Empathy and well-being correlate with centrality in different social networks

Abstract

Individuals benefit from occupying central roles in social networks, but little is known about the psychological traits that predict centrality. Across four college freshman dorms (n = 193), we characterized individuals with a battery of personality questionnaires and also asked them to nominate dorm members with whom they had different types of relationships. This revealed several social networks within dorm communities with differing characteristics. In particular, additional data showed that networks varied in the degree to which nominations depend on (i) trust and (ii) shared fun and excitement. Networks more dependent upon trust were further defined by fewer connections than those more dependent on fun. Crucially, network and personality features interacted to predict individuals' centrality: people high in well-being (i.e., life satisfaction and positive emotion) were central to networks characterized by fun, whereas people high in empathy were central to networks characterized by trust. Together, these findings provide network-based corroboration of psychological evidence that well-being is socially attractive, whereas empathy supports close relationships. More broadly, these data highlight how an individual's personality relates to the roles that they play in sustaining their community.

Keywords: centrality; empathy; personality; social networks; well-being.

Fig. 1.

Standardized factor loadings and significant factor correlations (P < 0.05) for the four-factor solution for all measures of empathy, well-being, and negative emotion.

Fig. 2.

(Top) The strength of the relationship between each trait and indegree (as indexed by the average standardized betas from Table 1) for networks that were considered higher vs. lower in trust. (Bottom) The strength of the relationship between each trait and indegree for networks that were considered higher vs. lower in fun and excitement.

Fig. 3.

(Top) A network map of one dorm shows that students with more nominations (i.e., larger nodes) for the question “Who usually makes you feel positive (e.g., happy, enthusiastic)?” also tend to rank higher on trait positive emotion. (Bottom) A network map of the same dorm shows that students with more nominations for the question “Who do you turn to when something bad happens?” also tend to rank higher on trait empathy. Note that all analyses were conducted with continuous trait measures and that median splits are used here only for illustrative purposes.