<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>Although scholars have argued that people actively shape and reshape their social networks (e.g., Parks, 2016), this aspect of relational development has received little attention. This study sought to determine if people’s self-perceptions of interpersonal communication skills translated into behavior that led to relationship formation in a new network. A 9-month longitudinal social network analysis (<italic>N</italic> = 94) of the residents of a first-year university residence hall using Facebook tie data was conducted to assess network changes. Results indicate that both self-perceived network centrality in a hypothetical friendship sociogram (Smith &amp; Fink, <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_joss-2019-001_ref_052">2015</xref>) and self-reported connector scores (Boster et al., <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_joss-2019-001_ref_006">2011</xref>) are good longitudinal predictors of relationship development. Those who began by self-identifying as central, became central.</p>
</abstract>

Although scholars have argued that people actively shape and reshape their social networks (e.g., Parks, 2016), this aspect of relational development has received little attention. This study sought to determine if people’s self-perceptions of interpersonal communication skills translated into behavior that led to relationship formation in a new network. A 9-month longitudinal social network analysis (N = 94) of the residents of a first-year university residence hall using Facebook tie data was conducted to assess network changes. Results indicate that both self-perceived network centrality in a hypothetical friendship sociogram (Smith & Fink, 2015) and self-reported connector scores (Boster et al., 2011) are good longitudinal predictors of relationship development. Those who began by self-identifying as central, became central.

Do People Who Identify as Popular Become Popular in a New Network? A 9-Month Longitudinal Network Analysis

Journal of Social Structure

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Although scholars have argued that people actively shape and reshape their social networks (e.g., Parks, 2016), this aspect of relational development has...

Do People Who Identify as Popular Become Popular in a New Network? A 9-Month Longitudinal Network Analysis

Published Online: Feb 11, 2019

Page range: 1 - 24

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21307/joss-2019-001

Keywords
relationship development, social network analysis, popularity, sociogram, opinion leaders

© 2019 Christopher J. Carpenter et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Do People Who Identify as Popular Become Popular in a New Network? A 9-Month Longitudinal Network Analysis

Published Online: Feb 11, 2019

Page range: 1 - 24

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21307/joss-2019-001

Keywordsrelationship development, social network analysis, popularity, sociogram, opinion leaders

© 2019 Christopher J. Carpenter et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Keywords
relationship development, social network analysis, popularity, sociogram, opinion leaders