Awards were conferred for the first time in 1997.
The Section on Decision-Making, Social Networks, and Society Best Graduate Student Paper
2025: Megan Kang, Princeton University, “Becoming a Shooter.”
2024: Benjamin Rosche, New York University Abu Dhabi, “Social Closure in U.S. High Schools? Patterns and Determinants of Socioeconomic Segregation in Adolescent Friendship Networks.”
2023: Chen-Shuo Hong, University of Massachusetts Amherst, “Cultural Matching in Networks: A Combination of Machine Learning and Exponential Random Graph Models to Examine Homophily in Identity Performance.”
2023 Honorable Mention: Michael Lachanski, University of Pennsylvania, “The Demography of Job Instability: Evidence from the Postindustrial U.S., 1996–2019.”
2022: Yunsub Lee, Cornell University, “Power-dependence relations within Structural Holes and Network Closure: Evidence from different survival mechanisms of actors and directors in the U.S. film industry.”
2021: No Award Given
2020: David Kretschmer, Universität Mannheim, “Structural Constraints to Out-Group Interaction Produce In-Group Preferences: A Model of Asymmetric Learning and Relationship Formation”
2019: Antonio Sirianni, “The Specialization of Informal Social Control: Fighting in the National Hockey League from 1960-2012”
2017: Minjae Kim, “A Man Is Known by His Cup: Signaling Commitment via Costly Conformity”
2016: David Calnitsky and Jonathan Latner, “Basic income in a small town: Understanding the elusive effects on work,” Social Problems 64(3):373-397. 2017.
2015: Daniel J. DellaPosta, “Bridging the Parochial Divide: Closure and Brokerage in Mafia Families”
2014: Diana Dakhlallah, Stanford University, “Micro-Dynamics of Corrupt Interactions: Theory Development and Moroccan Health Sector as Test Case”
2013: Charles Seguin, “The Mathematics of Superstars: Two Theories of Cultural Consumption”
2012: Matthew D. Hoffberg, Cornell University, “Prosocial Values, Reciprocity, and the Mediating Role of Perceived Motives in Direct Favor Exchange”
2011: Katie Corcoran, University of Washington, “Religious Human Capital Revisited: Testing the Effect of Religious Human Capital on Religious Participation,” Rationality and Society 24(3):343-379. 2012.
2010: Ashley Harrell, “Religion, Rewards and Prosocial Behavior”
2010: Jacob Young, “Misperception of Peer Delinquency and its Consequences: Examining the Microfoundations of Social Influence and Delinquency”
2009: Blaine Robbins, University of Washington, “Neither Government nor Community Alone: A Test of State-Centered Models of Generalized Trust,” Rationality and Society 23(3):304-346. 2011.
2008: No Award Given
2007: Yen-Sheng Chiang, University of Washington, “The Path Towards Fairness: Preferential Association and the Evolution of Strategies in the Ultimatum Game,” Rationality and Society 20(2):173-201. 2008.
2006: Jacob Dijkstra, University of Groningen, “Externalities in Exchange Networks: An Adaptation of Existing Theories of Exchange Networks,” Rationality and Society 21(4):395-427. 2009.
2005: Steve Bernard, Cornell University
2004: Pamela Emanuelson, University of South Carolina, “Flow Networks: An Extension of Network Exchange Theory”
2003: Howard T. Welser, University of Washington, “For Love of Glory: Performance, Self-Evaluation and Status Achievement among Rock Climbers”
2002: No Award Given
2001: Martin Abraham, University of Leipzig, Germany, and Bernard Prosch, Lehrstuhlfuer Soziologie, Germany, “Long-Term Employment Relationships by Credible Commitments: The Carl Zeiss Foundation,” Rationality and Society 12(3):283-306. 2000.
2000: Vincent Buskens, University of Utrecht, “The Social Structure of Trust,” Social Networks 20(3):265-289. 1998.
1999: Marcel van Assen, University of Groningen, The Netherlands, “Effects of Individual Decision Theory on Predications of Cooperation in Social Dilemmas,” The Journal of Mathematical Sociology 23(2):143-153. 1998.
1999: James A. Kitts, Cornell University, “Rival Incentives, Cohesion, and the Decoupling of Formal and Informal Norms”
1998: No Award Given
1997: Jay Cross, Eric Durbin, Jean-Francois Huard, Saabah al-Binali, and Elizabeth Smailes, Columbia University, “Strategy and Control in Social Networks: With Application to Academic Tenure”
The Harrison C. White Outstanding Book Award
Established in 2025 and awarded every two years. To be eligible for the award, the book must be published within the last two years.
The Section on Decision-Making, Social Networks, and Society James Coleman Award for Outstanding Article Award
Changed in 2025 from the James Coleman Award for Outstanding Article or Book, to the James Coleman Award for Outstanding Article Award.
