Beyond Dyads and Triads: A Comparison of Tetrads in Twenty Social Networks

2020 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 383-404
Author(s):  
Cassie McMillan ◽  
Diane Felmlee

Social psychologists focus on the microlevel features that define interaction, often attending to dyads and triads. We argue that there also is utility in studying how configurations of four actors, or tetrads, pattern our social world. The current project considers the prevalence of directed tetrads across twenty social networks representing five relationship types (friendship, legislative co-sponsorship, Twitter, advice seeking, and email). By comparing these observed networks to randomly generated conditional networks, we identify tetrads that occur more frequently than expected, or network motifs. In all twenty networks, we find evidence for six tetrad motifs that collectively highlight tendencies toward hierarchy, clustering, and bridging in social interaction. Variations across network genres also emerge, suggesting that unique tetrad structural signatures could define different types of interaction.

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
AMY N. BUSH ◽  
ALICIA M. WALKER ◽  
BREA L. PERRY

AbstractDespite the growing potential for multiplexity in our complex social world, social network methodology often does not adequately capture this phenomenon. Most commonly in research on egocentric social networks, when respondent designate a tie as both family member and friend, the tendency is to default to “family” prior to aggregation for analysis, potentially ignoring important and meaningful variation. As a result, relatively little is known about multiplexity in personal social networks, and particularly about individuals who are simultaneously kin and friends. To address this gap, we assess the rate of occurrence of kinship/friendship multiplexity, and examine characteristics of alters nominated as friends and kin in comparison to those with unidimensional functionality. We find that this kind of multiplexity is fairly common–comprising about one-fifth of kinship ties and one-fourth of friendship ties. Moreover, cross–listed alters are significantly different from those characterized in one function, serving in greater capacity in terms of provision of support, frequency of contact, closeness, and as resources for discussion of important matters. Our findings underscore the critical need to appropriately classify multiplex kinship/friendship ties to avoid making incorrect inferences about support processes and their effects on outcomes across different relationship types.


Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 492
Author(s):  
Valentina Y. Guleva ◽  
Polina O. Andreeva ◽  
Danila A. Vaganov

Finding the building blocks of real-world networks contributes to the understanding of their formation process and related dynamical processes, which is related to prediction and control tasks. We explore different types of social networks, demonstrating high structural variability, and aim to extract and see their minimal building blocks, which are able to reproduce supergraph structural and dynamical properties, so as to be appropriate for diffusion prediction for the whole graph on the base of its small subgraph. For this purpose, we determine topological and functional formal criteria and explore sampling techniques. Using the method that provides the best correspondence to both criteria, we explore the building blocks of interest networks. The best sampling method allows one to extract subgraphs of optimal 30 nodes, which reproduce path lengths, clustering, and degree particularities of an initial graph. The extracted subgraphs are different for the considered interest networks, and provide interesting material for the global dynamics exploration on the mesoscale base.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Paul A. Potrac ◽  
Edward T. Hall ◽  
Adam J. Nichol

This interpretive study provides original insights into the socioemotional experiences that contributed to referee attrition in English grassroots football. Data were generated using an online survey (n = 251) and in-depth interviews (n = 20) with former referees. Using complementary symbolic interactionist and relational conceptualizations of identity, social interaction, and emotional pain, the analysis addressed the participants’ interpretations of their problematic encounters with the various significant others (e.g., coaches, managers, players, spectators, and administrators) that comprised their respective social networks in grassroots football. Importantly, the participants described several emotionally painful issues related to match day environments, disciplinary proceedings, and deployment and development processes that simultaneously coexisted alongside and exacerbated one another. The findings present important implications for those individuals and governing bodies who are responsible for referee retention.


