Ego's important discussants or significant people: an experiment in varying the wording of personal network name generators

Abstract

Abstract There is considerable disagreement about the best personal network name generator to employ when only a single question is practical. One general approach is to ask the respondents (egos) to delineate the core members (alters) of their personal networks according to affective criteria (e.g., “the most significant people in your life”). Another approach provides more guidance to the egos by asking about alters with whom they have had specific interactions or social exchanges (e.g., “discuss important matters”). Finally, most name generators have been criticized for their preoccupation with positive ties to the exclusion of the difficult or negative relationships that may be an important part of ego's social world. An experiment (2×2 factorial design) was embedded within an interviewer-administered survey of 426 college students to explore the effects on reported network size and composition of (a) varying the delineation criteria (“significant people” or the 1985 General Social Survey (GSS) “important matters”) and (b) including or excluding a probe for negative interactions (“These may include people that sometimes make you angry or upset”). The name-generator wording manipulations produced modest network compositional differences (ego–alter role relationships and discussion topics) that varied by the sex of both egos and their alters. Compared to the “important matters” criterion, the “significant people” generator elicited slightly more cross-sex relatives and fewer same-sex close friends and co-workers from female (but not male) respondents. The negative probe produced some statistically significant but substantively unimportant compositional differences. The results suggest that major differences in name-generator wording may in some situations have little or no effect on reported egocentric networks.