proportion of the spouse, children, and friends in the network. The results indicated gender differences in social network characteristics. Women reported larger social networks and were more likely to have larger proportions of children and friends but smaller proportions of the spouse in their social networks. The magnitude of gender differences was associated with country-level gender-role attitudes. In countries with more egalitarian gender-role attitudes, women had larger networks with a larger proportion of friends compared to men. In countries with more traditional gender-role attitudes, women had larger proportions of their children and spouse in their social networks and had emotionally closer networks. Our findings suggest that the societal context and opportunity structures for social interactions play an important role in shaping the structure of women’s and men’s social relationships in later life.     

Social networks and getting a home: Do contacts matter?

Under what conditions does one find a new home via one's social network? Does the way in which a house is acquired affect how satisfied one is with the house? We formulate hypotheses on the characteristics of personal networks, the context of the move and their effect on those who attain a house through informal channels and how satisfied they are with the new home. We use a representative dataset from the Netherlands (the Survey of the Social Networks of the Dutch, SSND, n = 1007) to test our arguments. Our results show that buyers with more diverse social networks and renters with larger social networks are more likely to find their home via social contacts. However, finding a home through an informal channel does not enhance their satisfaction with the house that is found.     

The determinants of heroin flows in Europe: A latent space approach

This study utilises recent advances in statistical models for social networks to identify the factors shaping heroin trafficking in relation to European countries. First, it estimates the size of the heroin flows among a network of 61 countries, before subsequently using a latent space approach to model the presence of trafficking and the amount of heroin traded between any two given countries. Many networks, such as trade networks, are intrinsically weighted, and ignoring edge weights results in a loss of relevant information. Traditionally, the gravity model has been used to predict legal trade flows, assuming conditional independence among observations. More recently, latent space position models for social networks have been used to analyze legal trade among countries, and, mutatis mutandis, can be applied to the context of illegal trade to count both edge weights and conditional dependence among observations. These models allow for a better understanding of the generative processes and potential evolution of heroin trafficking routes. This study shows that geographical and social proximity provide fertile ground for the formation of heroin flows. Opportunities are also a driver of drug flows towards countries where regulation of corruption is weak.     

Are respondents more likely to list alters with certain characteristics?: Implications for name generator data

Analyses of egocentric networks make the implicit assumption that the list of alters elicited by name generators is a complete list or representative sample of relevant alters. Based on the literature on free recall tasks and the organization of people in memory, I hypothesize that respondents presented with a name generator are more likely to name alters with whom they share stronger ties, alters who are more connected within the network, and alters with whom they interact in more settings. I conduct a survey that presents respondents with the GSS name generator and then prompts them to remember other relevant alters whom they have not yet listed. By comparing the alters elicited before and after prompts I find support for the first two hypotheses. I then go on to compare network-level measures calculated with the alters elicited by the name generator to the same measures calculated with data from all alters. These measures are not well correlated. Furthermore, the degree of underestimation of network size is related to the networks’ mean closeness, density, and mean duration of relationships. Higher values on these variables result in more accurate estimation of network size. This suggests that measures of egocentric network properties based on data collected using a single name generator may have high levels of measurement error, possibly resulting in misestimation of how these network properties relate to other variables.     

Interpretation and interview context: examining the General Social Survey name generator using cognitive methods

This paper reports on a small (N=50) study of how survey respondents interpret the General Social Survey (GSS)'s “discuss important matters” name generator. The study involved concurrent think-aloud interviews, in which respondents were debriefed about their thought processes immediately after answering the name generator. Analyses of these responses indicate that some respondents had difficulty in specifying what was meant by the term “important matters”; sizable minorities understood the question in terms of frequency of contact or intimacy rather than in terms of specific social exchanges. Most of those interviewed said that their “important matters” had to do with personal/intimate relationships or other issues of personal life (e.g., finances, hobbies, or health), but appreciable numbers referred to work and political discussions. An interview context experiment revealed that a respondent's definition of “important matters” can be shaped by the substantive content of the preceding parts of an interview schedule. Notwithstanding these findings, the composition of the networks elicited in the study does not appear to vary substantially across interpretations of the name generator. We conclude that the name generator succeeds in measuring “core” discussion networks, though with somewhat nonspecific content. Implications for the measurement of personal networks in sample surveys are discussed.     

Name generation in interpersonal political network data: Results from a series of experiments

We present results from three large scale survey experiments focused on the manipulation of political name generators. Using syntax that is widely employed outside of political science, we generate interpersonal political network data by varying the roles of alters, the time horizons of relationships, and the specific political nature of social exchanges. Across varying samples and electoral environments, we look for differences in these conditions on a wide range of common interpersonal network items, assess latency data on these treatments, and employ more detailed information on named discussants than most existing political ego-centric studies. We evaluate how well the now standard “compound” political name generator captures interpersonal political networks, finding that it does quite well save a few items of significant political importance. We discuss the implications of this research agenda for theories of social influence and the study of disagreement in democratic politics.     

The social networks of new-generation migrants in China’s urbanized villages: A case study of Guangzhou

The integration of rural migrants into China’s urban society has drawn extensive attention in recent years. There are, however, a growing number of new-generation migrants whose prospects of integration cannot be gleaned from the experience of their predecessors—the old-generation migrants. The reconstruction of migrant network is a lens through which one can examine the extent and pattern of their integration. In this paper, using quantitative data derived from a survey of eight urbanized villages in Guangzhou, we examine the socio-spatial pattern of migrant networks and the role of receiving neighborhoods in social interactions, with a focus on inter-generational differences. The findings show that new-generation migrants are more likely to draw on cross-class, non-kin, and non-territorial networks when seeking social support, but that hometown-based bonds and the urbanite-migrant divisions remain central to their social networks. For the role of receiving neighborhoods, although new-generation migrants have weak neighborly interactions, they construct numerous colleagues and friendship ties that transcend the boundaries of neighborhoods. Moreover, educational attainment, income level, and occupation structure are important determinants of the nature of new-generation migrant networks. The results suggest that generational factors should be highly considered when studying the integration of migrants into Chinese urban society. Accordingly, the integration of migrants into the urban society will be a conflictual and contradictory process.     

