Balancing bias and burden in personal network studies

Stadel, Marie; Stulp, Gert

doi:10.1016/j.socnet.2021.10.007

Cited by 20 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Validity in this case is different from that in ESM studies as the overall goal is to obtain an accurate representation of the overall network compared with measuring specific constructs. A topic that hinders validity in this regard is the size of the assessed egocentric network [ 24 ]. Depending on the number of alters included, the validity of network characteristics might differ as including too few alters might bias the network composition and structure estimates [ 24 , 26 , 58 ].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A topic that hinders validity in this regard is the size of the assessed egocentric network [ 24 ]. Depending on the number of alters included, the validity of network characteristics might differ as including too few alters might bias the network composition and structure estimates [ 24 , 26 , 58 ]. McCarty et al [ 26 ] found that naming 25 alters can capture most of the structural patterns of a network.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To collect egocentric networks, researchers typically ask so-called name-generating questions to identify the important social contacts of a person, which are also called alters. For example, a name-generating question could be "Please list 25 names of individuals...with whom you have had contact in the last year" [24]. After alters are identified, further questions about the characteristics of those alters and the characteristics of the relationship to those alters are asked (eg, age of the alter, frequency of contact, and how close someone is to the alter) [15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Capturing the Dynamics of the Social Environment Through Experience Sampling Methods, Passive Sensing, and Egocentric Networks: Scoping Review

Langener¹,

Stulp²,

Kas³

et al. 2023

JMIR Ment Health

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Background Social interactions are important for well-being, and therefore, researchers are increasingly attempting to capture people’s social environment. Many different disciplines have developed tools to measure the social environment, which can be highly variable over time. The experience sampling method (ESM) is often used in psychology to study the dynamics within a person and the social environment. In addition, passive sensing is often used to capture social behavior via sensors from smartphones or other wearable devices. Furthermore, sociologists use egocentric networks to track how social relationships are changing. Each of these methods is likely to tap into different but important parts of people’s social environment. Thus far, the development and implementation of these methods have occurred mostly separately from each other. Objective Our aim was to synthesize the literature on how these methods are currently used to capture the changing social environment in relation to well-being and assess how to best combine these methods to study well-being. Methods We conducted a scoping review according to the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines. Results We included 275 studies. In total, 3 important points follow from our review. First, each method captures a different but important part of the social environment at a different temporal resolution. Second, measures are rarely validated (>70% of ESM studies and 50% of passive sensing studies were not validated), which undermines the robustness of the conclusions drawn. Third, a combination of methods is currently lacking (only 15/275, 5.5% of the studies combined ESM and passive sensing, and no studies combined all 3 methods) but is essential in understanding well-being. Conclusions We highlight that the practice of using poorly validated measures hampers progress in understanding the relationship between the changing social environment and well-being. We conclude that different methods should be combined more often to reduce the participants’ burden and form a holistic perspective on the social environment.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Capturing the Dynamics of the Social Environment Through Experience Sampling Methods, Passive Sensing, and Egocentric Networks: Scoping Review

Langener¹,

Stulp²,

Kas³

et al. 2023

JMIR Ment Health

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“…In line with previous research, we found that our participants had connections with both cohesive communities and isolated individual actors (H2) ( Tubaro and Mounier, 2014 ; Pallotti et al, 2018 ). By contrast, in the general population, a person’s social network is made up of 10 percent or less of isolated alters on average ( Golinelli et al, 2010 ; Martí et al, 2017 ; Stadel and Stulp, 2022 ). This means that the social network of the ordinary person is much denser than the networks of our research participants.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anorexia and Young Womens’ Personal Networks: Size, Structure, and Kinship

Mikhaylova

Dokuka

2022

Front. Psychol.

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Anorexia is a serious threat to young women’s wellbeing worldwide. The effectiveness of mental health intervention and treatment is often evaluated on the basis of changes in the personal networks; however, the development of such measures for young women with anorexia is constrained due to the lack of quantitative descriptions of their social networks. We aim to fill this substantial gap. In this paper, we identify the basic properties of these women’s personal networks such as size, structure, and proportion of kin connections. The empirical analysis, using a concentric circles methodology, is based on 50 ego networks constructed on data drawn from interviews with Russian-speaking bloggers who have been diagnosed with anorexia and write about this condition. We conclude that young women with anorexia tend to support a limited number of social ties; they are prone to select women as alters, but do not have a preference to connect to their relatives. Further research is needed to elucidate whether these personal network characteristics are similar among women with anorexia who belong to different age, ethnic, cultural, and income groups.

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“…However, asking participants to type a name or initials and assessing conceptually rather stable interaction partner characteristics (e.g., closeness) at every social interaction creates an unnecessary burden for the participant. An even better option may be to assess a personal network (Perry et al, 2018;Stadel & Stulp, 2022) before an experience sampling study and then let participants pick their interaction partner from the list of network members or add new ones. This topic, however, warrants further research regarding its practical implementation and feasibility.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Considering the ’With Whom’: Differences between event- and signal-contingent ESM data of person-specific social interactions.

Stadel¹,

Duijn²,

Wright³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Experience sampling studies often aim to capture social interactions. A central methodological question in such studies is whether to use event- or signal contingent sampling. The few existing studies on this issue have not taken into account that social interactions occur with specific interaction partners who have a unique relationship with the participant. We analyze data on social interactions of students to investigate the differences between the two sampling designs in (1) the number of captured interaction partners, (2) the characteristics of captured interaction partners, and (3) the quality of interactions taking into account that they take place with specific interaction partners. Apart from a larger quantity ofinteractions and interaction partners captured with event-contingent sampling, our analyses indicate subtle differences between the designs. They further highlight that the social role of an interaction partner explains a considerable proportion of variance (up to 20.5%) in perceived social support and interaction quality.

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Balancing bias and burden in personal network studies

Cited by 20 publications

References 22 publications

Capturing the Dynamics of the Social Environment Through Experience Sampling Methods, Passive Sensing, and Egocentric Networks: Scoping Review

Capturing the Dynamics of the Social Environment Through Experience Sampling Methods, Passive Sensing, and Egocentric Networks: Scoping Review

Anorexia and Young Womens’ Personal Networks: Size, Structure, and Kinship

Considering the ’With Whom’: Differences between event- and signal-contingent ESM data of person-specific social interactions.

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