Friendship paradox

The friendship paradox was first observed in 1991 by sociologist Scott Lauren Feld . It describes the phenomenon that almost every person's friends have more friends than they do themselves.

Regardless of the apparently paradoxical statement, the phenomenon is real and can be explained as a consequence of general mathematical properties of graphs of social networks . However, it can also be the cause of numerous social misunderstandings.

The friendship paradox can be explained sociologically by the fact that one would rather make friends with people who have many friends than with those who have only a few friends. Or purely statistically because each individual is probably one of the friends of people with many friends.

This knowledge is one possible way of predicting the course of epidemics.

Web links

• science.ORF.at of September 16, 2010: Being popular is unhealthy
• Psychology Today of November 1, 2009: Why Your Friends Have More Friends Than You Do
• The Guardian of January 30, 2010: Ever wondered why your friends seem so much more popular than you are? There's a reason for that
• Martin Poulter, Bias and Belief, August 29, 2009: The friendship paradox
• Nicholas Christakis, June 2010: How social networks predict epidemics
• Breakfast at Les Deux Magots: a practical example of the paradox of friendship (English)

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1. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento from September 28, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Scott L. Field: Why Your Friends Have More Friends Than You Do . In: American Journal of Sociology . tape 96 , no. 6 , May 1, 1991, pp. 1464-1477 , JSTOR : 2781907 .
3. ↑ Ezra W. Zuckerman, John T. Jost: What Makes You Think You're so Popular? Self-Evaluation Maintenance and the Subjective Side of the “Friendship Paradox” . In: Social Psychology Quarterly . tape 64 , no. 3 , 2001, p. 207-223 , doi : 10.2307 / 3090112 ( PDF ).
4. ↑ plosone.org: PLoS ONE: Social Network Sensors for Early Detection of Contagious Outbreaks , accessed January 7, 2011