Name order effects in measuring adolescent social networks using rosters

This paper replicates and investigates recent findings of order effects in social network data collection, where later names on a roster receive fewer nominations. We model order effects as biases in nomination choices and demonstrate observational and experimental methods for assessing these biases and illuminating their mechanisms.

Liu, Shuyin, Nolin, David, and James A. Kitts. “Name Order Effects in Measuring Adolescent Social Networks Using RostersSocial Networks. 76: 68-78, 2024.

What Is(n’t) a Friend? Dimensions of the Friendship Concept Among Adolescents

This study investigates the meaning of friendship for eight diverse cohorts of sixth graders, challenging ubiquitous assumptions that friendships represent liking and social interaction, friendships are directed, and friendships are equivalent to one another. Adolescents primarily construe friendship as relational norms, expectations for mutual behavior, along with mutual liking and interaction. Boys and girls weight these dimensions differently in defining friendship.

Kitts, James A. and Diego F. Leal. “What Is(n’t) a Friend? Dimensions of the Friendship Concept Among Adolescents.” Social Networks. 66: 161-170, 2021.

Investigating the Temporal Dynamics of Interorganizational Exchange: Patient Transfers Among Italian Hospitals

Previous research on interaction behavior among organizations has typically aggregated those behaviors over time as a network of organizational relationships. This paper instead studies structural-temporal patterns in organizational exchange. Applying this lens to a community of Italian hospitals during 2003–7, the authors observe two mechanisms of interorganizational reciprocation: organizational embedding and resource dependence, and show how these two mechanisms operate on distinct time horizons and operate differently in competitive and non-competitive contexts. Results shed light on the evolution of generalized exchange or status hierarchies at the population level.

Kitts, James A., Lomi, Alessandro, Mascia, Daniele, Pallotti, Francesca, and Eric Quintane. “Investigating the Temporal Dynamics of Interorganizational Exchange: Patient Transfers Among Italian Hospitals.” American Journal of Sociology. 123(3): 850-910, 2017.

Greed and Fear in Network Reciprocity: Implications for Cooperation among Organizations

This paper depicts the evolution of cooperation on regular lattices, with strategies propagating locally by relative fitness. The underlying dilemma arises from two distinct dimensions—the gains for exploiting cooperative partners (Greed) and the cost of cooperating with exploitative partners (Fear). This paper uses computational experiments to show that embedding interaction in networks generally leads Greed and Fear to have divergent, interactive, and highly nonlinear effects on cooperation at the macro level, even when individuals respond identically to Greed and Fear. We then replicate our experiments on inter-organizational network data derived from links through shared directors among 2,400 large US corporations.

Kitts, James A., Leal, Diego F., Jones, Thomas M., Felps, Will, and Shawn L. Berman. “Greed and Fear in Network Reciprocity: Implications for Cooperation among Organizations”   PLoS ONE 11(2), 2016.

Cultural Evolution of the Structure of Human Groups

Small-scale human societies are a leap in size and complexity from those of our primate ancestors. We propose that the behavioral predispositions which allowed the evolution of small-scale societies were also those that allowed the cultural evolution of large-scale sociality, in the form of multiple transitions to large-scale societies. Although sufficient, the cultural evolutionary processes that acted on these predispositions also needed a unique set of niche parameters, including ecological factors, guiding norms, and technologies of social control and coordination. Identifying the regularities and patterns in these factors will be the empirical challenge for the future.

Carel van Schaik, Pieter Francois, Herbert Gintis, Daniel Haun, Daniel J. Hruschka, Marco A. Janssen, James A. Kitts, Laurent Lehmann, Sarah Mathew, Peter J. Richerson, Peter Turchin, Polly Wiessner. “Cultural Evolution of the Structure of Human GroupsCultural Evolution. Cambridge, MIT Press, 2014.