Sampling Effects in Social Network Analysis

Synonyms

Network sampling; Nonlinearity; Phase transition; Social networks

Glossary

Chain-referral sampling:

A sampling technique that involves selecting initial respondents and then generating all future respondents by following along the contact network of those who have already sampled (also referred to as snowball, link-tracing, or random walk samples)

Clustering:

The finding, common to social networks, that two social actors who share a common first neighbor have a disproportionately great probability of also being first neighbors of each other (also referred to as transitivity)

Dyad:

A set of two social actors potentially or actually connected by a social relation

First neighbors:

Social actors who directly connect to each other via a social relation

Giant component:

A single component that connects the majority of network members

Mth neighbor:

Social actors who connect to each other via a path consisting of m (but no fewer) social relations involving m, −1 (but no fewer)...