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We consider the specification of effects of numerical actor attributes in statistical models for directed social networks. A fundamental mechanism is homophily or assortativity, where actors have a higher likelihood to be tied with others…
While actors in a population can interact with anyone else freely, social relations significantly influence our inclination towards particular individuals. The consequence of such interactions, however, may also form the intensity of our…
Understanding tie strength in social networks, and the factors that influence it, have received much attention in a myriad of disciplines for decades. Several models incorporating indicators of tie strength have been proposed and used to…
Hierarchy of social organization is a ubiquitous property of animal and human groups, linked to resource allocation, collective decisions, individual health, and even to social instability. Experimental evidence shows that both intrinsic…
As smartphones become ever more integrated in peoples lives, a burgeoning new area of research has emerged on their well-being effects. We propose that disparate strands of research and apparently contradictory findings can be integrated…
The social connections people form online affect the quality of information they receive and their online experience. Although a host of socioeconomic and cognitive factors were implicated in the formation of offline social ties, few of…
The social brain hypothesis postulates the increasing complexity of social interactions as a driving force for the evolution of cognitive abilities. Whereas dyadic and triadic relations play a basic role in defining social behaviours and…
Under what conditions would an artificially intelligent system have wellbeing? Despite its obvious bearing on the ethics of human interactions with artificial systems, this question has received little attention. Because all major theories…
Social capital may help individuals maintain their mental health. Most empirical work based on small-scale surveys finds that bonding social capital and cohesive social networks are critical for mental well-being, while bridging social…
Despite strong evidence for peer effects, little is known about how individuals balance intrinsic preferences and social learning in different choice environments. Using a combination of experiments and discrete choice modeling, we show…
Modifiable health behaviors, a leading cause of illness and death in many countries, are often driven by individual beliefs and sentiments about health and disease. Individual behaviors affecting health outcomes are increasingly modulated…
The characterization of large-scale structural organization of social networks is an important interdisciplinary problem. We show, by using scaling analysis and numerical computation, that the following factors are relevant for models of…
A single human can be involved in a limited number of social relationships, and the distribution of strengths of such relationships shows significant skew. This skewness suggests that the costs and benefits of the social interactions…
Two prevailing theories for explaining social group or community structure are cohesion and identity. The social cohesion approach posits that social groups arise out of an aggregation of individuals that have mutual interpersonal…
Social ties are the invisible glue that keeps together human ecosystems. Despite the massive amount of research studying the role of social ties in communities (groups, teams, etc.) and society at large, little attention has been devoted to…
Images become an important and prevalent way to express users' activities, opinions and emotions. In a social network, individual emotions may be influenced by others, in particular by close friends. We focus on understanding how users…
This study examines how active participation, financial commitment, and passive participation in the leading social live-streaming service, Twitch.tv, relate to individuals' psychological well-being. The three dimensions of social…
Social networks influence health-related behaviors, such as obesity and smoking. While researchers have studied social networks as a driver for diffusion of influences and behaviors, it is less understood how the structure or topology of…
Our societies are heterogeneous in many dimensions such as census, education, religion, ethnic and cultural composition. The links between individuals - e.g. by friendship, marriage or collaboration - are not evenly distributed, but rather…
This paper develops strategic foundations for an important statistical model of random networks with heterogeneous expected degrees. Based on this, we show how social networking services that subtly alter the costs and indirect benefits of…