The Supporting Role of Mentees’ Peers in Online Mentoring: A Longitudinal Social Network Analysis of Peer Influence

Hopp, Manuel D. S.; Stoeger, Heidrun; Ziegler, Albert

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01929

Cited by 11 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 85 publications

(149 reference statements)

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“…Selection means that contacts outside the family circle are selected according to one’s own preferences, i.e., new contacts who have similar characteristics to oneself are favored. This process is based on homophily ( McPherson et al, 2001 ), which can be expressed with the phrase “birds of a feather flock together.” Selection processes are observed in the offline school context ( Burk et al, 2008 ; Steglich et al, 2010 ; Hopp et al, 2019 ), in university ( Mayer and Puller, 2008 ; Smirnov and Thurner, 2017 ), as well as in online contexts (e.g., in online social networks; Mayer and Puller, 2008 ; as well as in online mentoring; Hopp et al, 2020 ). Choosing new contacts selectively can lead to homogeneous individual networks ( Mayer and Puller, 2008 ; and clusters in the global network; Cacioppo et al, 2009 ; Hofstra et al, 2017 ).…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, behaviors (e.g., smoking) or attitudes (e.g., confidence) can spread between the actors in the network. Influence processes have been identified in many contexts—offline and online (e.g., Mercken et al, 2010 ; Caravita et al, 2014 ; Hopp et al, 2020 ). Moreover, there is evidence that loneliness can also spread through influence processes—especially through close friends ( Cacioppo et al, 2009 ).…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Structure of Social Networks and Its Link to Higher Education Students’ Socio-Emotional Loneliness During COVID-19

et al. 2022

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Lonely students typically underperform academically. According to several studies, the COVID-19 pandemic is an important risk factor for increases in loneliness, as the contact restrictions and the switch to mainly online classes potentially burden the students. The previously familiar academic environment (campus), as well as the exchange with peers and lecturers on site, were no longer made available. In our cross-sectional study, we examine factors that could potentially counteract the development of higher education student loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic from a social network perspective. During the semester, N = 283 students from across all institutional faculties of a German comprehensive university took part in an online survey. We surveyed their social and emotional experiences of loneliness, their self-reported digital information-sharing behavior, and their current egocentric networks. Here, we distinguished between close online contacts (i.e., mainly online exchanges) and close offline contacts (i.e., mainly in-person face-to-face exchanges). In addition, we derived the interconnectedness (i.e., the densities of the egocentric networks) and heterogeneity (operationalized with the entropy) of students’ contacts. To obtain the latter, we used a novel two-step method combining t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE) and cluster analysis. We explored the associations of the aforementioned predictors (i.e., information-sharing behavior, number of online and offline contacts, as well as interconnectedness and heterogeneity of the close contacts network) on social and emotional loneliness separately using two hierarchical multiple linear regression models. Our results suggest that social loneliness is strongly related to digital information-sharing behavior and the network structure of close contacts. In particular, high information-sharing behavior, high number of close contacts (whether offline or online), a highly interconnected network, and a homogeneous structure of close contacts were associated with low social loneliness. Emotional loneliness, on the other hand, was mainly related to network homogeneity, in the sense that students with homogeneous close contacts networks experienced low emotional loneliness. Overall, our study highlights the central role of students’ close social network on feelings of loneliness in the context of COVID-19 restrictions. Limitations and implications are discussed.

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Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Structure of Social Networks and Its Link to Higher Education Students’ Socio-Emotional Loneliness During COVID-19

et al. 2022

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“…The impact of peer-level interest similarity on information selection Considerate studies have documented the effect of peer influence on people's decision-making and ways of thinking and behaving, especially in childhood and adolescence (Bauman and Ennett, 1996;Henneberger et al, 2020;Hoffman et al, 2007;Hopp et al, 2020;Maxwell, 2002). Social media provides a new digital area for peer influence.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Besides, users' information selection decision could also be affected by peer-level influence (Toder-Alon and Brunel, 2018;Hoffman et al, 2007;Hopp et al, 2020;Maxwell, 2002). Recent studies on information diffusion evidenced that viral messages could grow via person-toperson diffusion routes on blogging sites (Adar and Adamic, 2005), e-commerce sites (Leskovec et al, 2006) and social networking sites (Goel et al, 2015;Liang, 2018).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting information exposure and continuous consumption: self-level interest similarity, peer-level interest similarity and global popularity

