Cognitive social structures
Cognitive social structures (CSS) is the focus of research that investigates how individuals perceive their own social structure (e.g. members of an organization, friend group, hierarchy, company employees, etc.). It is part of social network research and uses social network analysis to understand how various factors affect one's cognitive representation of the network (i.e. the individual's belief of who is connected to whom). Importantly, an individual's perception of the network may be different than reality. In fact, these differences between the perceived network and the actual network are the focus of many studies that seek insight into how we think about others and our relationships. Overview In 1987, David Krackhardt discussed the study of cognitive social structures in an article that defined the term and outlined its uses in social network research. Social structures are defined by a set of individual members and the relations between those members. The study of cognitive social structures also includes every member's understanding of the social structure. Thus, a cognitive social structure consisting of n people has n separate, and possibly distinct, representations of that social structure. Example: Alice, Bob, and Charlie are all friends. Thus, there are three separate representations of their network.