I argue that the opportunity structure facing high-ranking actors in the organization will impose a stronger constraint on network interaction than will that facing low-ranking actors. Because networks within organizations are characterized by rank homophily—that is, people are more likely to form connections to colleagues at the same vertical position in the hierarchy than to colleagues of varying rank (e.g., Han 1996)—and because organizational hierarchies are typically pyramidal in shape (e.g., Lin, Ensel, and Vaughn 1981), high-ranking actors will have a smaller pool of contacts in the consideration set to interact with than will lowranking actors. Thus, even if individuals of high rank are motivated to exert greater effort in network interaction under conditions of loss than under gain, they will have a smaller pool of relevant contacts to draw upon than will low-ranking actors. I therefore propose:
Hypothesis 3: The tendency to interact with more intraorganizational network contacts in situations of loss, rather than gain, will be amplified for low-ranking organizational actors relative to high-ranking ones.