Social Networks

Personal social networks are typically defined as "a collection of individuals who know and interact with a particular target individual or couple" (Milardo 1988, p. 20). Researchers can assess the structural characteristics of an individual's network such as network size, role composition (the number of individuals, including family, friends, or work associates, in the network), or network density (interconnectedness among members). Content characteristics of networks describe the nature of linkages between the individual and network members such as relationship satisfaction, feelings of closeness, or reciprocity. Functional characteristics of networks describe linkages in which a given person serves some function for the focal individual, such as providing social support or informal help (Laireiter and Baumann 1992).

The social networks of couples have been investigated in three major ways. Using an individual perspective, researchers have defined a couple's social ties in terms of the separate personal networks maintained by each partner. At the dyadic level, a couple's network has been viewed as those network members jointly shared by the couple. A configural approach conceptualizes a couple's network as a composite of the shared and separate ties contributed by both partners. Individual, dyadic, and configural perspectives differ in their assumptions about the role of network structure for couples, and each perspective has certain advantages and limitations (Stein et al. 1992).

There is no one correct definition of a social network, but rather different network delineation strategies yield different data about social relationships. In studying the social context of marital and family life, researchers distinguish between the structure, content, and function of social network relationships. Researchers who study married couples must also decide if they are interested in the separate networks of marital partners, the degree of overlap between the partners' social ties, or some composite picture of the couple's network relations.