What are social networks?

Introduction

In almost every culture in the world, men and women live embedded within a network of other people. Young infants are surrounded by caregivers; toddlers, growing children, and adolescents have their peers; and young, middle-aged, and older adults have varying numbers of friends and relatives with whom they interact. Trained research psychologists and laypeople alike have recognized that the presence of others—friends, family, and sometimes even strangers—can be very comforting. A large body of research has focused on how the number and quality of one’s interactions with other people influence psychological and physiological health and well-being.

Within formal network theorizing, the term “network” refers to the ties that connect a specific set of entities, be they people, groups, or organizations. Social networks can be described as the sum total of an individual’s connections with others. They encompass the different contacts a person may have in one or more distinct social groups (people who are seen on a regular basis for business or pleasure); the types of roles a person plays (mother, coach); the number of friends, family, and relatives a person has; and even the different types of activities in which a person participates (such as attending weekly softball games, where the team becomes part of the network). In psychological writing on the topic of social relationships, a clear distinction is made between social networks, also referred to as structural social support, and functional social support (processes by which people give resources, information, or help to promote emotional or physical well-being). Although social networks can and do serve important functions, such as providing a person with emotional social support or tangible resources in times of need, research on social networks focuses more on the health benefits that are gained from the participation in one or more distinct social groups (the structure of, and stable pattern that exists between, one’s ties). This approach and understanding of social networks makes possible the use of more direct measurements of connections, such as how many people an individual speaks to in a week. The underlying assumption in much of this work is that others can influence how people think, feel, and behave through interactions that may not be explicitly intended to exchange help or support.

Historical Beginnings

Sociologists were the first to write on and study the psychological relevance of social ties or social integration. The French sociologist Émile Durkheim conducted the earliest study of the influence of social networks in 1897. He contended that the breakdown in family, community, and work ties that occurred when workers migrated to industrial areas would be bad for psychological well-being. Durkheim wanted to see if there was any relationship between the number of social ties that a person had and their likelihood of committing suicide. He identified people who had taken their own lives and looked into their social relationships, collecting information from those who knew them and local public records. He found that suicide was most common among individuals who were not married and lacked ties with the community and the church. Some years later, the American sociologist Robert Faris tested if being culturally isolated had anything to do with the development of mental illness. His paper, published in the American Journal of Sociology in 1934, emphasized the importance of social contacts and showed that socially isolated individuals were more at risk for developing schizophrenia.

One of the most important studies on the role of social networks was conducted in the late 1970s by the American social epidemiologists Lisa Berkman and Leonard Syme. Whereas the work of Durkheim and Faris was correlational in nature, in that they looked at cases of suicide and schizophrenia and worked backward to assess the factors that were associated with the outcome, Berkman and Syme conducted a nine-year longitudinal study. They first measured the social ties of close to seven thousand residents of Alameda County in California. They asked the participants in the study what hobbies they had, what groups they attended on a regular basis, if they were members of clubs, if they went to church, and other questions that tapped into their connections with others. Nine years later, they assessed how many of the people were still alive. They found that the people who were more socially integrated at the beginning of the study (had more social connections) lived longer than their counterparts who had fewer social connections. Having social contacts enabled women to live an average of 2.8 years longer and men to live an average of 2.3 years longer. These effects were not caused by differences in education, income level, health status at the beginning of the study, or the practice of health habits. This result was not a fluke. Similar results have been found in other large studies conducted since that time.

Health Benefits of Social Networks

Having good social connections has many benefits. Along with being associated with longer life, having good social networks has been related to a large number of positive health outcomes. Socially integrated people have been found to be less likely to have heart attacks; tend to recover faster from colds and other illnesses; are more likely to survive breast cancer; cope better with stress; are more likely to eat better, exercise, and be physically active; and are less likely to start smoking and have a slightly easier time quitting if they do. In perhaps one of the most impressive demonstrations of the health-buffering ability of social networks, American psychologist Sheldon Cohen exposed a large group of consenting volunteers to a cold virus (delivered via a nasal spray). The participants who reported having more social support and higher quality social networks were less likely to develop upper respiratory illnesses. Cohen randomly sampled his participants such that anyone in the general population had an equal chance of being in his study, allowing generalization of his results and assurance that there was nothing else influencing his findings.

Good social networks are especially important for healthy aging. Many studies have shown that having a close confidant or intimate social partner is associated with increased longevity. Increased social network size is associated with a reduced risk of mortality. This is an important finding, as research shows that the networks of the elderly often shrink with age, as a result of both death and changes in activities that reduce social contact. Therefore, a large number of studies have investigated whether support from one source, such as a friend, can substitute and compensate for support from another, such as a spouse. Results on this issue have been mixed. Some studies show that friends and relatives can make up for less support from spouses or children, while others suggest that this may not always be the case. One clear conclusion is that studies of social support should assess support from many different sources.

