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Can Cultural Worldviews Influence Network Formation?
A Longitudinal Investigation
Stephen Vaisey
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
ABSTRACT: Most sociological research, even among students of culture, assumes that networks
exert a causal influence on cultural beliefs. Network-focused research has failed to consider the
possibility that cultural beliefs or worldviews have an independent effect on the formation of
social networks. Building on Emirbayer and Goodwin’s (1994) structuralist constructionism and
using longitudinal data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, this paper shows that the
different moral worldviews outlined in Habits of the Heart were causally linked to changes in the
ego-networks of young people between 2002 and 2005. These effects are robust to the inclusion
of prior network composition and behavioral homophily and are generally stronger than prior
network and homophily effects. The study concludes with a brief discussion of the implications
of the findings for the sociological study of networks and culture.