title: Altruism in networks: the effect of connections.
abstract: Why are individuals altruistic to their friends? Theory suggests that individual, relationship and network factors will all influence the levels of altruism; but to date, the effects of social network structure have received relatively little attention. The present study uses a novel correlational design to test the prediction that an individual will be more altruistic to friends who are well-connected to the individual's other friends. The result shows that, as predicted, even when controlling for a range of individual and relationship factors, the network factor (number of connections) makes a significant contribution to altruism, thus showing that individuals are more likely to be altruistic to better-connected members of their social networks. The implications of incorporating network structure into studies of altruism are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford, 64 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PN, UK. oliver.curry@anthro.ox.ac.uk
authors.forename: Oliver
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Curry
authors.forename: R I M
authors.initials: RI
authors.lastname: Dunbar
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000533:Altruism; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged