Extending Research On Social Network Representations To West African Settings: A Comparison Of Ghana, East Asia, And North America

This study investigates how individuals in Ghana, Japan, and the United States perceive themselves in relation to others in the context of their social networks. We focus on the concept of symbolic self-inflation, which reflects the relative weight a person assigns to themselves compared to their friends in a visual representation called a sociogram. Participants in three cultures were asked to draw diagrams representing themselves and their friends as circles connected by lines. By analyzing the relative size of a participant's circle compared to their friends' circles, we can gauge their level of self-inflation. Larger self-circles suggest a more independent self-view (individualistic), whereas smaller self-circles indicate a more interdependent view (collectivistic). Our findings suggest a tendency towards collectivism among Ghanaian students, supported by both symbolic self-inflation rates and the average number of friends reported. However, the lower self-inflation observed in Americans relative to previous studies warrants further investigation.