Homophily

Homophily

Homophily (i.e., love of the same) is the tendency of individuals to associate and bond with similar others. The presence of homophily has been discovered in a vast array of network studies. Within their extensive review paper, McPherson, Smith-Lovin and Cook (2001) cite over one hundred studies that have observed homophily in some form or another. These include age, gender, class, organizational role, and so forth.

In their original formulation of homophily, Lazarsfeld and Merton (1954) distinguished between status homophily and value homophily. Status homophily means that individuals with similar social status characteristics are more likely to associate with each other than by chance. By contrast, value homophily refers to a tendency to associate with others who think in similar ways, regardless of differences in status.

This is often expressed in the adage:

Birds of a feather flock together.

To test the relevance of homophily researchers have distinguished between baseline homophily and inbreeding homophily. The former is simply the amount of homophily that would be expected by chance and the second is the amount of homophily over and above this expected value.

Individuals in homophilic relationships share common characteristics (beliefs, values, education, etc.) that make communication and relationship formation easier. Homophily often leads to homogamy (marriage to people with similar characteristics).

ee also

*Homogamy
*Endogamy
*Heterophily
*Assortative mixing
*Homophobia
*Homophilia
*Hemophilia

Additional reading

* [http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.415 Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks]
* [http://thoughtcast.org/casts/more-neologisms-from-the-world-of-the-web ThoughtCast.org: Ethan Zuckerman Waxes Lyrical on Homophily]

References

*McPherson, M., L. Smith-Lovin, and J. Cook. (2001). Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks. "Annual Review of Sociology". 27:415-44.

*Lazarsfeld, P., and R. K. Merton. (1954). Friendship as a Social Process: A Substantive and Methodological Analysis. In "Freedom and Control in Modern Society", Morroe Berger, Theodore Abel, and Charles H. Page, eds. New York: Van Nostrand, 18-66.


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • homophily — noun The tendency of individuals to associate with others of the same kind …   Wiktionary

  • Социальный граф — На данной анимации показаны в каких отношениях состоят разные социальные объекты. Пользователь Ева находится в дружеских отношениях с пользователями Адам и Кейт, при этом Адам и Кейт не являются друзьями друг другу, но у них есть общий друг Ева.… …   Википедия

  • Assortative mixing — In the study of complex networks, the term assortative mixing refers to a bias in favor of connections between network nodes with similar characteristics. [cite journal author = M. E. J. Newman year = 2003 title = Mixing patterns in networks… …   Wikipedia

  • Diffusion of innovations — The diffusion of innovations according to Rogers. With successive groups of consumers adopting the new technology (shown in blue), its market share (yellow) will eventually reach the saturation level. In mathematics the S curve is known as the… …   Wikipedia

  • Blau space — consists of the multidimensional coordinate system, created by considering the set of socio demographic variables as dimensions. All socio demographic characteristics are potential elements of Blau space, including continuous characteristics such …   Wikipedia

  • Homophylic — Ho mo*phyl ic, a. (Biol.) Relating to homophily. [1913 Webster] …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • Siegwart Lindenberg — (né le 26 décembre 1941 à Munich) est un sociologue germano néerlandais en sciences sociales. Il est le créateur du modèle RREEMM, une extension du modèle de la théorie de la décision rationnelle, largement répandue, en particulier, en sociologie …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Arun Sundararajan — Residence U.S. Nationality …   Wikipedia

  • Automated online assistant — An example of an automated online assistant, apparently having a text based dialog system and a humanoid avatar. An automated online assistant is a program that uses artificial intelligence to provide customer service or other assistance on a… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”