Breaking Up is Hard to Do, Unless Everyone Else is Doing it Too: Social Network Effects on Divorce in a Longitudinal Sample Followed for 32 Years

McDermott, Rose; Fowler, James H.; Christakis, Nicholas A.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1490708

Cited by 16 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…smoking cessation or dieting) and those who are indifferent but not hostile. Observation of friends' behavior may also serve to produce a plausibility structure (Berger and Luckman 1966) for behaviors that might otherwise seem illegitimate or difficult to imagine (e.g., divorce [McDermott, Fowler & Christakis 2009]). 16 In either case ---persuasion or legitimacy--through--observation ----adoption occurs when the group of alters supporting or modeling change reaches a critical mass (Marwell and Oliver 1993) sufficient to induce change.…”

Section: Normative Influencementioning

confidence: 99%

Network Effects and Social Inequality

2012

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We suggest that the ubiquity of network effects and tendencies towards cumulative advant--age are related. Inequality is exacerbated when effects of individual differences are multi--plied by social networks: when persons must decide whether to adopt beneficial practices; network externalities, social learning, or normative pressure influence adoption decisions;and networks are homophilous with respect to individual characteristics that predict such decisions. We review evidence from literatures on network effects on technology, labor markets, education, demography, and health; identify several mechanisms through which networks may generate higher levels of inequality than one would expect based on dif--ferences in initial endowments alone; consider cases where network effects may amelior--ate inequality; and describe research priorities.

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Section: Normative Influencementioning

confidence: 99%

Network Effects and Social Inequality

2012

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“…Using similar modeling approaches and exploiting data from many sources, we have examined the ‘spread’ of obesity [14, 15], smoking [16], alcohol consumption [17], health screening [18], happiness [19], loneliness [20], depression [21], sleep [22], drug use [22], divorce [23], food consumption [24], cooperative behavior [6], influenza [4], sexuality and sexual orientation [25], and tastes in music, books, and movies [26]. We have also conducted experiments regarding the spread within networks of altruism [6, 7] and of political mobilization [3]; in such experiments, causal inference with respect to network effects is more robust (although experiments have limitations of their own).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social contagion theory: examining dynamic social networks and human behavior

Christakis

Fowler

2012

Statistics in Medicine

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782

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Here, we review the research we have conducted on social contagion. We describe the methods we have employed (and the assumptions they have entailed) to examine several datasets with complementary strengths and weaknesses, including the Framingham Heart Study, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, and other observational and experimental datasets that we and others have collected. We describe the regularities that led us to propose that human social networks may exhibit a ‘three degrees of influence’ property, and we review statistical approaches we have used to characterize interpersonal influence with respect to phenomena as diverse as obesity, smoking, cooperation, and happiness. We do not claim that this work is the final word, but we do believe that it provides some novel, informative, and stimulating evidence regarding social contagion in longitudinally followed networks. Along with other scholars, we are working to develop new methods for identifying causal effects using social network data, and we believe that this area is ripe for statistical development as current methods have known and often unavoidable limitations. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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“…One exception is a study by Musick and colleagues (2008); however, they measured the normative climates of parents and adults in the neighborhood, rather than of youths' age-mates. Another exception, although focused on adults, is a recent social network analysis by McDermott and colleagues (2009) which showed how the effect of divorce clustered in and was transmitted through individuals' social networks. As Mollborn (2010) notes, norms are difficult to operationalize from survey data; thus, these methods of measuring peer influence in terms of the neighborhood normative climate are not without limitations that should be considered if these measures are meant to gauge overall cultural scripts for behavior.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Everybody’s doin’ it (right?): Neighborhood norms and sexual activity in adolescence

Warner

Giordano

Manning

et al. 2011

Social Science Research

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A neighborhood's normative climate is linked to, but conceptually distinct from, its structural characteristics such as poverty and racial/ethnic composition. Given the deleterious consequences of early sexual activity for adolescent health and well-being, it is important to assess normative influences on youth behaviors such as sexual debut, number of sex partners, and involvement in casual sexual experiences. The current study moves beyond prior research by constructing a measure of normative climate that more fully captures neighborhood norms, and analyzing the influence of normative climate on behavior in a longitudinal framework. Using recently geo-coded data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS), we analyze the effect of normative climate on adolescents' sexual behaviors. Results indicate that variation in neighborhood normative climates increases adolescents' odds of sexual debut and casual sex, and is associated with their number of sex partners, even after accounting for neighborhood structural disadvantage and demographic risk factors.

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Breaking Up is Hard to Do, Unless Everyone Else is Doing it Too: Social Network Effects on Divorce in a Longitudinal Sample Followed for 32 Years

Cited by 16 publications

References 65 publications

Network Effects and Social Inequality

Network Effects and Social Inequality

Social contagion theory: examining dynamic social networks and human behavior

Everybody’s doin’ it (right?): Neighborhood norms and sexual activity in adolescence

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