Sociological accounts of network inequality typically rely on the logic of preferential attachment, holding that individuals in a social network prefer to form ties with central rather than peripheral actors. We develop an alternative explanation for the growth of network inequality that does not require actors to have knowledge about the social position of others or to hold explicit preferences for partners based on such knowledge. Instead, we theorize that central actors benefit from being exposed to more opportunities for triadic closure, which confounds a quality- or popularity-based signal that their greater connectedness might also send. We test this prediction an observational study and a field experiment across multiple professional conferences. In the field experiment, we test whether network centrality is predictive of tie formation if the benefits that central actors receive through their disproportional exposure to second-order network neighbors are randomly suppressed. The findings demonstrate that for the same level of exposure to opportunities for triadic closure, central actors and less central actors are equally likely to be selected as network partners. We discuss how the proposed mechanism may be used to rectify social capital disadvantages among disadvantaged groups.

网络不平等的社会学解释通常依赖于优先依恋的逻辑，认为社会网络中的个人更喜欢与中央而不是外围参与者建立联系。我们为网络不平等现象的发展提出了另一种解释，该解释不要求参与者了解其他人的社会地位，也不需要基于此类知识对合作伙伴持有明确的偏好。取而代之的是，我们从理论上认为，中央参与者可以从更多的三合会封闭机会中受益，这混淆了基于质量或流行度的信号，他们也可能会发出更大的联系。我们通过多个专业会议的观察性研究和现场实验来测试此预测。在野外实验中 如果中心参与者通过不成比例地暴露于二阶网络邻居而获得的收益被随机抑制，我们将测试网络中心性是否可以预测联系的形成。研究结果表明，对于三合会关闭的机会相同的水平，中央参与者和较少中央参与者同样有可能被选为网络合作伙伴。我们讨论了拟议中的机制如何用于纠正弱势群体中的社会资本弱势。