Network Social Capital in East Asia: An Eass Survey Module

Contributing to the hotly debated concept of social capital, we developed an East Asian conceptual framework of network social capital for the EASS 2012 survey. The core idea is that East Asians are the cultural creators of social networking. This means that East Asians are both heavily dependent upon their interpersonal networks for social engagement and social trust, among other forms of social action, and make considerate instrumental and emotional efforts in cultivating new ties in order to expand, adjust, and enrich network social capital. There are sixty questions constructed in our 2012 EASS module on network social capital. This presentation will focus on the contents of and hypothesized interrelationships among these measure, with the support of preliminary findings from the data analysis.