Competition between Homophily and Information Entropy Maximization in Social Networks.

ABSTRACT: In social networks, it is conventionally thought that two individuals with more overlapped friends tend to establish a new friendship, which could be stated as homophily breeding new connections. While the recent hypothesis of maximum information entropy is presented as the possible origin of effective navigation in small-world networks. We find there exists a competition between information entropy maximization and homophily in local structure through both theoretical and experimental analysis. This competition suggests that a newly built relationship between two individuals with more common friends would lead to less information entropy gain for them. We demonstrate that in the evolution of the social network, both of the two assumptions coexist. The rule of maximum information entropy p

SUBMITTER: Zhao J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4559466 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature