Grupo Interdisciplinar de Sistemas Complejos, Departamento de Matemáticas, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 28911, Leganés, Madrid, Spain.
Unidad Mixta Interdisciplinar de Comportamiento y Unidad Social (UMICSS) UC3M-UV-UZ, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 28911, Leganés, Spain.
Sci Rep. 2021 Jun 3;11(1):11694. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-90984-z.
People organize their social relationships under a restriction on the number that a single individual can maintain simultaneously (the so-called Dunbar's number, ~150). Additionally, personal networks show a characteristic layered structure where each layer corresponds to relationships of different emotional closeness. This structure, referred to as Dunbar's circles, has mostly been considered from a static viewpoint, and their structure and evolution is largely unexplored. Here we study the issue of the evolution of the structure of positive and negative relationships in early adolescence by using data from students in their first year at middle school obtained from surveys conducted in class in two different waves separated by several months. Our results show that, initially, students have a lower number of total relationships but the majority are more intense and over time they report a higher number of total relationships, but the more intense relationships appear in a lower proportion. We have also found differences in the structure of communities at both temporal moments. While in the first instance the communities that appeared are mixed, made up of both boys and girls, in the second they changed so that they were separated primarily by gender. In addition, the size of each community was stabilized around 15 people, which coincides with the size of the second Dunbar's circle, known as the sympathy group in social psychology. As a consequence, in groups with around 20 students of the same gender, they tend to split in two separate communities of about 10 each, below the second Dunbar's circle threshold. On the other hand, groups with more stable community structure appear to go through the inverse process of friendship evolution, becoming more focused on their best relationships. All these results suggest how the layered structure of the personal network, as well as the community structure of the social network, emerge directly from the union of both positive and negative relationships. Thus, we provide a new perspective about its temporal evolution that may have relevant applications to improve school life and student performance.
人们根据一个人同时能够维持的社交关系数量（即所谓的邓巴数，约 150）来组织自己的社交关系。此外，个人网络呈现出一种具有特征分层结构的模式，其中每一层对应于不同亲密程度的关系。这种结构通常被称为邓巴圈，主要从静态的角度来考虑，其结构和演化在很大程度上还未被探索。在这里，我们通过使用来自初中生的调查数据来研究青春期早期积极和消极关系结构的演变问题，这些数据是在两个相隔数月的不同时间点在课堂上进行的调查中获得的。我们的研究结果表明，最初，学生的总关系数量较少，但大多数关系较为强烈，随着时间的推移，他们报告的总关系数量增加，但更强烈的关系比例下降。我们还发现了在这两个时间点上社区结构的差异。在最初的情况下，出现的社区是混合的，由男孩和女孩组成，而在第二个时间点，它们发生了变化，主要按性别分开。此外，每个社区的大小稳定在 15 人左右，这与第二个邓巴圈的大小一致，在社会心理学中称为同情群体。因此，在有大约 20 名同性学生的群体中，他们往往会分裂成两个独立的社区，每个社区大约有 10 人，低于第二个邓巴圈的阈值。另一方面，具有更稳定社区结构的群体似乎经历了友谊进化的反向过程，更加关注他们最好的关系。所有这些结果表明，个人网络的分层结构以及社交网络的社区结构如何直接从积极和消极关系的结合中产生。因此，我们提供了一个关于其时间演变的新视角，这可能对改善学校生活和学生表现有相关应用。
