What do nodes know? The importance of understanding actors’ information for network analysis

Network analysis is an increasingly popular tool among social scientists. Unfortunately, many claims about the relationship between network structure and social outcomes fail to account for the limited information about network structure available to individual nodes. We present an analytical argument that this failure to account for the intervening role of information in strategic interaction calls into question many prominent claims of social network analysts. We present experimental evidence that strategic actors are unable to condition their behavior on network structure without extensive information about that network. Our experimental results suggest that observational research should consider both the information environment in which actors make choices and the possible interaction between this environment and the structure of the underlying network.网络分析在社会科学研究者中已成为愈发流行的研究工具。遗憾的是，诸多探讨网络结构与社会结果间关联的研究论断，均未充分考虑个体节点所能获取的网络结构信息存在局限性这一核心前提。本文提出一项分析性论证：由于未能考量信息在策略互动中的中介作用，社会网络分析领域诸多广受关注的研究论断的合理性已受到质疑。本文提供的实验证据显示，若未掌握对应网络的详尽信息，策略性行为主体无法依据网络结构调节自身行为。本实验结果表明，开展观察性研究时，需同时兼顾行为主体决策所处的信息环境，以及该环境与底层网络结构之间可能存在的交互效应。