Using Social Network Methods to Test for Assortment of Prosociality among Korean High School Students

Area of Science:

• Social network analysis
• Evolutionary game theory
• Behavioral economics

Background:

• Assortative interaction among altruistic individuals is key for cooperation's evolution.
• This principle applies across different population structures.
• Direct testing of this assumption in real-world networks is rare.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and apply a method for testing assortative interaction of prosociality in network data.
• To investigate friendship patterns among Korean high school students.
• To determine if prosocial individuals preferentially associate with similar others.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a friendship network dataset from 238 Korean students.
• Employed a mixing matrix to analyze assortative friendship patterns.
• Applied an exponential random graph model (ERGM) to account for network structure and sampling constraints.

Main Results:

• Individual prosociality was found to predict friendship propensity.
• Individuals with higher prosocial scores demonstrated a higher likelihood of befriending other prosocial individuals.
• A significant level of prosociality assortment was observed in the studied population.

Conclusions:

• The study provides empirical evidence for assortative interaction among prosocial individuals.
• The developed method offers a robust approach for analyzing social assortment in networks.
• Findings support the role of assortment in the evolution of cooperation within social groups.