American’s Social Network: Deciphering the connections and compositions of the “feel close to” network

• In Event: 2166 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 12: Race & Belonging

Abstract

According to the famous core discussion network studies, American social networking has been shrinking. Using the Science of Generosity Survey, we investigate another domain of social networking: the feel close to network. We found that Americans, on the average, have 4 persons to whom they feel close. In all racial groups (white, black, and Hispanics), women have larger feel close to network than do their male counterparts. In studying the gender and racial composition of the feel close to network, we focus on only those who named outside their families (neighbors, churchgoers, coworkers etc) as their feel close to contacts. Overall, women account for 2/3 of feel close to contacts, and female respondents are more likely to name other women as their feel close to contacts than are male respondents. Racial homophily appears in feel close to network, but different racial groups exhibit different level of homophily. More than 80 percent whites name other white as their feel close to contacts. That number for blacks to name other blacks and Hispanics to name other Hispanics are 70 percent and 60 percent respectively.

Author

• Song Yang, University of Arkansas