How Homophily and Triadic Closure Prevent Diversity
In this research study, the researchers set out to analyze how homophily, the tendency of people to be attracted to those similar to themselves, and triadic closure interact. One type of homophily is choice homophily which refers to people’s preference when choosing who to interact with. Another type is induced homophily which happens when there is constraint on who individuals can connect with. The study finds that choice homophily and triadic closure facilitates induced homophily.
The article is very interesting in that it shows even the smallest amount of choice homophily can lead to large amounts of homophily in a network. To visualize this, one can think of a scenario where two individuals (A and B) became friends because they are both Asian-American. We would see that person A, who has this preference of befriending Asian-Americans, would befriend another Asian-American (node C); this is choice homophily at play. By the triadic closure principle, person A would likely introduce person B to C; when they are introduced, an edge would form between them.
We would be able to see that all the people in the component containing ABC would likely all be Asian-Americans because person A prefers to hang out with Asian-Americans. In the network described, we would be able to see that there are subgroups of people based on certain characteristics. Looking at this example, we can see a scenario where the people in one component of the network are less likely to form a relationship with people of other components. Like discussed in the article, there is now induced homophily because the likelihood of interacting with someone of different age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, hobby etc. decreases when people decide to hang out with similar people. In the case with component ABC, people of other ethnicities would likely not be as welcomed as Asian-Americans which places a constraint on who people can and can not connect with. To summarize, people of different livelihoods would likely not interact because people prefer to befriend similar people.
Furthermore, the article discusses the difficulty of changing stable networks after they have been formed. This is because the people would still have memory of the network. The researcher comes to the conclusion that there should be intervention sooner rather than later to prevent homophily-induced social segregation. However, this is still a point where further research is needed. As a person of society, I do not know that there is any way to completely eliminate homophily because I think people will always have a bias or preference towards certain characteristics of a person. Additionally, I feel that people have this tendency because people of similar values or interests can enrich one’s life. For example, if you do not know anyone who likes the sport you play, it is hard for you to truly enjoy that sport. Knowing someone that you can discuss your interests with simply gives you something to bond and relate over.
Research Article: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aax7310