Segregation in Social Networks Based on Acquaintanceship and Trust

Abstract

the University of Wisconsin, Madison. We thank Richard Breen and the other participants at these seminars, Nan Lin, Howard Aldrich, and also three anonymous AJS reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. Please direct correspondence to Thomas A. DiPrete (tad61@columbia.edu), 601B Knox Hall, Columbia University, 606 W. 122nd St., New York, NY 10027. AbstractUsing data from the 2006 General Social Survey, we compare levels of segregation by race and along other dimensions of potential social cleavage in the contemporary United States.Americans are not as isolated as the most extreme recent estimates suggest. However, hopes that "bridging" social capital is more common in broader acquaintanceship networks than in core networks are not supported by the GSS data. Instead, the entire acquaintanceship network is perceived by Americans to be about as segregated as the much smaller network of close ties. People do not always know the religiosity, political ideology, family behaviors, or socioeconomic status of their acquaintances, but perceived social divisions on these dimensions are high and in some cases rival the extent of racial segregation in acquaintanceship networks.The major challenge to social integration today comes less from the risk of social isolation than from the tendency of many Americans to isolate themselves from others who differ on race, political ideology, level of religiosity, and other salient aspects of social identity.

Measuring social networks – theoretical and practical dilemmas and possibilities

“…Amennyiben abból a feltevésből indulunk ki, hogy a kapcsolathálózat kialakulását teljes mértékben a véletlen generálja, akkor feltételezhetjük, hogy ez a folyamat Poisson-eloszlást követ. 12 Amennyiben a méretgenerátor esetében élünk ezen előfeltevéssel, akkor az egyes társadalmi csoportok kapcsán azt várjuk, hogy annak az eloszlása, hogy a minta tagjai hány embert ismernek adott társadalmi csoportból, szintén Poisson-eloszlást fog követni (ZhengSalganik-Gelman 2006;DiPrete et al 2011). A társadalom azonban ennél bonyolultabb módon működik: a 11 Bár e módszerek egyes kiterjesztései már lehetővé teszik a társadalmi törésvonalak bizonyos szempontok mentén való meghatározá-sát (Angelusz-Tardos 2009).…”

Tweeting on Catalonia’s Independence: The Dynamics of Political Discussion and Group Polarisation

“…Assuming "homophily" -i.e. the propensity to group oneself together with similar people (Lazarsfeld et al, 1954;McPherson et al, 2001;DiPrete et al, 2011) -and taking into account the level of political polarisation implied by the issue under study, we expect individuals to cluster around two opposing poles, forming two segregated and clearly differentiated opinion communities. Taking this premise into account, we measure and describe both the level of interaction and the kind of communication -particularly, in terms of deliberative engagement -that take place on Twitter between these two poles.…”

Latent Surface Models for Networks Using Aggregated Relational Data

“…Collecting a complete graph is typically financially and logistically difficult, especially in the social sciences. From a scientific perspective, these data collections issues result in a generalized lack of knowledge about the nature of variation in the day-to-day interactions of individuals (DiPrete et al, 2011;McPherson et al, 2001). This paper derives a latent surface model for partially observed or sampled network data.…”

“…First, ARD are used when members of the target population, X, are difficult to enumerate. DiPrete et al (2011), for example, use ARD to infer properties of respondents ' "acquaintanceship" network, where acquaintances are people the respondent has frequent interactions with but are likely not a close friend. Each respondent's acquaintanceship network has hundreds of individuals and, thus, is not practical for a respondent to enumerate directly.…”