Main content
The not-so-forbidden triad
Date created: 2023-02-20 08:05 PM | Last Updated: 2024-05-01 12:17 PM
Category: Project
Description: The Strength of Weak Ties is among the most influential social theories of the past 50 years, however it has received mixed empirical support. In this paper, I investigate two possible explanations. First, through a meta-analysis of a diverse corpus of 56 social networks, I show that empirical social networks generally do not exhibit the idealized network structures from which the theory was derived. Second, using a simulation of information diffusion, I show that the theory's primary hypothesis -- that weak ties are especially useful for accessing novel information -- is unsupported when a network deviates from these idealized structures. I discuss how focusing on the strength of bridging ties rather than weak ties, and examining the independent roles of both bridgeness and strength, offer more promising alternatives.
Files
Files can now be accessed and managed under the Files tab.
Citation
Recent Activity
Unable to retrieve logs at this time. Please refresh the page or contact support@osf.io if the problem persists.