How Does the Mind Navigate Social Networks?

Abstract: The success of the human species depends on our ability to successfully navigate through our complex social communities, where our friends are connected to many others, who are in turn connected to others, and so on. Our social networks are extraordinarily dense, complex, and continually evolving as friendships are made and broken. It is an enormous challenge to figure out how people are connected within a network, and continually update one’s representation as the network inevitably shifts over time. Yet, knowing your social network’s structure affords many advantages, such as being able to disseminate information, manage one’s own (and others) reputations, or even strategically figure out how to occupy a central position. I will discuss our recent research probing the mechanisms that underpin how humans learn about the relationships in social networks, and the format of representation they use to encode these social networks: abstract cognitive maps. We find that abstract maps are used to solve multiple different social navigation problems, from climbing the social ladder into positions of influence to learning to gossip with the right people.