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Selection and Social Influence-Homophily in Social Networks

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Homophily is the tendency in social groups of similar people connected together. We often hear similar voices interact with like-minded people. Homophily has a significant impact on social media.

Example –
Birds with feather flock together.

Example of Homophily

Assume there are 1000 people in a party out of which 500 are of age ranges from 18-25 and the other 500 people are from the age group 40-50. So mathematically if we pick any friendship randomly then mostly it will be one teenager and one middle-aged person which is most probable condition. But we all know that teenagers may want to talk to a teenager and middle-aged may want to talk to middle-aged people. This is known as Homophily.

Social Influence :
It is the tendency in which people change their attitude or behavior to meet the social environment by getting influenced by other people is called Social Influence. Social Influence makes connected nodes similar.

Example –

  • Smoking.
  • Drinking.

Example of Social Influence

Suppose I have a friend who smokes so he will influence me to smoke. This is Social Influence.

Selection :
It is the tendency in which people make friends with similar interests i.e people select other people having similar habits or interests. In selection, people select similar nodes and connects with them.

Example –

  • Two people who speak the same language.

Example of Selection

Suppose there is a person who speaks Spanish and I also know Spanish so I will select that person and talk to him. This is called Selection


Last Updated : 31 Aug, 2020
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