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Indirectly connected: simple social differences can explain the causes and apparent consequences of complex social network positions

Overview of attention for article published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, November 2017
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (96th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (85th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
3 news outlets
blogs
1 blog
twitter
101 X users
facebook
1 Facebook page

Citations

dimensions_citation
36 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
149 Mendeley
Title
Indirectly connected: simple social differences can explain the causes and apparent consequences of complex social network positions
Published in
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, November 2017
DOI 10.1098/rspb.2017.1939
Pubmed ID
Authors

Josh A. Firth, Ben C. Sheldon, Lauren J. N. Brent

Abstract

Animal societies are often structurally complex. How individuals are positioned within the wider social network (i.e. their indirect social connections) has been shown to be repeatable, heritable and related to key life-history variables. Yet, there remains a general lack of understanding surrounding how complex network positions arise, whether they indicate active multifaceted social decisions by individuals, and how natural selection could act on this variation. We use simulations to assess how variation in simple social association rules between individuals can determine their positions within emerging social networks. Our results show that metrics of individuals' indirect connections can be more strongly related to underlying simple social differences than metrics of their dyadic connections. External influences causing network noise (typical of animal social networks) generally inflated these differences. The findings demonstrate that relationships between complex network positions and other behaviours or fitness components do not provide sufficient evidence for the presence, or importance, of complex social behaviours, even if direct network metrics provide less explanatory power than indirect ones. Interestingly however, a plausible and straightforward heritable basis for complex network positions can arise from simple social differences, which in turn creates potential for selection to act on indirect connections.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 101 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 149 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 149 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 43 29%
Researcher 25 17%
Student > Master 16 11%
Student > Doctoral Student 12 8%
Student > Bachelor 11 7%
Other 21 14%
Unknown 21 14%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 64 43%
Psychology 20 13%
Environmental Science 7 5%
Neuroscience 7 5%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 3 2%
Other 11 7%
Unknown 37 25%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 81. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 27 February 2021.
All research outputs
#527,216
of 25,382,440 outputs
Outputs from Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
#1,326
of 11,331 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#10,875
of 335,891 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
#22
of 152 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,382,440 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 97th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 11,331 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 40.4. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 335,891 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 152 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 85% of its contemporaries.