Diane Felmlee

Pennsylvania State University | Penn State · Department of Sociology & Crime, Law and Justice

The 2020 Vice-Presidential debate afforded the opportunity to examine online reactions toward a woman of color, Kamala Harris, and a white man, Mike Pence, as they vied for the same position. We collected tweets from the Twitter API related to Harris and Pence, mainly using neutral hashtags. We examined keywords for gender and race slurs and conduc...

People report positive moods and enhanced well-being when they socialize with friends and other close ties. However, because most people routinely have more encounters with acquaintances and strangers (social connections known as weak ties) than with close friends or kin ( strong ties), we deemed it important to examine whether interaction with wea...

In a quasi‐experiment, we examine whether changing schools during the transition from 8th to 9th grade influences adolescent delinquency, using a sample of more than 14,000 students in 26 public school districts (PROSPER study). The dataset follows students for eight waves from 6th through 12th grade and facilitates a unique, direct comparison of s...

While most social network research focuses on positive relational ties, such as friendship and information exchange, scholars are beginning to examine the dark side of human interaction, where negative connections represent different forms of interpersonal conflict, intolerance, and abuse. Despite this recent work, the extent to which positive and...

While criminal organizations often feature hierarchical positions, scholars debate the extent to which networks of informal collaboration among criminals reflect such hierarchies. This research uses historical data on collaboration involving more than 700 criminals across 24 Italian-American Mafia families and applies network regression models and...

The romantic dyad is emphasized in society, which leads to the question of whether single (non-partnered) adults in emerging adulthood perceive pressure from their social network members to become partnered. The first purpose of this study was to examine the degree of pressure to enter a relationship that single (unattached) men and women perceive...

Online social networks serve as a convenient way to connect, share, and promote content with others. As a result, these networks can be used with malicious intent, causing disruption and harm to public debate through the sharing of misinformation. However, automatically identifying such content through its use of natural language is a significant c...

Motifs represent local subgraphs that are overrepresented in networks. Several disciplines document multiple instances in which motifs appear in graphs and provide insight into the structure and processes of these networks. In the current paper, we focus on social networks and examine the prevalence of dyad, triad, and symmetric tetrad motifs among...

Online harassment is a growing societal problem. Although online harassment, or cyber aggression, has begun to receive attention, little research systematically explores the common themes found in hostile messages. In this project, we focused on online harassment directed towards women of color. We applied social network methodology and text cluste...

Social psychologists focus on the microlevel features that define interaction, often attending to dyads and triads. We argue that there also is utility in studying how configurations of four actors, or tetrads, pattern our social world. The current project considers the prevalence of directed tetrads across twenty social networks representing five...

Objectives The current research examines how the efficiency/security tradeoff shapes the evolution of dynamic terrorist networks by focusing on the structural properties of these collectives. Some scholars argue that terrorist groups develop as chain-like, decentralized structures, while others maintain that terrorist networks form patterns of redu...

The authors use the timing of a change in Twitter’s rules regarding abusive content to test the effectiveness of organizational policies aimed at stemming online harassment. Institutionalist theories of social control suggest that such interventions can be efficacious if they are perceived as legitimate, whereas theories of psychological reactance...

Social media platforms are accused repeatedly of creating environments in which women are bullied and harassed. We argue that online aggression toward women aims to reinforce traditional feminine norms and stereotypes. In a mixed methods study, we find that this type of aggression on Twitter is common and extensive and that it can spread far beyond...

The Women’s March of 2017 generated unprecedented levels of participation in the largest, single day, protest in history to date. The marchers protested the election of President Donald Trump and rallied in support of several civil issues such as women’s rights. “Sister marches” evolved in at least 680 locations across the United States. Both posit...

Wikipedia serves as a good example of how editors collaborate to form and maintain an article. The relationship between editors, derived from their sequence of editing activity, results in a directed network structure called the revision network, that potentially holds valuable insights into editing activity. In this paper we create revision networ...

Wikipedia serves as a good example of how editors collaborate to form and maintain an article. The relationship between editors, derived from their sequence of editing activity, results in a directed network structure called the revision network, that potentially holds valuable insights into editing activity. In this paper we create revision networ...

This research applies a social network perspective to the issue of cyber aggression, or cyberbullying, on the social media platform Twitter. Cyber aggression is particularly problematic because of its potential for anonymity, and the ease with which so many others can join the harassment of victims. Utilizing a comparative case study methodology, t...

We examine gender differences in the extent to which the social network processes of peer influence and friend selection explain why adolescents tend to exhibit similar risky behaviors as their friends for three problem behaviors (smoking, drinking, and delinquency). Using dynamic Stochastic Actor-Oriented Models (SAOMs), we analyze five waves of d...

