Biology – Quantitative Biology – Genomics
Scientific paper
2008-07-19
PNAS 106 (6): 1720-1724 (10 February 2009)
Biology
Quantitative Biology
Genomics
Additional materials related to the paper are available at http://jhfowler.ucsd.edu
Scientific paper
10.1073/pnas.0806746106
Social networks exhibit strikingly systematic patterns across a wide range of human contexts. While genetic variation accounts for a significant portion of the variation in many complex social behaviors, the heritability of egocentric social network attributes is unknown. Here we show that three of these attributes (in-degree, transitivity, and centrality) are heritable. We then develop a "mirror network" method to test extant network models and show that none accounts for observed genetic variation in human social networks. We propose an alternative "Attract and Introduce" model with two simple forms of heterogeneity that generates significant heritability as well as other important network features. We show that the model is well suited to real social networks in humans. These results suggest that natural selection may have played a role in the evolution of social networks. They also suggest that modeling intrinsic variation in network attributes may be important for understanding the way genes affect human behaviors and the way these behaviors spread from person to person.
Christakis Nicholas A.
Dawes Christopher T.
Fowler James H.
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