2025: Scott W. Duxbury, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “Collaborating on the Carceral State: Political Elite Polarization and the Expansion of Federal Crime Legislation Networks, 1979 to 2005.” American Sociological Review, 89(4). 2024.
2025: Linda Zhao, University of Chicago, “From Superdiversity to Consolidation: Implications of Structural Intersectionality for Interethnic Friendships.” American Journal of Sociology, 128(4). 2023.
2025 Honorable Mention: Peng Huang and Carter T. Butts, University of California, Irvine, “Rooted America: Immobility and Segregation of the Intercounty Migration Network.” American Sociological Review, 88(6). 2023.
2024: Kiran Stallone and Robert Braun, University of California, Berkeley, “Defiant Conformists: Gender and Resistance Against Genocide.”
2023: Minjae Kim, Rice University, and Daniel DellaPosta, Pennsylvania State University, “The Fickle Crowd: Reinforcement and Contradiction of Quality Evaluations in Cultural Markets.” Organization Science, 33 (6): 2496–2518. 2022.
2022: Diego F. Leal, University of South Carolina-Columbia, “Network Inequalities and International Migration in the Americas,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 126(5): 1067-1126. 2021.
2021: Vincenz Frey, University of Groningen, and Arnout van de Rijt, European University Institute, “Social Influence Undermines the Wisdom of the Crowd in Sequential Decision Making.”
2020: Patrick Bergemann, University of California, Irvine, Judge Thy Neighbor: Denunciations in the Spanish Inquisition, Romanov Russia, and Nazi Germany. Columbia University Press, 2021.
2019: Thijs Bol, Mathijs de Vaan, and Arnout van de Rijt, “The Matthew Effect in Science Funding,” PNAS 115(19):4887-4890. 2018.
2018: Mario Luis Small. Someone To Talk To. Oxford University Press. 2017.
2017: Damon Centola, “The Social Origins of Networks and Diffusion,” American Journal of Sociology 120(5):1295-1338. 2015.
2016: Emily Erikson, Between Monopoly and Free Trade. Princeton University Press. 2014.
2015: Andreas Diekmann, Ben Jann, Wojtek Przepiorka, and Stefan Wehrli, “Reputation formation and the evolution of cooperation in anonymous online markets,” American Sociological Review 79(1):65-85. 2014.
2014: Rafael Wittek, Tom Snijders, and Victor Nee, The Handbook of Rational Choice Social Research. Stanford University Press. 2013.
2014: Delia Baldassarri, New York University, The Simple Art of Voting: The Cognitive Shortcuts of Italian Voters. Oxford University Press. 2012.
2013: Clemens Kroneberg and Andreas Wimmer, “Struggling over the boundaries of belonging. A formal model of nation building, ethnic closure, and populism,” American Journal of Sociology 118(1):176-230. 2012.
2012: No Award Given
2011: Robb Willer, Ko Kuwabara, and Michael Macy, “The False Enforcement of Unpopular Norms,” American Journal of Sociology 115(2):451-490. 2009.
2010: Edward Lawler, Shane Thye, and Jeongkoo Yoon, Social Commitments in a Depersonalized World. Russell Sage Foundation. 2009.
2009: Carter Butts, University of California, Irvine, and David Rode, Carnegie Mellon University, “Rational and Empirical Play in the Simple Hot Potato Game,” Social Forces 85(4):1787-1806. 2007.
2008: No Award Given
2007: Elizabeth E. Bruch, University of Michigan, and Robert D. Mare, University of California, Los Angeles, “Neighborhood Choice and Neighborhood Change,” American Journal of Sociology 112(3):667-709. 2006.
2006: Peter Hedstrom, Oxford University, Dissection the Social. On the Principles of Analytical Sociology. Cambridge University Press. 2005.
2005: Trond Petersen, University of California, Berkeley
2004: No Award Given
2003: Vincent Buskens and Werner Raub, “Embedded Trust: Control and Learning,” Pp.167 – 202 in Advances in Group Processes (Advances in Group Processes, Volume 19). Emerald Group Publishing Limited. 2002.
2003: Christine Horne, “The Enforcement of Norms: Group Cohesion and Meta-norms,” Social Psychology Quarterly 64(3):253-266. 2001.
2002: David Willer, University of South Carolina, Network Exchange Theory. Praeger. 1999.
2001: No Award Given
2000: Brinton and Victor Nee, Cornell Univeristy, The New Institutionalism in Sociology. Stanford University Press. 1998.
1999: James Montgomery, London School for Economics, “Toward a Tole-Theoretic Conception of Embeddedness,” American Journal of Sociology 104(1):92-125. 1998.
1998: No Award Given
1997: William Brustein, University of Minnesota, The Logic of Evil: The Social Origins of the Nazi Party. Yale University Press. 1996.