Weighting the transitivity of undirected weighted social networks with triadic edge dissimilarity scores

Abstract

When an individual is socially connected to two others, the resulting triplet can be closed (if the two social partners are themselves connected) or open (if they are not connected). The proportion of closed triplets, referred to as the binary network transitivity, is a classic measure of the level of interconnectedness of a social network. However, in any given triplet, if the closing link is weak, or indeed if any of the links in the triplet is weak, then the triplet should not contribute as much to network transitivity as if all three links were equally strong. I propose two ways to weight the contribution of each triplet according to the dissimilarity between the three links in the triplet. Empirically, the resulting new metrics conveyed information not picked up by any other network-level metric. I envision that this approach could prove useful in studies of triadic mechanisms, i.e., situations where pre-existing social ties influence the interactions with third parties. These metrics could also serve as repeatable synthetic variables that summarize information about the variability of the strength of social connections.