Introduction: Network Perspectives - Content Meets Structure

Abstract

When we try to understand human behavior or beliefs, we might be tempted to either see these as the outcome of an individual’s free choice or as the result of individual characteristics. However, humans have a need for social contact (i.e., to interact with others; Crosier, Webster, and Dillon, 2012). This social component offers a third type of explanation for why people behave in a specific way or why they tend to hold a specific belief. That is that their behavioral decisions and beliefs are linked to how they are connected to others. The core idea of this perspective is that social relations impact our behavior and shape our beliefs and views on life, while at the same time, we might be selective about who we form relationships with. Such a relational perspective might not only be useful to explain individual behavior and beliefs but might also help explain how cooperation and coordination come about between people, organizations, or even nations. Since organizations and nations are made up of individuals, their coordinations can, in essence, be seen as complex aggregations of individual behavior. Hence, a social network analytical perspective might not only help explain individual behavior but also those of organizations and countries. Central to this third type of explanation is the idea of looking at the world like a social network. This easy_social_sciences issue consists of four papers that take up this idea and highlight different research areas from a social network perspective.