Power-at-a-Distance and Power Reversals: Testing New Predictions for Exchange Networks

这是一项关于社会交换网络中权力的研究，将通过实验室实验测试网络交换理论（NET）的两个扩展。 在第一个扩展中，NET提供了对远距离功率的预测，与以前的研究不同，功率练习不限于紧邻的位置，而是向外延伸两到三个网络步骤。 在第二个扩展中，NET预测在某些网络条件下消除功率的联盟将在其他条件下带来功率反转。 在这项研究中，一个名为ExNet的连接微型计算机系统将人类受试者连接到实验网络中，允许通信并促进资源交易。 现有版本的ExNet不允许进行预期的实验，因此将编写软件来为ExNet添加这些功能和其他功能，并将该系统提供给实验室交换研究人员社区，以促进多种实验。 %%% 这项工作是将社会交换的实验室实验与真实的世界中的现象联系起来的重要一步，最显著的是因为它增加了可以研究的社会网络过程的规模和复杂性。 这些实验是对人力资本理论的社会资本方面的基础研究，探索社会网络中的结构位置如何成为赋予权力的重要资源，从而成为资源，而与占据该位置的人的个人特征无关。 该项目是关于群体过程的社会心理学研究中最有前途的工作之一的延伸，将为社会交换网络的结构特性如何影响人类命运提供基本见解。

This is a study of power in social exchange networks that will test two extensions of Network Exchange Theory (NET) through laboratory experimentation. In the first extension, NET offers predictions for power-at-a-distance, where unlike previous studies power exercise is not limited to immediately adjacent positions, but reaches outward two or three network steps. In the second extension, NET predicts that coalitions which eliminate power under some network conditions will bring power reversals under other conditions. In the research, a system of linked microcomputers called ExNet connects human subjects in experimental networks allowing communications and facilitating resource transactions. The existing versions of ExNet would not permit the intended experiments, so software will be written to add these and other capabilities to ExNet, and the system will be made available to the community of laboratory exchange researchers to facilitate experiments of many kinds. %%% This work is an important step in linking laboratory experimentation on social exchange with phenomena in the real world, most notably because it increases the size and complexity of social network processes that can be studied. These experiments are fundamental research on social-capital aspects of human capital theory, exploring the ways that structural location in a social network can be a vital resource conferring power and thus resources, quite independently of the individual characteristics of the person occupying that location. An extension of one of the most promising lines of work in social-psychological research on group processes, this project will contribute fundamental insights on how the structural properties of social exchange networks influence the fates of human beings.