Social networks have been recognized as important resources to attain instrumental and expressive goals in different life aspects for different types of individuals. The principles on the formation of social networks and the interactions among network members still exist some puzzles for scientists. How do structural closure or structural holes of social networks shape the interactions among network members? How do strong and weak ties between dyads or among triads determine the continuous exchanges? How do we link macro structure and micro social interactions? What are the conflicts among different groups? How do conflict groups are loosely linked into a large networks? How do human societies evolve from many isolators to the loosely linked social structure or how will it become like if reverse the dynamic processes? What are the principles of exchanges between ego and alters of personal networks? What are the functions of weak and strong ties in high and low density of personal networks? Will the personal networks of family and friends, political issues, attractiveness, and trust can become the source of group identity to presidential candidates for individuals? Are there social polarized social structures and brokerage positions in political identity networks? This session will call for papers to explore how to study these issues in theoretical and methodological aspects. So far, we already recruited five papers (we probably have one more paper on friendship network formation) for this session.
The prospective authors should submit the paper on-line through EasyChair (see the conference website http://www.aiecon.org/conference/wcss2012/index.htm on "Paper Submission"). When submitting, please choose "Social Simulations on Social Networks and Social Capital" as the topic of interest so that it will be separated from other general submissions. The authors are also expected to send an email to the special session organizer to indicate that they have done so. The paper submission deadline is May 15, 2012, and other schedules are the same as what have been indicated in the conference website.