Book contents
- Personal Networks
- Structural Analysis in the Social Sciences
- Personal Networks
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- I Background
- II Early Foundations
- 1 From Georg Simmel, “On the Significance of Numbers for Social Life: Introduction,” “The Isolated Individual and the Dyad,” “The Triad,” and “The Web of Group Affiliations”
- Georg Simmel’s Contribution to Social Network Research
- 2 From Elihu Katz and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Personal Influence
- Influencers, Backfire Effects, and the Power of the Periphery
- 3 From J. Clyde Mitchell, “The Concept and Use of Social Networks”
- On J. Clyde Mitchell’s “The Concept and Use of Social Networks”
- 4 From Elizabeth Bott, “Urban Families: Conjugal Roles and Social Networks”
- Commentary on Bott’s “Family and Social Network”
- 5 From Leon Festinger, Stanley Schachter, and Kurt Back, Social Pressures in Informal Groups
- Festinger, Schachter, and Back’s Social Pressures in Informal Groups
- 6 From H. Russell Bernard, Peter Killworth, David Kronenfeld, and Lee Sailer, “The Problem of Informant Accuracy”
- Implications of Informant Accuracy Research for Ego Networks
- 7 From Harrison C. White, Identity and Control
- On Parachutes and Lion-Taming
- III Later Foundations
- IV New Perspectives
- Index
- Recent Books in the Series
- References
6 - From H. Russell Bernard, Peter Killworth, David Kronenfeld, and Lee Sailer, “The Problem of Informant Accuracy”
from II - Early Foundations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 October 2021
Book contents
- Personal Networks
- Structural Analysis in the Social Sciences
- Personal Networks
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- I Background
- II Early Foundations
- 1 From Georg Simmel, “On the Significance of Numbers for Social Life: Introduction,” “The Isolated Individual and the Dyad,” “The Triad,” and “The Web of Group Affiliations”
- Georg Simmel’s Contribution to Social Network Research
- 2 From Elihu Katz and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Personal Influence
- Influencers, Backfire Effects, and the Power of the Periphery
- 3 From J. Clyde Mitchell, “The Concept and Use of Social Networks”
- On J. Clyde Mitchell’s “The Concept and Use of Social Networks”
- 4 From Elizabeth Bott, “Urban Families: Conjugal Roles and Social Networks”
- Commentary on Bott’s “Family and Social Network”
- 5 From Leon Festinger, Stanley Schachter, and Kurt Back, Social Pressures in Informal Groups
- Festinger, Schachter, and Back’s Social Pressures in Informal Groups
- 6 From H. Russell Bernard, Peter Killworth, David Kronenfeld, and Lee Sailer, “The Problem of Informant Accuracy”
- Implications of Informant Accuracy Research for Ego Networks
- 7 From Harrison C. White, Identity and Control
- On Parachutes and Lion-Taming
- III Later Foundations
- IV New Perspectives
- Index
- Recent Books in the Series
- References
Summary
This chapter reviews all of the articles on informant accuracy produced by Bernard, Killworth and their colleagues, as well as the rebuttal articles that followed from various authors. Several important technological and methodological advancements came from this line of research that have had an enormous impact social network analysis and other disciplines. The second half of the chapter examines the implications of this research on personal network data collection and analysis and the reliability of results from those studies. A key question addressed in this chapter is whether the compositional and structural properties of personal networks, as reported by ego, are reliable given what we know about informant accuracy. I consider whether personal networks represent the real social context surrounding ego, or only their perception of that context, and how this affects the outcome variables that can be predicted with personal network data.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Personal NetworksClassic Readings and New Directions in Egocentric Analysis, pp. 163 - 173Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
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