Structural Equation Modeling of Social Networks: Specification, Estimation, and Application

Liu, Haiyan; Jin, Ick Hoon; Zhang, Zhiyong

doi:10.1080/00273171.2018.1479629

Cited by 12 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…Throughout this paper, we use the data collected by the Lab of Big Data at the University of Notre Dame (Liu et al, 2018).…”

Section: Friendship Network: An Empirical Examplementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The estimated factor covariance matrix is provided in Table 2.The variance estimates of extraversion and imagination are 0.838 and 0.252, respectively, and their covariance is 0.172. Despite many factor score estimators, the Thurstone-Thomson "regression" factor scores (Thurstone, 1935) were extracted and used in the subsequent analysis following the recommendations by both Devlieger, Mayer, and Rosseel (2016) and Liu et al (2018). The scatterplot and the histograms of the predicted factor scores are provided in Figure 3.…”

Section: Factor Extractionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In other words, individuals in close social relations share many similar characteristics (McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Cook, 2001;Rushton & Bons, 2005). A large body of research has investigated the presence of similar personality attributes in close relations such as romantic relations and friendships (e.g., Asendorpf & Wilpers, 1998;Harris & Vazire, 2016;Liu, Jin, & Zhang, 2018;Youyou, Stillwell, Schwartz, & Kosinski, 2017). Much of the research found no or weak personality similarity (Altmann, Sierau, & Roth, 2013;Watson, Beer, & McDade-Montez, 2014;Watson, Hubbard, & Wiese, 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Clifton and Webster (2017) discussed the use of social network data to address psychological research questions through several examples. Liu et al (2018) proposed a structural equation model to predict the existence of binary social relations using the latent personality distance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These measures are not necessarily about similarity but could be in any meaningful format. Second, we demonstrate how to use the newly introduced measures to predict social relations using the proposed model by Liu et al (2018), which provides a primer on predicting social bonds in a network. Third, we illustrate how to conduct the model selection and choose the model that fits the data best.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Birds of a Feather Flock Together and Opposites Attract: The Nonlinear Relationship Between Personality and Friendship

Liu

Zhang

2021

JBDS

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Whether birds of a feather flock together or opposites attract is a classical research question in social and personality psychology. In most existing studies, correlation-based techniques are commonly used to study the similarity/dissimilarity among social entities. Social network data comprises two primary components: actors and the possible social relations between them. It, therefore, has observations on both the dyads with and without social relations. Because of the availability of the baseline group (dyads without social relations), it is possible to contrast the two groups of dyads using social network analysis techniques. This study aims to illustrate how to use social network analysis techniques to address psychological research questions. Specifically, we will investigate how the similarity or dissimilarity of actor's characteristics relates to the likelihood for them to build social relations. By analyzing a college friendship network, we found the quadratic relations between personality similarity and friendship. Both very similar and very dissimilar personalities boost friendship among college students.

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“…Throughout this paper, we use the data collected by the Lab of Big Data at the University of Notre Dame (Liu et al, 2018).…”

Section: Friendship Network: An Empirical Examplementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Factor Extractionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Birds of a Feather Flock Together and Opposites Attract: The Nonlinear Relationship Between Personality and Friendship

Liu

Zhang

2021

JBDS

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Permutation Test of Regression Coefficients in Social Network Data Analysis

Liu

Zhang

2020

Springer Proceedings in Mathematics &Amp; Statistics

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Social Network Mediation Analysis: A Latent Space Approach

et al. 2021

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A social network comprises both actors and the social connections among them. Such connections reflect the dependence among social actors, which is essential for individuals’ mental health and social development. In this article, we propose a mediation model with a social network as a mediator to investigate the potential mediation role of a social network. In the model, the dependence among actors is accounted for by a few mutually orthogonal latent dimensions which form a social space. The individuals’ positions in such a latent social space are directly involved in the mediation process between an independent and dependent variable. After showing that all the latent dimensions are equivalent in terms of their relationship to the social network and the meaning of each dimension is arbitrary, we propose to measure the whole mediation effect of a network. Although individuals’ positions in the latent space are not unique, we rigorously articulate that the proposed network mediation effect is still well defined. We use a Bayesian estimation method to estimate the model and evaluate its performance through an extensive simulation study under representative conditions. The usefulness of the network mediation model is demonstrated through an application to a college friendship network.

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Structural Equation Modeling of Social Networks: Specification, Estimation, and Application

Cited by 12 publications

References 51 publications

Birds of a Feather Flock Together and Opposites Attract: The Nonlinear Relationship Between Personality and Friendship

Birds of a Feather Flock Together and Opposites Attract: The Nonlinear Relationship Between Personality and Friendship

Permutation Test of Regression Coefficients in Social Network Data Analysis

Social Network Mediation Analysis: A Latent Space Approach

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