Method Lectures of the Bridge Professorship

Lectures in the summer semester of 2016, winter semester 2016/17 and summer semester 2017.

21.09.2017Methods-Workshop

Diffusion of Innovations. A Theory of and for behavior change

Prof. Tom W. Valente (University of Southern California)
Place:
SOCIUM Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy
Room: 3.3380
Mary-Somerville-Straße 3
28359 Bremen
Time:
9.30 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Contact Person:
Lecture Series:
Method Lectures of the Bridge Professorship
Semester:
SoSe 2017

Abstract: 
This workshop will review the history and the main components of diffusion of innovations theory. How social networks influence behavior change will be presented. The R library NetdiffuseR will be demonstrated but is not necessary for the workshop.
The workshop will then present the literature and theory on using network data for program implementation including network interventions. Example data and results are derived from studies across many application areas including tobacco and other substance abuse; family planning and reproductive health; physician behavior; coalitions; policy innovation; lifestyle changes; as well as others.

About person:
Tom W. Valente received a B.S. in Mathematics from Mary Washington College, an M.S. in Mass Communication from San Diego State University, and a Ph.D. from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. He spent nine years at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health from 1991 to 2000 conducting research and teaching health communication, program evaluation, and network analysis before moving to the Department of Preventive Medicine at the University of Southern California. Tom W. Valente uses social networks to conduct research on substance abuse prevention, treatment programs, and on the evaluation of health promotion programs. In addition he uses social networks to understand how policy is developed at the local and global level. He is the author of three books and over one hundred and forty journal articles and book chapters. He is well known for developing the social network threshold diffusion model and for his work on network based interventions to enable behaviour change. His last book was entitled Social Networks and Health, an area he has made his own.

Place:
Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS)
Room: 7.3280
Mary-Somerville-Straße 7
28359 Bremen
Time:
4.15 p.m.
Contact Person:
Lecture Series:
Method Lectures of the Bridge Professorship
Semester:
WiSe 2016/17

Tom A.B. Snijders is Professor of Statistics and Methodology at the Dept. of Sociology, University of Groningen, Emeritus Fellow, Nuffield College, University of Oxford and an Associate Member at the Dept. of Statistics, University of Oxford.

Abstract:
Homophily is a basic feature of social networks. For numerical actor variables, its specification in statistical network models is usually done by means of the absolute difference between ego and alter on the variable under consideration; sometimes, as an alternative, by the ego-alter interaction. It is argued that such specifications are incomplete for continuous actor variables and for ordinal numerical variables with three or more categories. The reason is that ego is not necessarily attracted mostly to others with the same value as ego; often the attraction is to some value between ego's value and the 'social norm'. (Attraction here is to be understood not necessarily as a preference, but rather as an empirical tendency.) Therefore, the usual representation will often amount to a misspecification. This is elaborated in an extension of the usual specification of effects of actor variables in stochastic actor-oriented models for network dynamics. This new specification may have consequences for results of studies of social selection. An example is given.

01.07.2016Bridge-Lecture

Communicating Friendship: Relational Enactments and Relational Perceptions

Prof. Daniel A. McFarland (Stanford University)
Place:
SOCIUM Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy
Room: 9.73280
Mary-Somerville-Straße 9
28359 Bremen
Time:
10:15 a.m.
Contact Person:
Cooperation:
Lecture Series:
Method Lectures of the Bridge Professorship
Semester:
SoSe 2016

Dan McFarland is Professor of Sociology and Organizational Behavior at Stanford University. His research focuses on the social and organizational dynamics of educational systems like schools, classrooms and universities. In particular, Dan has performed a series of studies on classroom organization and interaction; on the formation of adolescent relationships, social structures, and identities; on interdisciplinary collaboration and intellectual innovation; and on relational sociology. His interdisciplinary collaborations with linguists and computer scientists are cutting-edge studies of big data and methodological advances in social networks and language modeling.

Abstract:
This paper attempts to directly consider the nature of relationships and the role of interaction dynamics more deeply. To this end, relationships are reconceptualized as a story between persons that is perceived (labeled), agreed upon, and enacted in interaction. From this perspective, types of ties like friendship are relational frameworks that are mutually recognized and enacted via certain interactional footings. To identify the effect of interactional footings over and above previously identified network mechanisms, we rely on systematic social observations of hundreds of settings that extend across one hundred thousand turns of social interaction, as well as longitudinally collected sociometric surveys and institutional records. With these data, interactions are not only coded for a variety of qualities, but they are situated in various social contexts and institutional framing efforts. For example, a particular interactional event, like the act of agreement between i and j at time t, can be embedded in a particular setting, a task (or sequence), a role-relation, and a reported friendship relation. Since most interactions are guided by any one or more of these framing efforts machine learning is employed to identify the interactions associated with each one while taking into account their overlap. Ultimately, the goal is to identify the interactional signal of a perceived and agreed upon reports of friendship. In such a fashion, we identify the interactional footings or ³friendship script² that actors employ to signal the relational frame of ³friendship². This signal - as a latent dimension - is then tested for its predictive capacity on friendship formation to ascertain if it has an effect over and above previously held mechanisms of tie formation.

29.06.2016Bridge-Lecture

Caregiving as a networked process

Dr. Laura M. Koehly (National Institutes of Health)
Place:
SOCIUM Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy
Room: 5.4680
Mary-Somerville-Straße 5
28359 Bremen
Time:
6:16 p.m.
Contact Person:
Lecture Series:
Method Lectures of the Bridge Professorship
Semester:
SoSe 2016

Laura M. Koehly is Senior Investigator and Chief, Social and Behavioral Research Branch at the National Human Genome Research Institute. Her research focuses on developing and applying social network methods to the study of complex social systems, such as families and communities. In order to better understand the impact of the interpersonal environment on behaviors, Laura Koehly also develops statistical methods to examine the perspectives of all members within a family system, thereby considering the social context in which at-risk individuals live.

Abstract:
In the United States, approximately 66 million informal (unpaid) caregivers provide care to someone who is ill, disabled or are experiencing loss of function associated with aging; approximately 4.7 million perform such roles in Germany. These caregivers may be adult children, spouses, parents, or other social network members. Caregiving research has traditionally engaged a single-informant, primary caregiver approach to characterize the caregiving network composition and function. However, multiple family members are affected by caregiving and may experience it differently. In the current talk, we examine the added value of the multi-informant approach to characterize the social landscape of caregiving within the context of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia (ADRD). Our data come from the Caregiving Roles and Expectations Networks (CaRENet) Project in which 72 informants from 30 families enumerated network members and indicated caregiving roles for each. We observe both within family and between family variability with respect to caregiving roles and expectations. These results provide evidence for moving beyond a sole primary caregiver model, suggesting the need to move towards a multi-informant approach when designing caregiving studies and interventions. In addition, network-level factors derived from such an approach may be important to family adaptation and caregiver well-being.