Burke Nicole, Brezack Natalie, Woodward Amanda
Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY, United States.
Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States.
Front Psychol. 2022 Oct 14;13:1009422. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1009422. eCollection 2022.
Psychologists are interested in understanding how early social environments impact children's behavior and cognition. Early social environments are comprised of social relationships; however, there have been relatively few tools available to quantify the depth and breadth of children's social relationships. We harnessed the power of social networks to demonstrate that networks can be used to describe children's early social environments. Descriptive data from American children aged 6 months-5 years ( = 280; 47% female, 56% White) demonstrates that network properties can be used to provide a quantitative analysis of children's early social environments and highlights how these environments vary across development. Social network methodology will provide researchers with a comprehensive picture of children's early social experiences and improve studies exploring individual differences.
心理学家们对了解早期社会环境如何影响儿童的行为和认知感兴趣。早期社会环境由社会关系组成；然而，用于量化儿童社会关系的深度和广度的工具相对较少。我们利用社交网络的力量来证明网络可用于描述儿童的早期社会环境。来自6个月至5岁美国儿童（n = 280；47%为女性，56%为白人）的描述性数据表明，网络属性可用于对儿童的早期社会环境进行定量分析，并突出这些环境在整个发育过程中的变化情况。社交网络方法将为研究人员提供儿童早期社会经历的全面图景，并改善探索个体差异的研究。
