Seminar Series of RECENS & CEU-CNS: Christoph Stadtfeld on 25 March, 2014

Many phenomena in social networks can be well explained by individual motivations and choices (micromotives in social networks). For example, trust, friendship, homophily, behavioral imitation and social learning can be described as small-scale processes with just two or a few individuals involved. However, many of these small-scale processes interconnect to large-scale social networks with specific features: Clustering,  segregation and diffusion of knowledge are examples of complex large-scale structures and processes (macrobehavior in social networks) that emerge from small-scale motives and in turn have an influence on the small-scale level. In this talk, I will discuss the complex interplay between micromotives and macrobehavior in social networks. In particular, I will focus on how modern social networks research can provide new insights into this theoretical challenge by combining different methodological approaches.