Network dynamics of affiliative ties in preschool peer groups

Daniel, João Rodrigo; Santos, Antonio José; Fernandes, Carla; Vaughn, Brian E.

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.12/6840

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This study investigated the network dynamics of affiliative ties in Portuguese preschool children, over three consecutive school years, using stochastic actor-based models. Our first goal was to test the extent to which different criteria to identify ties from observational data lead to different theoretical interpretations of model estimates. Contrary to past observational studies the data we use here takes into account the identities of children responsible for initiating social interactions. The second goal was to test the influence of two interaction effects involving reciprocity to analyze if reciprocity is constrained by the presence of transitive ties and if it constrains the creation and maintenance of new unreciprocated ties. Results showed that most effects were robust to changes in criteria to operationalize ties, supporting previous descriptions of preschool network dynamics. Also, contrary to recent findings in older samples, being embedded in a transitive triad did not make an unreciprocated dyad more likely to be maintained. Finally, results showed that the existence of reciprocal ties decreased preschool children’s tendency to create new ties.