Cognitive Networks

The study of social networks involves understanding how people in a given population are socially connected to one another and how the overarching structure of this population's network is enabling for some, yet constraining for others. One methodological issue that has surfaced over the past several decades deals with the way in which social network data are collected. [Page 131]The name-generator technique and the roster method are perhaps the two most popular forms of network data collection and involve asking social actors with whom they communicate. For example, assume that a researcher was interested in determining all of the people with whom Hailey communicates in an effort to receive social gossip. Hailey would either list all of those with whom she communicates for this purpose (the name-generator technique); or she would be given a list of every possible social actor who might provide gossip, from which she would indicate those with whom she interacts for this purpose (roster method). From a social network perspective, this is known as the egocentric method. What becomes problematic, however, are the ideas that Hailey either (1) does not know with whom she communicates; or (2) thinks that she communicates with certain social actors when, in fact, she does not.

In essence, this is the idea of a cognitive social network: one that exists merely because a social actor thinks that it exists. That is, even if those with whom Hailey claims to communicate would not, in fact, substantiate this, as long as Hailey believes that these social connections exist, these (according to her) are her network alters. As such, the idea of cognitive networks does not deal with networks of cognition but, rather, perceptions of social networks. Based on much scholarship, social actors do not seem to know, with veracity, with whom they communicate and for what reasons.