Table Of ContentConducting Personal Network Research
Methodology in the Social Sciences
David A. Kenny, Founding Editor
Todd D. Little, Series Editor
www.guilford.com/MSS
This series provides applied researchers and students with analysis and research design books that
emphasize the use of methods to answer research questions. Rather than emphasizing statistical
theory, each volume in the series illustrates when a technique should (and should not) be used and
how the output from available software programs should (and should not) be interpreted. Common
pitfalls as well as areas of further development are clearly articulated.
RECENT VOLUMES
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CONFIRMATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS FOR APPLIED RESEARCH,
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PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELING,
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Rex B. Kline
HYPOTHESIS TESTING AND MODEL SELECTION IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
David L. Weakliem
REGRESSION ANALYSIS AND LINEAR MODELS: Concepts, Applications,
and Implementation
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GROWTH MODELING: Structural Equation and Multilevel Modeling Approaches
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PROCESS ANALYSIS: A Regression-Based Approach, Second Edition
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MEASUREMENT THEORY AND APPLICATIONS FOR THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
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CONDUCTING PERSONAL NETWORK RESEARCH: A Practical Guide
Christopher McCarty, Miranda J. Lubbers, Raffaele Vacca, and José Luis Molina
Conducting Personal
Network Research
A Practical Guide
Christopher McCarty
Miranda J. Lubbers
Raffaele Vacca
José Luis Molina
Series Editor’s Note by Todd D. Little
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ISBN 978-1-4625-3838-6
Series Editor’s Note
We all have personal networks comprised of our friends, family, acquaintances, col-
leagues, coworkers, and the like. Ever wondered how such personal networks affect
who we are, how we feel, how we behave, how we are received, how productive we are?
Of course you have! We all have. But how do we move beyond wondering to actively
studying and understanding such personal networks as a research endeavor? The author
network in this book, of Christopher McCarty, Miranda J. Lubbers, Raffaele Vacca, and
José Luis Molina, have beautifully crafted an indispensable resource, Conducting Per-
sonal Network Research: A Practical Guide. They introduce the world of personal network
modeling to us with an engaging and accessible voice.
This network of accomplished authors opens each chapter with a succinct and elu-
cidating overview. These overviews provide an all-important view from the top of the
mountain so that you don’t get lost when you start hiking the trails of learning. They
easily guide you through the seeming morass of details by starting you at the trailhead
and gently leading you to the top of this all-important mountain of personal network
research.
You’ll find guide posts in the form of boxes that showcase many of the major pub-
lished studies of personal network research. These engaging examples highlight prin-
ciples and practices of personal network research. In other boxes, the authors lay out
the important steps needed to traverse intersections on the trail. This author network,
however, doesn’t “tell” you what to do; instead, they elucidate the guiding principles
needed to make informed decisions as you develop your personal network research.
Additionally, the invaluable Appendix describes various software options available for
conducting personal network research.
From the authors’ wealth of experience, they offer insight for making informed
design, measurement, visualization, and analysis decisions. On the way to the top of
v
vi Series Editor’s Note
this majestic mountain, you’ll find nuggets of rich jewels in the form of captivating
examples that shine light on the insights that can be gained only in the context of per-
sonal network research.
McCarty, Lubbers, Vacca, and Molina will become key nodes in your personal
research network composition and structure. McCarty, for example, is the author of
EgoNet, which is the first software program specifically created for analyzing personal
networks. Moreover, their work is now a shining node, if you will, in the growing net-
work of accessible and authoritative resources that is the Methodology in the Social
Sciences series. I’m very pleased to bring this work into our collection. As always, enjoy!
Todd d. LiTTLe
International Balloon Fiesta
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Prologue
Mariama1 stepped off the train and walked up the street toward the center of
Vilassar de Mar, a small seaside town in Spain. She had finished her high school classes
about an hour before, but the train ride had taken about 45 minutes of that time. The
time passed quickly as she chatted with her cousin Ousmane, who also commuted daily
to Barcelona. After leaving the train station, she walked up the street with a group of
passengers toward the city center. The group consisted of about 50 people, roughly half
of Spanish origin, and the other half people from countries in North and West Africa,
but also from Latin America and eastern Europe. Over the preceding two decades, the
number of migrants in that part of Spain had increased substantially, but the economic
crisis that started in 2008 suddenly halted the process. Many migrants came to Spain as
an entry point to other European Union countries. Others, like those Mariama walked
with that day, had chosen to make Spain their home.
Mariama’s parents were among the latter. They were originally from The Gambia
and had moved to Spain in 1989, seeking a better life for themselves and their children.
Mariama was born in Spain. Her family lived in an apartment in a building near the cen-
ter of Vilassar de Mar, which rented mostly to migrants from Senegal and The Gambia.
That neighborhood was where Mariama’s family was living because Mariama’s uncle
had moved there a few years before. Most migrants moved to an area after friends and
relatives before them had established a bridgehead.