Guan

Zhang

Zhu

2021

OIR

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PurposeThis study examines users' information selection strategy on knowledge-sharing platforms from the individual level, peer level and societal level. Though previous literature has explained these three levels separately, few have simultaneously examined their impacts and identified the dominant one according to their effect strengths. The study aims to fill this research gap of the competitions among different levels of information selection mechanisms. Besides, this study also proposes a three-step decision-tree approach to depict the consumption process, including the decision of first-time exposure, the decision of continuous consumption and the decision of feedback behavior participation.Design/methodology/approachThis study analyzed a clickstream dataset of a Chinese information technology blogging site, CSDN.net. Employing a sequential logit model, it examined the impacts of self-level interest similarity, peer-level interest similarity and global popularity simultaneously on each turning point in the consumption process.FindingsThe authors’ findings indicate that self-level interest similarity is the most dominant factor influencing users to browse a knowledge-sharing blog, followed by peer-level interest similarity and then global popularity. All three mechanisms have consistent influences on decision-making in continuous information consumption. Surprisingly, the authors find self-level interest similarity negatively influences users to give feedback on knowledge-sharing blogs.Originality/valueThis paper fulfills the research gap of the dominance among three-levels of selection mechanisms. This study's findings not only could contribute to information consumption studies by providing theoretical insights on audience behavior patterns, but also help the industry advance its recommendation algorithm design and improve users' experience satisfaction.Peer review – The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-10-2020-0475

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“…This process is based on homophily (McPherson et al, 2001), which can be expressed with the phrase "birds of a feather flock together." Selection processes are observed in the offline school context (Burk et al, 2008;Hopp et al, 2019;Steglich et al, 2010), in university (Mayer & Puller, 2008;Smirnov & Thurner, 2017), as well as in online contexts (e.g., in online mentoring; Hopp et al, 2020, as well as in online social networks; Mayer & Puller, 2008). Choosing new contacts selectively can lead to homogeneous individual networks (and clusters in the global network; Cacioppo et al, 2009;Hofstra et al, 2017;Mayer & Puller, 2008).…”

Section: Diversity Of Close Contactsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Structure of Social Networks and Its Link to Higher Education Students' Socio-Emotional Loneliness During COVID-19

Hopp¹,

Händel²,

Bedenlier³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Lonely students typically underperform academically. According to several studies, the COVID-19 pandemic is an important risk factor for increases in loneliness, as the contact restrictions and the switch to mainly online classes potentially burden the students. The previously familiar academic environment (campus) as well as the exchange with peers and lecturers on site were no longer made available. In our study, we examine factors that could potentially counteract the development of higher education student loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic from a social network perspective. During the semester, N = 283 students from across all institutional faculties of a German comprehensive university took part in an online survey. We surveyed their social and emotional experiences of loneliness, their self-reported digital skills, and their current egocentric networks. We distinguished between close online contacts (i.e., mainly online exchanges) and close offline contacts (i.e., mainly in situ exchanges). In addition, we derived the interconnectedness (i.e., the densities of the egocentric networks) and diversity (operationalized with the entropy) of students’ contacts. The results of correlation analyses and hierarchical linear regressions indicate that strong digital skills are related to both a higher number of online contacts and to lower social and emotional experiences of loneliness. Regardless of whether offline or online, the number of reported contacts is indicative of a lower experience of social loneliness. A well-connected network related to lower experiences of social but not emotional loneliness. Finally, findings suggest that homogenous networks tend to be related with lower experiences of both social and emotional loneliness. Overall, our study indicates that barriers to online communication might be mitigating factors to consider when assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on student loneliness.

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The Supporting Role of Mentees’ Peers in Online Mentoring: A Longitudinal Social Network Analysis of Peer Influence

Cited by 11 publications

References 85 publications

The Structure of Social Networks and Its Link to Higher Education Students’ Socio-Emotional Loneliness During COVID-19

The Structure of Social Networks and Its Link to Higher Education Students’ Socio-Emotional Loneliness During COVID-19

Predicting information exposure and continuous consumption: self-level interest similarity, peer-level interest similarity and global popularity

The Structure of Social Networks and Its Link to Higher Education Students' Socio-Emotional Loneliness During COVID-19

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