One aspect of the health benefits of social networks needs special attention. Because Durkheim’s early work showing that people who were married were better off psychologically, many psychologists and studies proclaimed that just being married is enough. This oversimplifies the issue and is inaccurate. The fact seems to be that the benefits of being married vary for each sex. Whereas being married is very important for the well-being of men, it is not always the case for women. For women, having a close female confidant seems to be the critical element for well-being. This sex difference extends over many forms of social support. In general, women have been found to be better at creating social networks and keeping them alive and functioning, to benefit the most from networks, and to give and receive more functional forms of social support from networks than do men.

Measurement

Social networks can be measured in many different ways. To make them easier to understand and study, psychologists separate social networks into different components. The first main distinction can be made between the behavioral component of networks and the mental component of interacting with networks. The behavioral component consists of measurements of active participation in a wide range of activities (often a direct count of items such as the number of social groups to which people belong or the number of people they talk to on the telephone each week) and is perhaps the most common approach to studying social networks. Behavioral components are further subdivided into measurements of recognized social positions or social identities, termed role-based measures, and measures that assess the frequency and number of social activities, termed social participation measures. The mental component of social networks refers to how people think about their networks and what resources they believe they have. This category of measures, commonly called perceived integration measures, focuses purely on the perceptions of the individual, regardless of whether the perceptions are an accurate reflection of reality. Although this may seem like a problematic issue—how an individual’s perceptions of something can be measured other than by using that individual’s own report—psychologists have found that even believing that one has many people to whom to turn in case of need has many benefits.

One of the first researchers to study actively how roles influence social networks was the American psychologist Margaret Thoits. Using data collected from a large study of the community in New Haven, Connecticut, she constructed a tool assessing participation in eight key social roles: parent, spouse, worker, friend, neighbor, student, church member, and group member. Consistent with earlier work on this topic, she found that people who possessed more roles experienced less stress and had fewer psychological problems. Extensions of her work have added additional roles such as lover, son or daughter, son-in-law or daughter-in-law, relative, hobbyist, athlete, and stepparent.

Building on this work, Cohen created the Social Network Index (SNI), a popularly used measure of social networks that assesses participation in twelve types of social relationships similar to those used by Thoits. Participation in a relationship is defined as talking to the person on the telephone or in person at least once every two weeks. The total number of persons communicated with thus provides a measure of network size.

Social participation measures assess how often individuals interact with others regardless of the number of roles that they may have. This work focuses both on the type of activities (going to church versus going to a party) as well as the number of activities (how many times things are done in general). For example, Swedish researchers developed a questionnaire, the Welin Activity Scale, that assesses the degree to which people participate in three main categories of activities: social activities, home activities, and outside home activities. Respondents estimate how often they engage in thirty-four different activities over the course of a year, using three main response options (never, occasionally, and often). A twelve-year study conducted in Gothenburg, Sweden, with this scale showed that people with higher scores on this measure of social participation were less likely to die from heart problems.

The American psychologist James House developed a similar measure of social participation in 1982. House and colleagues assessed participation in four main categories of social activity: intimate social relationships, formal organizational involvements outside work, active and relatively social leisure, and passive and relatively social leisure. Together, these measures of social participation help assess the extent to which social participation contributes to well-being.

Perceived integration measures often provide the most direct ways to capture the psychological benefits of networks. Believing that others will help one in time of need can provide a sense of security and comfort. Very often, perceptions actually map onto reality when members of an individual’s social networks help the individual cope with stressors and supply needed tangible resources such as money, materials, or information. Perceived integration has been measured in a variety of different ways, most commonly by asking individuals to think about whom they could turn to if they needed help.

It is important to note that researchers are not certain whether the effects of social support on health represent a slope (where a person is less likely to die the more social connections they have) or a ceiling (where social networks are very important for people with few or no connections, but not as important for people with many connections). Some answers to this problem can be found by looking at how social support changes over time.

Theoretical Approaches to Social Network Change

Two main theoretical frameworks have been proposed to predict and account for age-related changes in social networks. The American psychologist Toni Antonucci proposed that people are motivated to maintain their social network sizes as they age. Calling her theory the social convoy model, Antonucci suggested that although there may be many changes in the composition of the networks, people are thought to sift through their relationships, retaining those they value most. According to American psychologist Laura Cartensen’s socioemotional selectivity theory, people prune their social networks to maintain a desired emotional state depending on the extent to which time is perceived as limited. Correspondingly, whereas the sizes of older adults’ social networks are smaller than those for younger adults, the numbers of close relationships are comparable. Both theories have been well-supported and indicate that it is not the size of the network (structure) but the quality of transactions (perceived and received social support that may vary in function) that is critical. Even though networks may sometimes decrease in size, the quality of support may in fact increase. As social media has become an increasingly prevalent aspect of modern social interactions, inidividuals' social networks have expanded and become more varied. Preliminary studies on the affects of social media and its influence on social networks and people's mental and physical health have provided mixed results.

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