Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain.
Am J Community Psychol. 2018 Sep;62(1-2):233-238. doi: 10.1002/ajcp.12271. Epub 2018 Sep 14.
Social network analysis has grown exponentially in recent years, giving rise to methodological innovations in different scientific disciplines. In psychology, social network analysis has been incorporated into studies of individual personality differences and has generated novel areas, such as network psychometrics and network interventions. In community psychology, a recent review examined the use of network analysis in American Journal of Community Psychology publications (Neal & Neal, American Journal of Community Psychology, 2017, 60, 279). Based on their study, the authors advise researchers to avoid using the fixed-choice name generator when possible, as one of the five methodological recommendations proposed. In this essay, I explain how the recent increase of name generators with a fixed number of alters when studying personal networks is originally linked to an interest in describing structural properties. Second, I analyze the pragmatic contributions of this method: establishing a limit of alters a priori can entail advantages in terms of standardization and comparability of personal networks. Finally, to contextualize the methodological debate, I argue that personal networks represent the diversity of contexts in which the individual participates and are naturally integrated into community surveys.
近年来，社会网络分析呈指数级增长，在不同的科学学科中引发了方法创新。在心理学中，社会网络分析已经被纳入个体人格差异的研究中，并产生了新的领域，如网络心理测量学和网络干预。在社区心理学中，最近的一篇评论检查了网络分析在美国社区心理学杂志（Neal & Neal，American Journal of Community Psychology，2017，60，279）中的应用。基于他们的研究，作者建议研究人员尽可能避免使用固定选择名称生成器，这是提出的五项方法建议之一。在这篇文章中，我解释了最近在研究个人网络时，固定数量的替代者的名称生成器的增加是如何与对描述结构属性的兴趣联系在一起的。其次，我分析了这种方法的实用贡献：预先确定替代者的数量可以在个人网络的标准化和可比性方面带来优势。最后，为了使方法学争论具有背景意义，我认为个人网络代表了个体参与的各种背景的多样性，并且自然地融入了社区调查。
