Journal
SOCIAL NETWORKS
Volume 33, Issue 3, Pages 211-218Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.socnet.2011.05.003
Keywords
Contagion; Social influence; Peer influence; Peer effects; Homophily; Friendship retention; Unfriending; Friendship attrition
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An increasing number of scholars are using longitudinal social network data to try to obtain estimates of peer or social influence effects. These data may provide additional statistical leverage, but they can introduce new inferential problems. In particular, while the confounding effects of homophily in friendship formation are widely appreciated, homophily in friendship retention may also confound causal estimates of social influence in longitudinal network data. We provide evidence for this claim in a Monte Carlo analysis of the statistical model used by Christakis, Fowler. and their colleagues in numerous articles estimating contagion effects in social networks. Our results indicate that homophily in friendship retention induces significant upward bias and decreased coverage levels in the Christakis and Fowler model if there is non-negligible friendship attrition over time. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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