Early insight into social network structure predicts climbing the social ladder

While occupying an influential position within one’s social network brings many advantages, it is unknown how certain individuals rise in social prominence. Leveraging a longitudinal dataset that tracks an entirely new network of college freshmen (N=187), we test whether ‘climbing the social ladder’ depends on knowing how other people are connected to each other. Those who ultimately come to occupy the most influential positions exhibit early and accurate representations of their network’s general, abstract structure (i.e., who belongs to which communities and cliques). In contrast, detailed, granular representations of specific friendships do not translate into gains in social influence over time. Only once the network stabilizes, do the most influential individuals exhibit the most accurate representations of specific friendships. These findings reveal that those who climb the social ladder first detect their emerging network’s general structure, then fine-tune their knowledge about individual relationships between their peers as network dynamics settle.