The Ecology of Human Behavior: A Network Perspective

• In Event: Advanced Statistical Methods for Complex Data

Abstract

Even though there is a broad agreement that some of the most relevant problems in the social and behavioral sciences are fundamentally structural, there is a lack of clarity regarding what a structural explanation is, and what are the specific questions that can only be answered through a structural lens. Moreover, the prevalent explanatory frameworks in quantitative research do not lend themselves easily to a structural perspective. In this study, I shed some light on this matter by distinguishing between three types of structural questions, and show how graphical methods can be used to answer them. I provide an empirical application of these methods using a nationally representative dataset.

Author

• Rafael Quintana, University of Kansas