The ripple effect of personality on social structure: self-monitoring origins of network brokerage.

Despite growing interest in social network brokerage, its psychological antecedents have been neglected. One possibility is that brokerage relates to self-monitoring personality orientation. High self-monitors, relative to low self-monitors, in adapting their self-presentations to the demands of different groups, may occupy positions as brokers between disconnected social worlds. For 162 Korean expatriate entrepreneurs in a Canadian urban area, the results showed that those high in self-monitoring tended to occupy direct brokerage roles within the Korean community--in terms of their direct acquaintances being unconnected with each other. Those high in self-monitoring also tended to occupy indirect brokerage roles--in terms of the acquaintances of their acquaintances being unconnected with each other. Finally, for recent arrivals, those high in self-monitoring tended to establish ties to a wider range of important non-Korean position holders outside the community. These results (which controlled for strongly significant effects of network size on individuals' brokerage within the community) suggest a ripple effect of self-monitoring on social structure and contribute to a clearer understanding of how personality relates to brokerage at different levels.