Hernández-Hernández Ana María, Viga-de Alva Dolores, Huerta-Quintanilla Rodrigo, Canto-Lugo Efrain, Laviada-Molina Hugo, Molina-Segui Fernanda
Departamento de Física Aplicada. Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional. Mérida, Yucatán, México.
Departamento de Ecología Humana. Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional. Mérida, Yucatán, México.
PLoS One. 2016 Oct 19;11(10):e0164886. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0164886. eCollection 2016.
We use complex network theory to study the differences between the friendship concepts in elementary school and university students. Four friendship networks were identified from surveys. Three of these networks are from elementary schools; two are located in the rural area of Yucatán and the other is in the urban area of Mérida, Yucatán. We analyzed the structure and the communities of these friendship networks and found significant differences among those at the elementary schools compared with those at the university. In elementary schools, the students make friends mainly in the same classroom, but there are also links among different classrooms because of the presence of siblings and relatives in the schools. These kinds of links (sibling-friend or relative-friend) are called, in this work, "mixed links". The classification of the communities is based on their similarity with the classroom composition. If the community is composed principally of students in different classrooms, the community is classified as heterogeneous. These kinds of communities appear in the elementary school friendship networks mainly because of the presence of relatives and siblings. Once the links between siblings and relatives are removed, the communities resembled the classroom composition. On the other hand, the university students are more selective in choosing friends and therefore, even when they have friends in the same classroom, those communities are quite different to the classroom composition. Also, in the university network, we found heterogeneous communities even when the presence of sibling and relatives is negligible. These differences made up a topological structure quite different at different academic levels. We also found differences in the network characteristics. Once these differences are understood, the topological structure of the friendship network and the communities shaped in an elementary school could be predicted if we know the total number of students and the ties between siblings and relatives. However, at the university, we cannot do the same. This discovery implies that friendship is a dynamic concept that produces several changes in the friendship network structure and the way that people make groups of friends; it provides the opportunity to give analytic support to observational studies. Communities were also studied by gender and we found that when the links among relatives and siblings were removed, the number of communities formed by one gender alone increased. At the university, many communities formed by students of the same gender were also found.
我们运用复杂网络理论来研究小学生和大学生友谊观念之间的差异。通过调查确定了四个友谊网络。其中三个网络来自小学；两个位于尤卡坦州的农村地区，另一个在尤卡坦州梅里达的市区。我们分析了这些友谊网络的结构和社群，发现小学阶段的友谊网络与大学阶段的相比存在显著差异。在小学，学生主要在同一间教室交朋友，但由于学校里有兄弟姐妹和亲戚，不同教室之间也存在联系。在这项研究中，这类联系（兄弟姐妹 - 朋友或亲戚 - 朋友）被称为“混合联系”。社群的分类基于它们与教室组成的相似性。如果一个社群主要由来自不同教室的学生组成，那么这个社群就被归类为异质的。这类社群出现在小学友谊网络中主要是因为有亲戚和兄弟姐妹。一旦去除兄弟姐妹和亲戚之间的联系，这些社群就与教室组成相似了。另一方面，大学生在选择朋友时更具选择性，因此，即使他们在同一间教室有朋友，这些社群与教室组成也有很大不同。此外，在大学网络中，即使兄弟姐妹和亲戚的存在可以忽略不计，我们也发现了异质社群。这些差异构成了不同学术层次上截然不同的拓扑结构。我们还发现了网络特征方面的差异。一旦理解了这些差异，如果我们知道学生总数以及兄弟姐妹和亲戚之间的联系，就可以预测小学友谊网络的拓扑结构和形成的社群。然而，在大学阶段，我们无法做到同样的事情。这一发现意味着友谊是一个动态概念，它会使友谊网络结构以及人们形成朋友群体的方式产生多种变化；它为观察性研究提供了进行分析支持的机会。我们还按性别对社群进行了研究，发现去除亲戚和兄弟姐妹之间的联系后，仅由一种性别的学生形成的社群数量增加了。在大学，也发现了许多由同性别的学生形成的社群。
