Early insight into social network structure predicts climbing the social ladder

While occupying an influential position within one’s social network brings
many advantages, it is unknown how certain individuals rise in social
prominence. Leveraging a longitudinal dataset that tracks an entirely new
network of college freshmen (N=187), we test whether ‘climbing the social
ladder’ depends on knowing how other people are connected to each other.
Those who ultimately come to occupy the most influential positions exhibit
early and accurate representations of their network’s general, abstract
structure (i.e., who belongs to which communities and cliques). In
contrast, detailed, granular representations of specific friendships do
not translate into gains in social influence over time. Only once the
network stabilizes, do the most influential individuals exhibit the most
accurate representations of specific friendships. These findings reveal
that those who climb the social ladder first detect their emerging
network’s general structure, then fine-tune their knowledge about
individual relationships between their peers as network dynamics settle.