When it comes to social climbing, it’s not who you know, or how many people you know, it’s about knowing who knows whom, research suggests.
Experts studying social connections made by first-year university students say those who ended up with the most influence were not necessarily the most popular, but those who had a good idea, early on, about who belonged to which clique or community.
“Having friends helps, but social influence isn’t just about who you know – it’s also about what you know about the rest of your social network,” said Isabella Aslarus, first author of the study from Stanford University in California.
Writing in the journal Science Advances, the US researchers report how they asked 187 students to complete surveys about who they were friends with at six different points during their first year at university.
The team used the results to map the connections between individuals, and how these changed with time.
At two points, once shortly after the start of the academic year and once in the spring term, the researchers ranked students by how many friends they had and their social influence – with the latter determined by how well-connected their friends were.
The researchers also asked each participant if they knew whether given pairs of students were friends.
The results reveal the number of friendships people reported changed little over time, however the friendships between individuals, and people’s level of influence, shifted.
“Popularity does not really change over the course of the year,” said Dr Oriel FeldmanHall, co-author of the study from Brown University. “What changes dramatically is the people who were the most influential early on were no longer the most influential by the end of the year.”
This shifting network, the researchers said, became more stable as the academic year went on.
FeldmanHall said it is not clear what made people influential early in the study, but the students who rose to become the most influential by the end were those who had early insights about how all their peers were connected.
“To become influential, you need to know who is friends with whom, and you need to have a bird’s eye view of how people cluster into different social groups or cliques,” said Aslarus.
Individuals, she said, can use that knowledge to become more influential – for example by making new friendships or being an effective matchmaker.
Aslarus added that it is only after becoming influential that people develop more detailed knowledge about individual friendships.
“Knowing about your network predicts becoming influential over time, more so than just having lots of friends,” she said.
“So, social knowledge seems to be a key first step toward becoming better-connected in your network.”