Recent studies examine factors that lead to the emergence of terrorism and why some locations are more frequently targeted than others. However, much of the research assumes that terrorist incidents and groups are independent. We show that the assumption of independence is not always valid. Instead, we identify the conditions under which terrorist...

This chapter examines adolescents’ friendship patterns from 6th through 12th grade, and investigates the impact on friendship networks of two transitions in the institutionalized life course, one from elementary to middle school and the other from middle to high school. Using information from 51 networks in 26 school districts, this study considers...

Finishing school and starting a family are among the most important life goals for young adults, with long term consequences for the life course. The cultural transmission of these goals is so widespread as to be nearly universal. Yet some adolescents fail to embrace them. This chapter advances the argument that the stability of friendship networks...

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the life course and social network perspectives and suggests how the integration of life course and social network ideas can further the study of both. An overarching framework is presented within which the understanding of social networks can improve the understanding of the life course, and vice v...

The concluding chapter in this volume identifies four concrete strategies utilized by authors in this volume to link the life course and social network perspectives: (1) social networks informing individual trajectories, (2) individual trajectories informing social networks, (3) social networks informing life transitions, and (4) life transitions i...

This study investigates the influence of structural transitions to high school on adolescents’ friendship networks and academic grades from 6th through 12th grade, in a direct comparison of students who do and do not transition. We utilize data from 14,462 youth in 51 networks from 26 districts (Promoting School–Community Partnerships to Enhance Re...

We examine the pathways by which parents influence adolescents’ close friendships, focusing on three types of behavioral styles: hostile, warm, and problem solving. Structural equation models are estimated using data at two time points from the Iowa Youth and Families Project (N = 227 friendship pairs). Results suggest that the lives of adolescents...

This volume engages the interface between the development of human lives and social relational networks. It focuses on the integration of two subfields of sociology/social science--the life course and social networks. Research practitioners studying social networks typically focus on social structure or social organization, ignoring the complex liv...

Personal relationships are not contained within discrete, dyadic spheres. Instead, they develop, flourish, and wither within a wider social environment. This environment consists of a web of interpersonal connections, both online and offline, among friends, family members, work relations, neighbors, and acquaintances, that is, a social network. Mem...

Group behavior is an important feature of conflict scenarios. Often such groups are chaotically organized, but their ideals are sociologically embedded across members such that the group has expected behavior that can represent a major threat. Therefore being able to model the evolution of groups on a generative basis, to anticipate their possible...

This research applies a social network perspective to the issue of cyber aggression, or cyberbullying, on the social media platform Twitter. Cyber aggression is particularly problematic because of its potential for anonymity, and the ease with which so many others can join the harassment of victims. Utilizing a comparative case study methodology, t...

A major concern in coalition peace-support operations is the incidence of terrorist activity. In this paper, we propose a generative model for the occurrence of the terrorist incidents, and illustrate that an increase in diversity, as measured by the number of different social groups to which that an individual belongs, is inversely correlated with...

Over the last 70 years there has been a major shift in the threats to global peace. While the 1950’s and 1960’s were characterised by the cold war and the arms race, many security threats are now characterised by group behaviours that are disruptive, subversive or extreme. In many cases such groups are loosely and chaotically organised, but their i...

This study analyzed the e-mail exchange network of participants of a national dating website. The investigation examined whether aggregated partner preferences give rise to distinct, “invisible,” clusters in online dating networks that structure dating opportunities and result in homophilous subgroups. The findings identified and visualized the ten...

We examine instances of youth cyber aggression, arguing that the close relationships of friendship and romance substantially influence the chances of being targeted. We investigate networks of friendship, dating, and aggression among a sample of 788 eighth- to twelfth-grade students in a longitudinal study of a New York school. Approximately 17 per...

In three studies, we examined the influence of social network reactions on feelings toward a romantic partner. Study 1 was a large survey (N = 858), Study 2 was a vignette design in which social network reactions were manipulated, and Study 3 was a laboratory-based, dating game experiment. We found extensive support for the social network effect, w...

We argue that adolescent friendships flourish, or wither, within the “linked lives” of other salient social network ties. Based on structural equation modeling with data from two time points, we find that young people tend to be in high-quality friendships when they are tightly embedded in their social network and receive social support from their...

The growing popularity and diversity of social network applications present new opportunities as well as new challenges. The resulting social networks have high value to business intelligence, sociological studies, organizational studies, epidemical studies, etc. The ability to explore and extract information of interest from the networks is thus c...

