Social Network Characteristics Associated with Wellbeing Among MSW and BSW Students

Background and Purpose: Social networks grow from adolescence through early adulthood and tend to peak when individuals are 24.6 years of age. Socioemotional selectivity theory states that social relationships change as social goals change over the life course. Yet, knowledge of how to cultivate social networks is lacking. This study applies socioemotional selectivity theory to compare the social networks of undergraduate and graduate social work students. Furthermore, it seeks to characterize network characteristics that are associated with positive wellbeing, and tests whether these associations differ between undergraduate and graduate students.

Methods: Overall, 85 students were interviewed about their social support networks and wellbeing between Fall 2021 and Spring 2023. Data was collected via a 45-minute interview where participants were given an electronic well-being survey; asked a series of questions to generate individuals in their support networks; asked to provide information about each person in their network and relationships between people in their networks. Social network characteristics were calculated based on these social network data, including: (1) size, (2) connectivity (density), (3) cohesiveness (centrality), and (4) the social domains each individual represents. Once these network characteristics were calculated for each network, bivariate analyses (t-tests and ANOVA) were conducted between the network characteristics and wellbeing variables: physical health, emotional health, and loneliness for the undergraduate (n = 42) and graduate students (n = 43), separately.

Results: Overall, social networks for the students ranged from 5-24 with an average of 12.95 individuals in each network. On average, 45% of possible connections (i.e., density) existed within each network. On average, the students reported 6.48 cliques in their social networks. There were differences between the social networks of undergraduate and graduate students. On average, undergraduate students were 23.4 years, and graduate students were 27.5 years old. Graduate students reported larger social networks (14.40 versus 11.48, p<.01) and more cliques (7.16 versus 5.79, p <.01) than undergraduate students. Overall, higher centrality was associated with worse emotional health and higher levels of loneliness. Higher density and more cliques were associated with lower levels of loneliness.

Conclusions and Implications: Overall, network structures were significantly more important for wellbeing outcomes compared to the size of the network. It highlights the importance of focusing on the structure of social networks (density, centrality, domain, cohesiveness) of students or individuals rather than the size of these networks. Implications of these results suggest that a small intervention to restructure the network, rather than a big effort to expand the network, may have a more meaningful impact. For example, encouraging the mingling of friends to decentralize the student within their own network may improve a student’s emotional health and reduce loneliness. Future studies should continue to identify network characteristics associated with positive wellbeing.