Models of Network Effects on Social Actors

This chapter is concerned with an old and deeply sociological problem: what is the impact of a social structure on the behavior and (certain) social characteristics of the social actors comprising the social structure? The imagery used to pose and address this question is that of social networks, as detailed in earlier chapters, but it carries no commitment concerning the level of analysis. 1 The use of a network approach shows the above (traditional) question to be, in fact, illposed and allows it to be posed in a more adequate fashion.