We point to group processes of status conflict and norm enforcement as fundamental elements in the development of school-based victimization. Socially vulnerable youth are frequently harassed for violating norms, but the logic of status competition implies they are not the only victims: to the extent that aggression is instrumental for social climb...

We examined the relationships between gender and attitudes towards same-and cross-gender friendship norms for a sample of 269 West Coast, U.S., college stu-dents. Participants evaluated violations of friendship norms described in vignettes in which the friend's gender was experimentally manipulated. Women differentiated more between types of violat...

Scalability issues make it time-consuming to estimate even simple characteristics of large scale, online networks, and the constantly evolving qualities of these networks make it challenging to capture a representative picture of a particular network's properties. Here we focus on the evolution of all triads (ties between three nodes) in a graph, a...

Literature on aggression often suggests that individual deficiencies, such as social incompetence, psychological difficulties, or troublesome home environments, are responsible for aggressive behavior. In this article, by contrast, we examine aggression from a social network perspective, arguing that social network centrality, our primary measure o...

We examine the process of romantic attraction in same-gender relationships using open and closed-ended questionnaire data from a sample of 120 men and women in Northern California. Agreeableness (e.g., kind, supportive) and Extraversion (e.g., fun, sense of humor) are the two most prominent bases of attraction, followed by Physical Attractiveness (...

The authors examined same- and cross-gender friendship norms in a sample of 135 adults (average age 73 years). Participants evaluated a friend's behavior, quantitatively and qualitatively, in vignettes in which the friend's gender was experimentally manipulated. Gender often significantly, though modestly, influenced normative evaluations. Women fr...

This study examines the propensity of individuals to become disillusioned with the qualities of an intimate partner that initially served as attractants (i.e., a "fatal" attraction). Using a sample of 208 adults, with an average age of 37 years, we find that this type of disenchantment is particularly likely when individuals are extremely attracted...

Gender interacts in noteworthy ways with the vital bond of friendship. Women tend to emphasize self‐disclosure in friendships more often than men, whereas men stress shared activities and instrumentality. Patterns emerge among the social norms or expectations that characterize friendships. Thus women react more negatively than men to violations of...

Data from a longitudinal sample of dating couples (some of whom married) were analyzed to test the aspect of Waller’s (1938) principle of least interest that states that unequal emotional involvement between romantic partners has implications for relationship quality and stability. Both members of the couples were asked multiple times over several...

Love is a topic of considerable import and fascination in virtually every society. In Western cultures, love is claimed as the grounds for mating and dating and as the basis for family bonding. On a cultural level, love is one of the most frequently discussed literary topics. It is the repeated focus of philosophers, poets, novelists, musicians, ar...

Social network research constitutes one of the most rapidly expanding academic areas and is emerging as an increasingly popular paradigm for social psychological inquiry. A social network perspective emphasizes the importance of social ties among actors in shaping individual behavior, and at the same time, focuses on the processes by which networks...

This study uses questionnaire data from 301 terminated romantic relationships to investigate hypotheses concerning the conditions under which a quality that is initially appealing in a partner is later disliked (i.e., a “fatal attraction”). Individuals are expected to be prone to fatal attractions when they are attracted to a quality in a romantic...

Data from five waves of a longitudinal study of romantic couples were analyzed to examine how the partners’perceptions of social network attributes (i.e., network approval for the relationship, network overlap, liking for partner's network) change with the passage of time and relationship transitions. The results indicated that perceptions of netwo...

In recent years, popular media has drawn attention to “mean girls” and their negative treatment of others, particularly other females. But while the attention to girls' aggression and their mistreatment of their peers highlights understudied aspects of female behavior, it neglects the beneficial aspects of female friendship. We argue that compared...

We examine the degree to which ethnic diversity in social networks relates to the frequency of interethnic romantic relationships for 318 college students. In a multinomial logit, we find that the odds of having an interethnic relationship once or twice, versus never, increase significantly if the respondent has a relatively ethnically diverse frie...

Understanding interpersonal relationships requires understanding actors, behaviors, and contexts. This 2002 volume presents research from a variety of disciplines that examine personal relationships on all three levels. The first section focuses on the factors that influence individuals to enter, maintain, and dissolve relationships. The second sec...

This study examines the tendency for thereto be similarities between the qualities that initially attract individuals to romantic partners and those they later dislike, that is, "fatal attractions." Approximately 44 percent of the individuals in this sample of 125 dating persons experience fatal attractions. Individual cases illustrate opposing the...

