This article examines whether network instability—namely, the extent of turnover in a person’s social network over time—is a distinct social process that affects individual well-being. Using a unique two-wave network data set collected in a field experiment that involved more than 21,100 students across 56 middle schools, we find a strong negative association between network instability and well-being and academic effort at the individual level, independent of other types of network change effects. We assess whether the negative effect of network instability remains when the source of instability is exogenous, the result of participation in the randomized intervention. Network instability leads to negative consequences even in this context, negatively impacting students who directly participated in the intervention. For nonintervention students in treatment schools, the intervention stabilized their social networks. We discuss the implications of these findings for studies of social networks and collective action.

中文翻译：

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流动的代价：56 所中学的网络不稳定、幸福感和学术努力

本文研究了网络不稳定性——即一个人的社交网络随时间变化的程度——是否是一个影响个人幸福感的独特社会过程。使用在涉及 56 所中学的 21,100 多名学生的现场实验中收集的独特的两波网络数据集，我们发现网络不稳定性与个人层面的幸福感和学业努力之间存在强烈的负相关关系，独立于其他类型网络变化的影响。我们评估了当不稳定的来源是外源的（参与随机干预的结果）时，网络不稳定的负面影响是否仍然存在。即使在这种情况下，网络不稳定也会导致负面后果，对直接参与干预的学生产生负面影响。对于治疗学校的非干预学生，干预稳定了他们的社交网络。我们讨论了这些发现对社交网络和集体行动研究的影响。