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Journal ArticleDOI

Is social capital declining in the united states? a multiple indicator assessment

Pamela Paxton
- 01 Jan 1999 - 
- Vol. 105, Iss: 1, pp 88-127
TLDR
In this paper, a model of social capital that has explicit links to theories of Social capital was proposed and analyzed over a 20-year period, showing that the results do not consistently support Putnam's claim of a decline in social capital.
Abstract
Despite a great deal of interest in a possible decline of social capital in the United States, scholars have not reached a consensus on the trend. This article improves upon previous research by providing a model of social capital that has explicit links to theories of social capital and that analyzes multiple indicators of social capital over a 20‐year period. The results do not consistently support Putnam's claim of a decline in social capital, showing instead some decline in a general measure of social capital, a decline in trust in individuals, no general decline in trust in institutions, and no decline in associations.

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI

The Benefits of Facebook “Friends:” Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network Sites

TL;DR: Facebook usage was found to interact with measures of psychological well-being, suggesting that it might provide greater benefits for users experiencing low self-esteem and low life satisfaction.
Journal ArticleDOI

The role of social and human capital among nascent entrepreneurs

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the developmental process of nascent entrepreneurs for 18 months and found that bridging and bonding social capital, consisting of both strong and weak ties, was a robust predictor for nascent entrepreneurs and advancing through the start-up process.
Journal ArticleDOI

Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades

TL;DR: In 2004, the General Social Survey (GSS) collected the first nationally representative data on the confidants with whom Americans discuss important matters as mentioned in this paper, and the authors replicated those questions to assess social change in core network structures.
Journal ArticleDOI

Structural cohesion and embeddedness: A hierarchical concept of social groups

TL;DR: In this article, structural cohesion is defined as the minimum number of actors who, if removed from a group, would disconnect the group, and a structural dimension of embeddedness can then be defined through the hierarchical nesting of these cohesive structures.
Journal ArticleDOI

Can We Trust Social Capital

TL;DR: This article looked at the literature on social capital from the perspective of game theory and reviewed Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam and Social Capital: A Multifaceted Approach edited by Partha Dasgupta and Ismail Serageldin.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

The Strength of Weak Ties

TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that the degree of overlap of two individuals' friendship networks varies directly with the strength of their tie to one another, and the impact of this principle on diffusion of influence and information, mobility opportunity, and community organization is explored.
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Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital

TL;DR: In this paper, the concept of social capital is introduced and illustrated, its forms are described, the social structural conditions under which it arises are examined, and it is used in an analys...
Journal ArticleDOI

Alternative Ways of Assessing Model Fit

TL;DR: In this paper, two types of error involved in fitting a model are considered, error of approximation and error of fit, where the first involves the fit of the model, and the second involves the model's shape.
Journal ArticleDOI

Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness

TL;DR: In this article, the extent to which economic action is embedded in structures of social relations, in modern industrial society, is examined, and it is argued that reformist economists who attempt to bring social structure back in do so in the "oversocialized" way criticized by Dennis Wrong.
Book

Structural Equations with Latent Variables

TL;DR: The General Model, Part I: Latent Variable and Measurement Models Combined, Part II: Extensions, Part III: Extensions and Part IV: Confirmatory Factor Analysis as discussed by the authors.