Cohesion Networks

One of the overarching areas of social network research over the past half-century has dealt with both behavioral and attitudinal effects of network membership. That is, social network researchers have shed light on a seemingly mundane, yet important, question: how do social networks come to influence one's own behaviors and attitudes? Since the study of social networks is multidisciplinary, this question has been examined from many different angles, perspectives, and paradigms. For example, some of the earliest network research, dealing in the area of social influence, found that individuals involved in the decision-making process will make erroneous decisions (which they knew, intuitively, were incorrect) to the extent that those who are part of their social network(s) made the same decision. More recent research has found that adolescents are more likely to engage in illegal drug use, tobacco smoking, and sexual practices if those who are part of their social networks would do (or think) the same. Research has also found that organizational employees are more willing to relocate, more willing to strongly identify with their organization, and more likely to engage in risky organizational behavior to the extent that those who are part of their social networks would do (or think) the same.

All of these examples come to define what has become known as a cohesion (or cohesive) network. Although the term cohesion often stems from the world of science (physics, astronomy, botany, biology), it is also applicable to the study of social networks. From a social scientific perspective, then, network cohesion is the extent to which individuals are somehow tied together (socially speaking), with network similarity being the tie that binds. In other words, individuals who are part of the same social network are cohesive to the extent that they are somehow tied to, and therefore influenced by, the same group (or network) of people. For example, family networks (parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins) are considered cohesive to the extent that all network members are somehow connected to all other network members. That is, all cousins are connected to all uncles, who are connected to all aunts, who are connected to all grandparents, who are connected to all siblings, who are connected to all parents. This is not to say that everyone in a familial network is going to have the same types of connections to all others; for example, one grandparent might have a stronger relationship with one uncle, who has a stronger relationship with one cousin, who has a stronger relationship with one aunt. However, everyone in the network is somehow socially connected to everyone else. This, according to social network theory and research, comes to define a cohesion network.