Category Archives: Survey Variables: Social Capital

In addition to features of their own networks, such as the status and homogeneity of their acquaintances, how often they see the people they know, and the help that they can ask for, social capital also covers people’s dispositions towards society more generally. The survey did not cover this area extensively, because of its focusContinue reading “Survey Variable: General Social Trust”

As noted elsewhere, social capital has many components: the size of your social network, its level of interaction, its homogeneity, and the statuses of the people within it. An additional key component, and the last one we consider, is the strength of the network. One indicator this is the amount of help that people withinContinue reading “Survey Variable: Social Network Strength”

There are numerous components of social capital: the size of your network, your amount of interaction within it, and the occupational status of your acquaintances all matter. Additionally, the social homogeneity of the network is important, because it is likely to affect the number and range of experiences and perspectives that you encounter. The surveyContinue reading “Survey Variable: Social Network Homogeneity”

In addition to the statuses of the people who you know, and the number of acquaintances that you have, an important component of social capital is how often you interact with those acquaintances. The survey asked people a series of questions designed to measure social network interaction, focusing on how often people talk to theirContinue reading “Survey Variable: Social Network Interaction”

A key feature of social capital is how many people we know. Some people have large networks of friends and acquaintances whilst others know just a few people. In each case there is also variation in how well people know their acquaintances, and we often have closer and more distant friendships. To investigate these variations,Continue reading “Survey Variable: Social Network Size”

One of the key components of social capital is the status of the people that we know. Status can be measured in numerous ways, but occupation is often taken as a key indicator. Moving in the same circles as judges, military officers, and company directors is a rather different proposition than socialising with call centreContinue reading “Survey Variable: Occupational Status of Acquaintances”

As with political acts, after asking about involvement with organisations (by donating, volunteering, becoming a member, or holding an unpaid position) the survey asked about requests to get involved (in those same ways). Again, people were asked whether they had received recruitment requests from a range of people or organisations, and their answers are graphedContinue reading “Survey Variable: Organisation Recruitment”

By far the most common form of recruitment to undertake political acts, as shown in Panel A of Figure 1 (above, using weighted data), is via generic means such mass emails, letters, or social media requests.[1] It is only generic requests and requests from friends (Panel C) that are received by a majority of peopleContinue reading “Survey Variable: Political Acts Recruitment”