Social success not about who you know – it’s about knowing who knows whom | Social mobility
Regarding social escalation, it is not who you know or how many people you know, it is a question of knowing who knows who, suggests the research.
Experts who study the social connections established by first -year -old university students say that those who ended up with the most influence were not necessarily the most popular, but those who had a good idea, very early on, to whom he belonged to what clique or in community.
“Having friends helps, but social influence is not only WHO You know – it’s also What You know the rest of your social network, ”said Isabella Aslarus, the first author of the Stanford University study in California.
Writing in the journal Science Advances, the American researchers report how they asked 187 students to finish investigations on whom they were friends at six different points during their first year at the university.
The team used the results to map the links between individuals and how they have changed over time.
At two points, once shortly after the start of the academic year and once in the spring, the researchers classified the students by the number of friends they had and their social influence – with the latter determined by the way their friends were well connected.
The researchers also asked each participant if they knew if pairs of students were friends.
The results reveal the number of friendships that people have declared have changed little over time, but the friendships between individuals and the level of influence of people have changed.
“Popularity does not really change during the year,” said Dr. Oriel Feldmanhall, principal author of the Brown University study. “What changes spectacularly is that people who were the most influential at first were no longer the most influential by the end of the year.”
This changing network, the researchers said, have become more stable over the academic year.
Feldmanhall said that it is not clear what made influential people at the start of the study, but students who became the most influential at the end were those who had early ideas on how all their peers were connected.
“To become an influence, you should know who is a friend with whom, and you must have a vision of the eyes of the bird in the way people come together in different social or click groups,” said Aslarus.
Individuals, she said, can use this knowledge to become more influential-for example by forging new friendships or by being an effective contribution.
Aslarus added that it is only after having become an influence that people develop more detailed knowledge on individual friendships.
“Knowing your network predicts to become an influence over time, more than having many friends,” she said.
“Thus, social knowledge seems to be a first key step to become better connected in your network.”