2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (5) ◽  
pp. 683-695 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chuanming Yu ◽  
Xiaoli Zhao ◽  
Lu An ◽  
Xia Lin

With the rapid development of the Internet, the computational analysis of social networks has grown to be a salient issue. Various research analyses social network topics, and a considerable amount of attention has been devoted to the issue of link prediction. Link prediction aims to predict the interactions that might occur between two entities in the network. To this aim, this study proposed a novel path and node combined approach and constructed a methodology for measuring node similarities. The method was illustrated with five real datasets obtained from different types of social networks. An extensive comparison of the proposed method against existing link prediction algorithms was performed to demonstrate that the path and node combined approach achieved much higher mean average precision (MAP) and area under the curve (AUC) values than those that only consider common nodes (e.g. Common Neighbours and Adamic/Adar) or paths (e.g. Random Walk with Restart and FriendLink). The results imply that two nodes are more likely to establish a link if they have more common neighbours of lower degrees. The weight of the path connecting two nodes is inversely proportional to the product of degrees of nodes on the pathway. The combination of node and topological features can substantially improve the performance of similarity-based link prediction, compared with node-dependent and path-dependent approaches. The experiments also demonstrate that the path-dependent approaches outperform the node-dependent appraoches. This indicates that topological features of networks may contribute more to improving performance than node features.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seonjeong Ally Lee ◽  
Minwoo Lee

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate different types of customer relationships on customers’ interaction with the brand, based on prior social media and relationship marketing research. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional, self-administered online survey was conducted to investigate the role of different types of relationships on customers’ brand-relevant responses in the context of hotel social media platforms. Findings Results identified customers’ relationships with services and brands, and how other customers influenced their parasocial interactions (PSIs). Customers’ PSIs then positively influenced their self-brand connection and their brand usage intention. Originality/value This study was the first attempt to propose a conceptual framework to explain different types of customer relationships on customers’ interactions with the brand in the context of hotel social media platforms.


Author(s):  
Ana F. Abraído-Lanza ◽  
Karen R. Flórez ◽  
Rachel C. Shelton

Despite the many health benefits of physical activity (PA), the majority of Latinos do not meet recommended levels of PA. This chapter provides an overview of research on acculturation and PA among adult Latinos in the United States. It identifies gaps in knowledge concerning the association between acculturation and different types of PA, the joint effects of socioeconomic position and acculturation on PA, and research on gender. It suggests several areas for further research related to acculturation and PA, including an exploration of norms, social networks, and broader social contexts. It concludes that although the bulk of evidence indicates that greater acculturation is associated with increased PA, more complex research designs and greater methodological and conceptual rigor are needed to move forward research in this area.


2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 24-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.V. Shamne

We analyze the results of empirical operationalization of options (types) of psychosocial development in adolescent age. We studied a large sample of adolescents and young adults of 12-20 years (N = 1130, 48% male) from different strata of the urban and rural (17%) Ukrainian population (students of secondary, vocational, technical and higher education). We used the author’s method “Psychosocial Questionnaire”. Data were analyzed with K-means cluster analysis. We identified and analyzed five clusters (“internal”, “dominant”, “integrated”, “addict”, “aloof”), which represent individually typical features of modern youth psychosocial transition to a state of maturity. Clusters (types) were also analyzed with the following criteria: 1) productive / prosperous and non¬productive / dysfunctional types of psycho-social development; 2) psychosocial integration / adaptation and disintegration / maladaptation in the social world. We revealed the tasks and conditions of effective psychological support of the youth (correction zone) with different types of psycho-social development.


Author(s):  
John K Young

Abstract Eurie Dahn’s Jim Crow Networks (2021) and E. James West’s Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr. (2020) offer compelling examples of the two main literary historical approaches to periodical studies: A survey of several different types of magazines in relation to the social networks through which they were produced, distributed, and read, and a deep dive into the editorial orientation of a particular magazine, as shaped by a dominant individual presence. Both studies present detailed accounts of how these periodicals’ publics and counterpublics resisted (and sometimes reinforced) prevailing conceptions of racialized identity at important points in the twentieth century. But the material circumstances of those productions risk being misrepresented by the model of the network, so this review essay argues for the Bakhtinian chronotope as a more expressive metaphor for the temporal dimension of the magazine experience. This approach enables a more fully historicist understanding of how the various important literary figures represented here were perceived by their original periodical readers.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document