IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/indrel/qt1jk6r74x.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Seeing Social Structure: Assessing the Accuracy of Interpersonal Judgments about Social Networks

Author

Listed:
  • Mobasseri , Sanaz
  • Srivastava , Sameer B
  • Carney , Dana R

Abstract

Even in brief or routine interactions, people constantly make judgments about others’ social worlds and their positions in social structure. These inferences matter in contexts as diverse as hiring, venture capital funding, and courtship encounters. Yet it remains unclear whether people are accurate in assessing the social networks in which others are embedded and, if so, which behavioral cues perceivers use to form these impressions. Drawing on the “thin-slicing” paradigm in social psychology and data on over 4,276 judgments made by 586 perceivers about 23 strangers, we find that people can accurately infer the size and composition of others’ networks. They are not, however, accurate in “seeing” the structure of relationships surrounding an individual.

Suggested Citation

  • Mobasseri , Sanaz & Srivastava , Sameer B & Carney , Dana R, 2017. "Seeing Social Structure: Assessing the Accuracy of Interpersonal Judgments about Social Networks," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt1jk6r74x, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:indrel:qt1jk6r74x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/1jk6r74x.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raina A. Brands & Martin Kilduff, 2014. "Just Like a Woman? Effects of Gender-Biased Perceptions of Friendship Network Brokerage on Attributions and Performance," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(5), pages 1530-1548, October.
    2. Daniel Kahneman, 2003. "Maps of Bounded Rationality: Psychology for Behavioral Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1449-1475, December.
    3. Adam M. Kleinbaum & Toby E. Stuart & Michael L. Tushman, 2013. "Discretion Within Constraint: Homophily and Structure in a Formal Organization," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(5), pages 1316-1336, October.
    4. Sameer B. Srivastava, 2015. "Intraorganizational Network Dynamics in Times of Ambiguity," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(5), pages 1365-1380, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Goldberg, Amir & Srivastava, Sameer B & Manian, Govind & Monroe, William & Potts, Christopher, 2016. "Fitting In or Standing Out? The Tradeoffs of Structural and Cultural Embeddedness," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt9bf631rg, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    2. Mobasseri, Sanaz & Stein, Daniel H. & Carney, Dana R., 2022. "The accurate judgment of social network characteristics in the lab and field using thin slices of the behavioral stream," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    3. Stephen Michael Impink & Andrea Prat & Raffaella Sadun, 2021. "Communication within Firms: Evidence from CEO Turnovers," NBER Working Papers 29042, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Stephen Michael Impink & Andrea Prat & Raffaella Sadun, 2021. "Communication within firms: evidence from CEO turnovers," POID Working Papers 014, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    5. Mukhammadyusuf Shaymardanov & Suvi Heikkinen & Anna-Maija Lämsä, 2023. "Social Networks of Women in Organizations: Evolution of Research and Future Research Agenda," South Asian Journal of Business and Management Cases, , vol. 12(1), pages 97-112, April.
    6. Sameer B. Srivastava & Amir Goldberg & V. Govind Manian & Christopher Potts, 2018. "Enculturation Trajectories: Language, Cultural Adaptation, and Individual Outcomes in Organizations," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(3), pages 1348-1364, March.
    7. Srivastava, Sameer B & Goldberg, Amir & Manian, V. Govind & Potts, Christopher, 2016. "Enculturation Trajectories and Individual Attainment: An Interactional Language Use Model of Cultural Dynamics in Organizations," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt8bq4q6d5, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    8. Abigail Z. Jacobs & Duncan J. Watts, 2021. "A Large-Scale Comparative Study of Informal Social Networks in Firms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(9), pages 5489-5509, September.
    9. Winter, Peter, 2007. "Managerial Risk Accounting and Control – A German perspective," MPRA Paper 8185, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. J. Silvestre, & T. Araújo & M. St. Aubyn, 2016. "Economic growth and individual satisfaction in an agent-based economy," Working Papers Department of Economics 2016/19, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    11. Luigi Guiso, 2015. "A Test of Narrow Framing and its Origin," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 1(1), pages 61-100, March.
    12. Lex Borghans & Angela Lee Duckworth & James J. Heckman & Bas ter Weel, 2008. "The Economics and Psychology of Personality Traits," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(4).
    13. B Kelsey Jack, "undated". "Market Inefficiencies and the Adoption of Agricultural Technologies in Developing Countries," CID Working Papers 50, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    14. Kelly, Scott & Shipworth, Michelle & Shipworth, David & Gentry, Michael & Wright, Andrew & Pollitt, Michael & Crawford-Brown, Doug & Lomas, Kevin, 2013. "Predicting the diversity of internal temperatures from the English residential sector using panel methods," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 601-621.
    15. Becker, Gary S. & Rubinstein, Yona, 2011. "Fear and the response to terrorism: an economic analysis," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121740, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. Coleman, S., 2010. "Russian Election Reform and the Effect of Social Conformity on Voting and the Party System: 2007 and 2008," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, issue 5, pages 73-90.
    17. Das, Willy & Das, Satyasiba, 2018. "Role of Heuristic Principles On Crowd-Funder's Investment Decision Making," 6th International OFEL Conference on Governance, Management and Entrepreneurship. New Business Models and Institutional Entrepreneurs: Leading Disruptive Change (Dubrovnik, 2018), in: 6th International OFEL Conference on Governance, Management and Entrepreneurship. New Business Models and Institutional Entrepreneurs: Leading Disrupt, pages 443-452, Governance Research and Development Centre (CIRU), Zagreb.
    18. Hernan Mondani & Petter Holme & Fredrik Liljeros, 2014. "Fat-Tailed Fluctuations in the Size of Organizations: The Role of Social Influence," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(7), pages 1-9, July.
    19. Mao, Luke Lunhua & Huang, Haiyan, 2016. "Social impact of Formula One Chinese Grand Prix: A comparison of local residents’ perceptions based on the intrinsic dimension," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 306-318.
    20. de Oliveira Maciel, Cristiano & Netto, Raul Zanon Rocha, 2020. "Architectural agency in intra-organizational networks," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 489-497.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdl:indrel:qt1jk6r74x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/irucbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.