Measuring personal networks with daily contacts: a single-item survey question and the contact diary

This paper examines two extreme approaches that are alternatives to measure egocentric networks with network generators. The single-item approach to measure daily contacts differentiates the individuals effectively, corresponds closely with complex network measures, and reveals well how individuals vary in both expressive and instrumental returns, as supported by 14 large-scale probability surveys from three Chinese societies over a decade. This paper also draws upon three sets of sophisticated contact diaries, which yielded rich data about the circumstance of each contact, the alter's characteristics and the ego–alter relationship. Along with the diary approach, which offers sophisticated data about contacts, ties and networks, the single-item survey approach is another extreme yet straightforward measure of daily contacts.     

Using Trellis software to enhance high-quality large-scale network data collection in the field

Trellis is a mobile platform created by the Human Nature Lab at the Yale Institute for Network Science to collect high-quality, location-aware, off-line/online, multi-lingual, multi-relational social network and behavior data in hard-to-reach communities. Respondents use Trellis to identify their social contacts by name and photograph, a procedure especially useful in low-literacy populations or in contexts where names may be similar or confusing. We use social network data collected from 1,969 adult respondents in two villages in Kenya to demonstrate Trellis’ ability to provide unprecedented metadata to monitor and report on the data collection process including artifactual variability based on surveyors, time of day, or location.     

Eliciting representative samples of personal networks

In this paper we introduce and evaluate a method for eliciting a representative sample of total personal networks. First names were used as a cue to elicit a sample of 14 alters from 712 respondents through a telephone interview. Network characteristics for each respondent were calculated as averages and proportions across the 14 alters. These were compared to other studies using more specialized network generators. Our method produced results which are logically consistent with those expected from a generator that elicits a sample from the total rather than a specialized subset of the total network. The proportions of kin relations, average tie strength and frequency of contacts are found to be lower than network generators designed to elicit networks of social support. Given our conclusion that the sample is representative of the total network, we examine the varying characteristics of respondents and their networks based on the domination of a particular relation type in their network. This analysis provides answers to such questions as ‘What characteristics of respondents account for the proportion of family relations in their network?‘ and ‘What are the similarities between respondents whose networks are made up of mostly work-related relations?’     

Reconsidering “community liberated”: How class and the national context shape personal support networks

The “community liberated” thesis has been influential in describing contemporary social support systems. Specifically, “community liberated” argues that people do not seek support in their immediate neighborhood but rather entertain a network of far-flung ties to support-providing alters. This paper uses personal network data from six countries – Australia, Germany, the US, Austria, Hungary and Italy – to evaluate this argument and shows that the degree of liberation of one's community is strongly linked to one's socioeconomic status – specifically, one's education level. Additionally, we describe strong country-level heterogeneity in the spatial dynamics of personal support networks and find national contexts to be moderating the effect of education on community liberation, especially in Italy and Hungary, thus suggesting network geographic dispersion to be linked to national economic structures and labor markets. The paper thus elucidates the effect of two different, yet related social contexts on personal networks: the class context and the national context.     

Collecting peer data and delineating peer networks in a complete network

This paper outlines a method for collecting accurate ‘peer’ data by using two name generator and 13 name interpreter questions to collect ‘friend’ and ‘pal’ data from teenagers. The ‘peer’ data are then used to identify the complete network and to delineate the naturally existing peer networks in it. The findings suggest that the concept ‘friend’ should not be avoided when collecting ‘friend’ data.     

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.     

Network items and the general social survey

This is an argument for obtaining network data in the General Social Survey (GSS). The proposal requires a discussion of how and why at least minimal network data ought to be obtained in a probability sample survey of attitudes and behaviors.I begin with general concerns; briefly describing the proposal, available experience with the proposed items in large probability samples, how the proposed items are different from existing GSS items, kinds of variables that the proposed items would generate, and kinds of research questions that could be addressed if the proposed items were included in the GSS.I then address comparatively focused questions likely to arise in deliberations over the proposal; explaining how much interview time the proposed items are expected to require, why one rather than multiple name generators are proposed, why recording five alters is proposed, why intimacy is proposed as the name generator criterion content, why a short form is proposed for obtaining formal data, how priorities among name interpreter attribute items were established, how the proposed items elicit data on the strength and content of relationships, and how the proposed data might be coded for easy access by GSS users.     

Social network structure and the trade-off between social utility and economic performance

We put forward a computational multi-agent model capturing the impact of social network structure on individuals’ social trust, willingness to cooperate, social utility and economic performance. Social network structure is modeled as four distinct social capital dimensions: degree, centrality, bridging and bonding social capital. Model setup draws from socio-economic theory and empirical findings based on our novel survey dataset. Results include aggregate-level comparative statics and individual-level correlations. We find, inter alia, that societies that either are better connected, exhibit a lower frequency of local cliques, or have a smaller share of family-based cliques, record relatively better aggregate economic performance. As long as family ties are sufficiently valuable, there is a trade-off between aggregate social utility and economic performance, and small world networks are then socially optimal. We also find that in dense networks and trustful societies, there is a trade-off between individual social utility and economic performance; otherwise both outcomes are positively correlated in the cross section.