Social networks have a relatively large and multifaceted effect on the stability of intimate relationships, based on proportional hazard analysis involving 290 individuals. Perceptions of approval from a respondent's friends and approval from a partners family increase relationship stability. On the other hand, perceived approval from a respondent'...

The study of close relationships is both a subarea within social psychology and a field involving scholars from many disciplines. We first describe the development and current state of the field. Next we discuss four issues raised in the literature on close relationships that have particular import for social psychology: the relational embeddedneas...

Participants evaluate several vignettes that describe a friend's behaviors, where friend's gender is the experimental manipulation. Results show that women are significantly more approving than men of a friend's crying or hugging, and less approving of shoving. Men are less disapproving of a male friend who cancels plans with them for a date, or a...

We develop a differential equation model of dyadic interaction that embodies the basic assumption that members of intimate couples form an interactive system in which the behavior of each member of a couple is influenced by the other's behavior and by goals that each person has for herself or himself. The dynamic solutions of this system suggest th...

The purpose of this investigation was to identify the factors associated with the distress experienced after the breakup of a romantic relationship, both at the time of the breakup (assessed retrospectively) and at the time the questionnaire was completed. Four categories of variables were examined as possible correlates of post-breakup distress: v...

In this investigation, the balance of power between men and women in romantic relationships was examined with a sample of 101 heterosexual couples, some of whom were surveyed up to jive times over a four-year period. A majority of the participants (who were primarily Caucasian and middle class) reported some imbalance in power in their relationship...

Using a sample of young White women from 1967 to 1973, this research finds support for the hypothesis that a single break in employment has immediate, adverse effects on occupational attainment. Job changes that were interrupted by an employment break yielded significantly lower gains in wages and job status than did uninterrupted job shifts and ha...

This research investigates the extent to which a quality that initially attracts one person to another in a romantic relationship is a positive dimension of the same overall characteristic that leads to subsequent disaffection - i.e. a `fatal attraction'. Three hundred and one college women and men were asked to think of the most recent romantic re...

Power balances are investigated in a sample of 413 heterosexual dating individuals (86% white, 9.7% black, 4.3% other ethnicities). Less than half the respondents perceive their relationships to be equal in the distribution of power, and men are over twice as likely as women to be viewed as the partners having more power. Imbalances are also eviden...

Research on the causal relationship between women′s fertility and their employment patterns has yielded contradictory findings. In order to shed some light on the confusion that has resulted, hazard models are used to investigate the possibility these two variables are dynamically interdependent. Transition rates among combined states of pregnancy...

In this study we examined how support from parents and friends for the romantic relationships of young adults affects the quality of their relationships and the likelihood that their relationships break up over time. Data were gathered over 2 years from a group of romantic couples. Support was found for the positive effect of network support on the...

We conducted a longitudinal investigation to advance our understanding of determinants of the breakups of premarital relationships. We considered causes, derived from several major theories, that were located in a variety of sources in the relationship, in the social network environment, and in the individual. We extended previous longitudinal rese...

Sociologists frequently use ordinary least squares (OLS) to estimate a series of regression equations from data on the same observational entities. Such “seemingly unrelated regressions” are linked by correlations among the disturbances. In this paper we review three techniques for estimating “seemingly related regressions”—OLS, Zellner's generaliz...

More and more women are returning to school after a period of employment in the labor force. The study reported here examined the factors that make it likely that white women and black women will leave the labor force to obtain more schooling and whether this increase in education significantly improves their wage levels and job prestige when they...

Classic management propositions are formalized in a model giving a mathematical expression for the interrelationships of the basic elements of organizational structure: size, hierarchical levels, and horizontal divisions. One proposition derived from this model is that as the size of an organization increases, the administrative ratio increases. Th...

This study looks at peer influence processes within the elementary classroom by examining the extent to which inattentive behavior on the part of one student increases the likelihood of additional student inattention. The data consist of behavioral measures of attentiveness obtained from 16 video-taped lessons of first-grade reading groups. Qualita...

The distribution of recognition in a scientific field is affected by its growth rate and the extent to which its members focus on recent rather than older work. Using a model of the distribution of citations among the members of a field, we show that a higher field growth rate increases seniority-specific citation rates for individual scientists, a...

This research examines the job mobility of young, white women using a continoustime, stochastic model. The results indicate that rates of women's job transitions within full-time employment are decreased by job rewards, SES, and wages, and increased by IQ and age. A woman's education, however, does not have significant effects. The family constrain...

This research examines women's rates of leaving a job to become nonemployed (unemployed or out of the labor force) using a stochastic, continuous-time model. The data consist of employment histories of white women constructed from the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women (1968-1973). The results demonstrate the importance of examining the un...