Mariama walked quickly. Her supervisor at her grocery store job near the apart-
ment needed her to fill in for another employee who had been sick all week. Mariama
would have to be there earlier than usual. Yet her mother still expected her to stop by the
elementary school and walk her two younger sisters and younger brother home before
1 The names of persons and the town mentioned here are changed in order to preserve anonymity.
vii
viii Prologue
work. She would have to take them home, prepare their meal, and hope her teenage
brother arrived home in time for her to get to work.
At age 19, Mariama had most of the responsibilities of a young mother, only in her
case she was caring for her younger brothers and sisters. She rarely went out with her
friends, as her parents needed help with her siblings. Also, her family was Muslim, and it
was unacceptable for Mariama to put herself openly in social situations where she might
interact inappropriately with young men. She limited her friendships to a selected set
of neighbors and cousins and a few people from work. None of these friendships took
her too far from home. Mariama’s daily routine consisted mostly of going to school and
then to work. Other than that, she socialized with her immediate family and those who
lived nearby.
Plate P.12 depicts Mariama’s personal network. The circles and triangles, called
nodes, represent 45 of the people she knows. The lines indicate whether, according to
Mariama, the two people interact with each other independently of her, that is, when
she’s not around. The nodes are arranged by a visualization algorithm to account for the
fact that some of the people she knows know each other and others do not. The colors of
the nodes represent whether the person is one of Mariama’s family members (dark blue
and red) or not (light blue). There is a label for each node indicating where the person
was born; the circles indicate women, while the triangles depict men.
This visualization is a representation of the social context, or the personal com-
munity, surrounding Mariama. As social scientists, we are interested in the character-
istics of the people Mariama knows, how they know each other, and how these things
might affect her. In this case, we see that she has a densely connected personal network,
compared to others, with only a small group of Spanish people. As a second-generation
migrant, Mariama still tends to associate with the same group of people as her parents.
She socializes and works with people from Senegal and The Gambia and people who
were born in Spain but whose parents were born in Senegal or The Gambia. It is only
through her classes at the high school that Mariama is exposed to nonmigrants in a way
that would allow them to become her friends or closer acquaintances.
The only sibling in the family for whom Mariama does not provide care is Awa, her
22-year-old sister, indicated as the red node in her network. With a difference in their
ages of less than 3 years, Mariama and Awa grew up under very similar circumstances.
They are both second-generation migrants born in Spain. They are both from a Muslim
household, and both grew up in the same family and the same neighborhood heavily
populated with migrants from North and sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Senegal and
The Gambia. But that is where the similarities end.
As a child, Awa played with a variety of children, some of whose parents were from
2 See the color insert for the seven plates.
Prologue ix
Senegal and The Gambia, some from Morocco and countries in West Africa, and others
from Spain. When she entered secondary school, Awa’s gregarious nature gained her
friendships with an even wider set of people, some of whom were unhealthy influences.
Despite her Muslim upbringing, Awa experimented with smoking and drinking.
Eventually, Awa began selecting friendships that accommodated her lifestyle. Her
father discovered that she was smoking and ordered her to stop, threatening to expel
her from the apartment. Once she graduated from secondary school, Awa rebelled. She
decided not to attend university, instead choosing a job that would earn her money she
could spend on the weekends. Through her friends, she met people in nearby suburbs
with whom she could stay on weekends and with whom she could attend parties. She
was careful not to introduce them to each other for fear that information about her
behavior would get back to her father or one of his friends or relatives. The migrant
network in Vilassar de Mar is small and highly interconnected, and she knew that. She
chose to smoke and drink with isolated friends who were connected to other groups but
not to each other. None were even remotely connected to her family. She had never seen
her personal network, or even thought about it before, yet Awa successfully compart-
mentalized her social world to accommodate her way of life.
Plate P.2 depicts Awa’s personal network. It is shaped, sized, colored, and labeled in
the same way as Mariama’s. Yet it looks very different. A higher percentage of people in
Awa’s network were born in Spain and in other countries. Most notable are the network
isolates stacked in the upper left hand of the figure. These are the people Awa knows, but
who do not know anybody else in her network, according to Awa. Awa’s network has less
cohesion, owing in part to the absence of her father and his friends from her social life
and her choice to associate with people in different social settings. Still, like Mariama,
she has a large group of first- and second-generation migrants from Senegal and The
Gambia who know each other, and her sister Mariama (the red node) has a central posi-
tion in this group of people, meaning that Mariama knows many of Awa’s network. A
pair of people from Spain in the upper left corner of the figure represent the shopkeeper
at a local bakery and the shopkeeper’s daughter. Awa is not particularly close to them,
but she sees them often and considers them friends.
These two examples illustrate the main ideas behind personal networks. Here we
have two sisters who grew up in virtually identical circumstances, but they have differ-
ent personalities and they took very different social paths. Many characteristics of their
networks are the result of choices each made early on about whom to associate with
and how to behave. Once they took a few steps down their respective paths, the social
environment presented different choices for them, further exaggerating the differences
between the two. Thus, looking at personal networks, we can find simultaneously the
traces of structural circumstances, the life course, and the choices made by individuals,
bringing us an excellent opportunity to study social life in all its complexity.
