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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cognitive social structures | 1/3 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_social_structures | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T13:46:59.963804+00:00 | kb-cron |
Cognitive social structures (CSS) is the focus of research that investigates how individuals perceive their own social structure (e.g. members of an organization, friend group, hierarchy, company employees, etc.). It is part of social network research and uses social network analysis to understand how various factors affect one's cognitive representation of the network (i.e. the individual's belief of who is connected to whom). Importantly, an individual's perception of the network may be different than reality. In fact, these differences between the perceived network and the actual network are the focus of many studies that seek insight into how we think about others and our relationships.
== Overview == In 1987, David Krackhardt discussed the study of cognitive social structures in an article that defined the term and outlined its uses in social network research. Social structures are defined by a set of individual members and the relations between those members. The study of cognitive social structures also includes every member's understanding of the social structure. Thus, a cognitive social structure consisting of n people has n separate, and possibly distinct, representations of that social structure. Example: Alice, Bob, and Charlie are all friends. Thus, there are three separate representations of their network. If they each believe they are friends with the other two, but that the other two are not friends, then all three representations are distinct. That is, none of them agree on the structure of their friendship network. If, on the other hand, they all believed they were all friends, then they would all have the same representation of the network. Furthermore, the perceived structure of the network and the actual structure of the network may be inconsistent. By measuring every member's perception of the network, researchers can analyze the systematic errors to understand how we think about networks and what affects these perceptions. A network may consist of directed relations. A directed relation involves a sender and a receiver. For example, the relation “goes to for advice” is directed in that if Alice (sender) goes to Bob (receiver) for advice, it does not mean that Bob also goes to Alice for advice. The relation, "is a sibling of", on the other hand, is symmetric, not directed, because if Alice is a sibling of Bob, then Bob is necessarily a sibling of Alice.
=== Terminology === Broker: A member who connects those who would otherwise be unconnected. Centrality: Influence measured by number of connections and distance from others with high centrality Eigenvector centrality: How well connected an individual is to other well-connected members Closure/Balance: Given a member who is directly connected to two others, the triad is balanced if the other two are also connected Alice is friends with Bob and Charlie. The triad is said to be balanced if Bob and Charlie are also friends. It is unbalanced if Bob and Charlie are not friends. Degree: The number of direct connections In-degree: The number of ties directed towards the person Out-degree: The number of directed ties from the person to others Alice goes to Bob and Charlie for advice. Bob goes to Alice for advice. Alice has in-degree 1, and out-degree 2. Geodesic Distance: The shortest path between two individuals Alice is friends with Bob who is friends with Charlie who is friends with David. The geodesic distance between Alice and Bob is one, between Alice and Charlie is two, and between Alice and David is three. Homophily: How similar an individual is to those directly connected to them Reciprocity/Mutuality: Given a directed relation from person A to person B, whether or not there is also a directed relation from person B to person A. Alice goes to Bob for advice. This relationship is reciprocal if Bob also goes to Alice for advice.
== Analyzing Cognitive Social Structures ==
=== Ego Network Analysis === An ego network, or a local structure, consists of the individual and every member who is directly connected to that individual. For example, on social media, a user's ego network consists of the user (ego), everyone who is directly linked to that user's account (e.g. "friends" or "followers"), and the connections between those people (e.g. whether or not they are "friends" with or "followers" of each other). In an experiment, an ego network is measured by asking the participant to list everybody to whom they are directly connected, and then note which of those people are connected to each other. Thus, in an experimental setting, the ego network reflects the participant's view of their local network, and therefore may differ from another's participant's perspective.
=== Full Network Analysis === There are three primary methods used to examine a full cognitive social structure: slices (the individual perceptions of the full network), locally aggregated structures (the combination of each member's direct connections), and consensus structures (the network of relations that more than a certain portion of members agree on).
==== Slices ==== One way to analyze a cognitive social structure is to individually look at each “slice”, that is, each member's perception. Biases in network perception may shift based on the individual (e.g. personality) or the position (e.g. popular, low status). Comparing slices reveals differences between individuals as well as systematic errors in perception across members.