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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme
SOE 10: Sociophysics Approaches to Diversity and Equality (Accompanying Session to the Symposium Diversity and Equality in Physics)
SOE 10.1: Talk
Tuesday, March 19, 2024, 13:15–13:30, PTB HS HvHB
The Centrality of Minorities under Triadic Closure and Homophily — Jan Bachmann1, Lisette Espín-Noboa1,2, •Samuel Martin-Gutierrez1, Nicola Cinardi1,4, and Fariba Karimi1,3 — 1Network Inequality Group, Complexity Science Hub, 1080 Vienna, Austria — 2Department of Network and Data Science, Central European University, 1100 Vienna, Austria — 3Institute of Interactive Systems and Data Science, TU Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria — 4Departmen of Complex Systems, Institute of Computer Science of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Praha, Czech Republic
Link formation in social networks is governed by various well-known social mechanisms, such as preferential attachment and homophily. Triadic closure, on the other hand, describes the formation of triangles when people connect to friends-of-friends. Some works in the litearure have found that triadic closure amplifies the segregating effect of homophily, while others come to the opposite conclusion. In a system composed of two social groups of different sizes, these mechanisms are known to cause disparities in visibility and can force one group to the network’s periphery. In this work, we develop PATCH, a network growth model with preferential attachment, triadic closure and homophily, to disentangle their effect on the structural placement of a minority group. Our analyses suggest that triadic closure reduces the representation disparity between the majority and minority in the heterophilic setting, but it does not mitigate the under-representation of the minority group in the homophilic regime.
Keywords: network model; inequality; social capital; homophily; triadic closure