Female Connectors in Social Networks: Catharine Minnich (Died 1843, Pennsylvania)

The thesis of the article is that taking a social network approach to genealogical problems of origin and parentage can, where applicable, result in two noteworthy benefits. The first benefit is that it may more quickly and effectively lead to matrilateral kin by helping to reconstruct a kinship network. The second benefit is that it will lead to a deeper understanding of social circles in which a husband and/or wife participate. This approach turns the usual genealogical practice of unravelling a female’s position in a cluster in relation to her husband on its head—the male’s position in a social network is reconstructed by backtracking one of his significant females (wife, mother, or sister). As background, the article briefly discusses networks, the importance of women as connectors in kinship networks, and cultural practices of kinship, in this case, eighteenth-century Germany/United States. It then presents a case study of Catharine Minnich, a Pennsylvania woman of German descent. In addition to analyzing relations by blood and marriage, it recognizes the important role of baptismal sponsors in aligning a multi-family network.

Cyberbullying-Victimization Overlap Among Chinese University Students: Does Network Structure Matter?

With widespread internet and social media use among youngsters, cyberbullying has emerged as a novel form of bullying. According to the routine activity and lifestyle theories, cyberbullying and victimization overlap significantly. However, the nature and mechanism of the overlap is not yet adequately understood. This study contributes to extant literature by investigating the role of network structure in cyberbullying-victimization overlap. Participants included 520 residential students from a single department of a Chinese university. This study applied prevalent, bivariate, and social network approach to investigate the overlap. Linear regressions with interactive terms are applied to investigate the moderating effect of network structure. First, the results revealed that the overlap phenomenon is robust against different approaches. Second, the findings demonstrated that indegree significantly moderates the effect of victimization on the perpetration of cyberbullying. Third, for betweenness and closeness, neither direct effect nor moderating effect, is statistically significant. Overall, cyberbullying-victimization overlaps among surveyed Chinese university students and social network may moderate the relationship between cyberbullying and victimization.

Male White-shouldered Fairywrens (Malurus alboscapulatus) elevate testosterone when courting females but not during territorial challenges

Testosterone mediates suites of physical and behavioral traits across vertebrates, and circulation varies considerably across and within taxa. However, an understanding of the causal factors of variation in circulating testosterone has proven difficult despite decades of research. According to the challenge hypothesis, agonistic interactions between males immediately prior to the breeding season produce the highest levels of testosterone measured during this period. While many studies have provided support for this hypothesis, most species do not respond to male-male competition by elevating testosterone. As a result, a recent revision of the hypothesis (challenge hypothesis 2.0) places male-female interactions as the primary cause of rapid elevations in testosterone circulation in male vertebrates. Here, we offer a test of both iterations of the challenge hypothesis in a tropical bird species. We first illustrate that male White-shouldered Fairywrens (Malurus alboscapulatus) differ by subspecies in plasma testosterone concentrations. Then we use a social network approach to find that males of the subspecies with higher testosterone are characterized by greater social interaction scores, including more time aggregating to perform sexual displays. Next, we use a controlled experiment to test whether males respond to simulated territorial intrusion or courtship interaction contexts by elevating testosterone. Males sampled during courtship had greater plasma testosterone both relative to flushed controls and males sampled during simulated intrusion. Ultimately, our results are consistent with challenge hypothesis 2.0, as males rapidly elevated testosterone following interactions with females, but not during territorial challenges.

The role and attributes of social networks in the provision of support to women after stillbirth: experiences from Uganda

Introduction Communities exert stigma on mothers after stillbirth despite their potential to offer social support to the grieving family. Maternal healthcare-seeking behaviors are socially reinforced rendering a social network approach vital in understanding support dynamics which when utilized can improve community response to mothers experiencing stillbirth. However, the form and direction of social support for women when in need is not clear. The study explored the role and attributes of women’s social networks in the provision of support to mothers who have experienced a stillbirth in Uganda. Methods An exploratory cross-sectional study design adopting a social network approach was conducted. Data collection following established procedures was conducted on a convenient sample of 17 mothers who had experienced a stillbirth six months before the study. Frequencies and bivariate analysis were conducted to determine the factors influencing the provision of social support from 293 network members elicited during the alter generation. We then performed a Poisson regression on each of the social support forms and the explanatory variables. Network structure variables were calculated using UCINET version 6 while Netdraw facilitated the visualization of networks. Results Overall, social support was available from all network relations mentioned by the respondents. No major variations were observed between the two time periods during pregnancy and following a stillbirth. The most common support received was in form of intangible support such as emotional and information support, mainly from females who were married and from the naturally occurring networks such as family and friends. We also observed that social support followed patterns of network relational characteristics including trust, frequency of contact and alters counted on for support more likely to provide the same. Conclusions A great potential for social support exists within women’s social networks to help address stillbirth risk factors during pregnancy and cope after experiencing the same. Alter characteristics like being female, married, and from naturally occurring networks together with relational characteristics such as trust, frequency of contact, and count on alter for support were predictors of eventual social support. Interventions aiming at addressing stillbirth risks at the community level ought to harness these network characteristics for benefits to the mothers.

The relation between defending, (dis)liking, and the classroom bullying norm: A cross-sectional social network approach in late childhood

This study investigates the extent to which defending victims of bullying depends on liking and disliking and its relation with the classroom bullying norm (descriptive and popularity) in a sample of 1,272 students (50.8% boys) in 48 fifth-grade classrooms. Social network analysis with bivariate exponential random graph modelings showed that children are more likely to defend victims whom they like, who like them, and who are liked by the same classmates than victims who they dislike, who dislike them, and with whom they share antipathies by and to the same classmates. In addition, the analysis showed that bullying norms had an inconclusive effect on the relation between defending and (dis)liking.

Abusive Supervision and Supervisor-Directed Deviance: A Social Network Approach

Supervisor-directed deviance is a well-established consequence of abusive supervision. However, prior accounts of the abuse–deviance relationship have overlooked the role played by power embedded in subordinates’ informal social context. To address this gap, we draw on power-dependence theory and use a social network approach to explain the link between abusive supervision and supervisor-directed deviance. In doing so, we propose a three-way interaction in which the abuse–deviance relationship is impacted by two components of informal power: subordinate social network centrality and subordinate influence. In particular, we propose that the relationship will be the strongest when subordinates have high betweenness centrality and high influence. We gathered full social network data, as well as self-report surveys from 272 primary school teachers and government contract workers in Northern China. Our results provide support for the notion that supervisor-directed deviance emerges most strongly as a consequence of abusive supervision for employees who wield informal power in their organization.

“United in diversity”: The interplay of social network characteristics and personality in predicting outgroup attitudes

Diversity in social relations is important for reducing prejudice. Yet, the question of when this occurs remains open. Using a social network approach, we test whether the link between outgroup attitudes and number of intra- and intergroup contacts is moderated by type of relationship (strong vs. weak ties) and personality (openness to experience) while also considering network structure (connections between contacts). In a culturally diverse sample of 122 immigrants residing in Barcelona, positive outgroup attitudes were predicted by several network characteristics: low proportion of intragroup contacts and high proportion of intergroup contacts among strong ties, high ethnic diversity among strong ties, low connectedness among contacts in the country of origin, and high connectedness between coethnic local and host national contacts. Openness to experience moderated these effects. These results affirm the intergroup benefits of having compositionally and structurally diverse networks, and the gain in examining intergroup dynamics at the meso level of analysis.