Heritability in friendship networks

Michael Neugart and Selen Yildirim

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2022, vol. 194, issue C, 41-55

Abstract: There is considerable evidence nowadays that friendship networks account for a large part of an individual’s success or failure in life. Little, however, is known about the extent to which friendship networks are associated with an individual’s genotype. Using data from the German TwinLife study, we explore, within a classical twin design, whether friendship networks are related to genes. We find a substantial heritability component in twins’ network sizes and network homophily, but not in twins’ network closeness. The genetic influence on network characteristics may be attributable to traits which are themselves influenced by genetic factors. Addressing indirect ways in which genes could influence network characteristics, we do not find evidence that shared hobbies, education, or Big Five personality traits affect networks.

Keywords: Social networks; Twins; Behavioral genetics; Hobbies; Big five; Education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D90 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268121005175
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Heritability in friendship networks (2022)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:194:y:2022:i:c:p:41-55

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.12.008

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().