The Nearness between Us,and the Space within Ourselves

Social Psychological Foundations of Social Networks

The first four articles examine how social psychological processes shape social networks. Based on the conventional view of conflict as establishing dominance, Callejas and Shepherd argue that involvement in conflict can help elevate a student’s social status. They show that more conflict with other students is associated with increases in status (as measured by betweenness centrality in time-spending networks). But this effect only exists up to a threshold, beyond which more conflict decreases status. Contrary to conventional thinking that friend fights help resolve status ambiguity, they find that more conflict with friends does not facilitate status gains. The authors propose a “participation in social scene” theory to explain the unexpected results; broad participation in conflict and “being in the mix” of school social life, rather than being strategic about with whom to have conflict, increases one’s status (up to a threshold).

Besides status-conferring behaviors, perceptions can also affect network formation. Drawing on social identity theory, Boda, Neray, and Snijders examine the role of peer-perceived ethnicity in the formation of social ties. Using longitudinal data from seven secondary schools in Hungary, the authors show that perceived ethnicity has a significant impact on formation of disliking ties (i.e., majority students disliked perceived minority peers) but has no effect on formation of friendships.

In addition to perceptions of others, perceptions of networks as a whole also matter. Lee, Stahl, and Bayer conducted creative experiments wherein participants were asked to think of a dense or a sparse personal network of equal size to test whether perceived network density can influence perceived social support. The results show that when participants think of a dense network, they report perceiving more support than when they think of a sparse network. Thus perceptions of networks, which are susceptible to manipulation and priming, impact coping with various life stressors.

Finally, our motivations and personality can impact our social networks. Using data provided by 480 undergraduates from a large Canadian university, Reale and coauthors examine associations between self-ratings of psychopathic traits and features of core personal networks (composed of the most significant or important people in their life). They find that interpersonal dominance, manipulation, poor attachment, and emotional regulation are associated with less connected core networks. Findings on dominance and manipulation reflect a deliberate action to occupy a more influential position in one’s social network, whereas the findings on attachment and emotional regulation result from a lack of desire or capability in establishing and maintaining long-term ties.

Social Networks Shape Social Psychological Processes

The remaining four articles illustrate how social networks shape social psychological processes. Zhao, Robinson, and Wu show how network structures can constrain the impact of social psychological processes. Prior research suggests that depression can cause both self-withdrawal and peer avoidance in social interactions, and both processes should limit the social transmission of depression. Zhao and coauthors, however, argue that this proposition is contingent on the structure of a network, which is further dependent on the gender composition of the network. Using unique data from six Taiwanese high schools, they find that compared to friendship networks in mixed-gender or all-boys classrooms, friendship networks in all-girls classrooms present a higher level of reciprocity and a lower level of transitivity. These network features, in turn, facilitate the withdrawal of depressed girls from social interactions and produce uneven diffusion and prevalence of depression by gender.

When studying social interactions, social psychologists typically focus on dyads or triads. However, McMillan and Felmlee argue that studying tetrads composed of four actors also provides important and meaningful insights regarding the nature of social interaction. In the 20 networks they examined, the authors find there are six tetrad motifs (i.e., particular configurations of social interaction) that represent tendencies toward hierarchy, clustering, and bridging in social interaction. The authors further show that each type of social network has a unique tetrad “signature,” suggesting that certain types of social interactions can be identified by their tetrad pattern alone. Hence, micro network structures not only reflect social interaction but also define social interaction.

Song’s article studies associations between accessed status (network members’ status) and life satisfaction using representative data from the United States, urban China, and Taiwan. Social capital theory predicts that higher accessed status improves life satisfaction, whereas social cost theory asserts the opposite. Song’s analyses show that both social capital theory and social cost theory are applicable in all three societies, although their applicability varies by the domains of life satisfaction. Song further shows that overall, social cost theory has more explanatory power in urban China and Taiwan than does social capital theory, whereas the reverse is true for the United States. This result is consistent with the disadvantages predicted in collectivistic cultures where accessed status can generate more negative social comparisons and stressful social expenses.

Maloney creatively applies network methods to studying the structure of occupational status. Based on the patterns of deference among 303 occupations, the author uses blockmodeling to cluster the occupations into four groups: everyday specialists, service-to-society occupations, the disagreeably powerful, and the actively revered. Although occupations within each of these status groups possess varying characteristics, they share a cluster when they defer to and receive deference from the same occupations. The results also reveal a clear occupational status hierarchy with the actively revered on top of the hierarchy. Overall, this article vividly illustrates the benefits of using network methods to study social psychology.

There are certainly many more issues worth studying regarding the interplay between social networks and social psychology. For example, we need to continue to develop clever research designs and rigorous analytics to establish causality. We also need to think about how to combine the knowledge in both fields to design more effective social interventions to address everyday problems. We believe this special issue is a starting point for these endeavors.

Lastly, we thank all of the authors who have submitted their manuscripts to this special issue; the size of the response to our call for submissions is an indicator of the vibrancy of this area. Not surprisingly, due to space constraints, we had to forego many excellent manuscripts. We are grateful to our excellent, diligent reviewers. Without your service, this special issue would not have been possible. And we thank you, the readers, for your interest. As you browse through this special issue, we hope you will appreciate the interdisciplinarity and internationality of the articles. The authors represent the fields of criminology, psychology, and sociology and are from multiple countries such as Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, the UK, and the United States, and draw on data from Canada, China, Hungary, Taiwan, and the United States. We are proud to be able to showcase the international and interdisciplinary reach, and relevance, of social networks and social psychology in a journal that began its life with the title Sociometry.