social network analysis and mathematical sociology, interpersonal ties are defined as information-carrying connections between people. Interpersonal ties, generally, come in three varieties: strong, weak or absent. Weak social ties, it is argued, are responsible for the majority of the embeddedness and structure of social networks in society as well as the transmission of information through these networks. Specifically, more novel information flows to individuals through weak rather than strong ties. Because our close friends tend to move in the same circles that we do, the information they receive overlaps considerably with what we already know. Included in the definition of absent ties, according to the American sociologist Mark Granovetter, are those relationships (or ties) without substantial significance, such as "nodding" relationships between people living on the same street, or the "tie", for example, to a frequent vendor one would buy from. Such relations with familiar strangers have also been called invisible ties since they are hardly observable, and are often overlooked as a relevant type of ties.[2] They nevertheless support people's sense of familiarity and belonging.[3]
Apibrėžtys ir įžvalgos apie silpnus ryšius
One of the earliest writers to describe the nature of the ties between people was German scientist and philosopher, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In his classic 1809 novella, Elective Affinities, Goethe discussed the "marriage tie". In 1954, the Russian mathematical psychologist Anatol Rapoport commented on the "well-known fact that the likely contacts of two individuals who are closely acquainted tend to be more overlapping than those of two arbitr arbitrarily selected individuals". To obtain data for his doctoral thesis, Granovetter interviewed dozens of people to find out how social networks are used to land new jobs. Granovetter found that most jobs were found through "weak" acquaintances.
In a related line of research in 1969, anthropologist Bruce Kapferer, published "Norms and the Manipulation of Relationships in a Work Context" after doing field work in Africa. In the document, he postulated the existence of multiplex ties, characterized by multiple contexts in a relationship.[7][8] In telecommunications, a multiplexer is a device that allows a transmission medium to carry a number of separate signals. In 1970, Granovetter submitted his doctoral dissertation to Harvard University, entitled "Changing Jobs: Channels of Mobility Information in a Suburban Community".[10] The thesis of his dissertation illustrated the conception of weak ties. For his research, Dr. Granovetter crossed the Charles River to Newton, Massachusetts where he surveyed 282 professional, technical, and managerial workers in total. 100 were personally interviewed, in regards to the type of ties between the job changer and the contact person who provided the necessary information. Of those who found jobs through personal contacts (N=54), 16.7% reported seeing their contact often, 55.6% reported seeing their contact occasionally, and 27.8% rarely.[10]
When asked whether a friend had told them about their current job, the most frequent answer was "not a friend, an acquaintance". The conclusion from this study is that weak ties are an important resource in occupational mobility. In social network theory, social relationships are viewed in terms of nodes and ties. Nodes are the individual actors within the networks, and ties are the relationships between the actors. There can be many kinds of ties between the nodes. That is, if we consider any two randomly selected individuals, such as A and B, from the set S = A, B, C, D, E, ..., of all persons with ties to either or both of them, then, for example, if A is strongly tied to both B and C, then according to probability arguments, the B-C tie is always present. The absence of the B-C tie, in this situation, would create, according to Granovetter, what is called the forbidden triad. In other words, the B-C tie, according to this logic, is always present, whether weak or strong, given the other two strong ties.
It may follow that individuals with few bridging weak ties will be deprived of information from distant parts of the social system and will be confined to the provincial news and views of their close friends. However, having a large number of weak ties can mean that novel information is effectively "swamped" among a high volume of information, even crowding out strong ties. According to David Krackhardt,[13] there are some problems in the Granovetter definition. The first one refers to the fact that the Granovetter definition of the strength of a tie is a curvilinear prediction and his question is "how do we know where we are on this theoretical curve?". The second one refers to the effective character of strong ties. Krackhardt says that there are subjective criteria in the definition of the strength of a tie such as emotional intensity and the intimacy. "People resist change and are uncomfortable with uncertainty. Strong ties constitute a base of trust that can reduce resistance and provide comfort in the face of uncertainty. The combination of these qualities predicts trust and predicts that strong ties will be the critical ones in generating trust and discouraging malfeasance.
Taip pat skaitykite: LSMU katedros veikla
Ties, tiliai ir balansas
When it comes to major change, change that may threaten the status quo in terms of power and the standard routines of how decisions are made, then trust is required. Starting in the late 1940s, Anatol Rapoport and others developed a probabilistic approach to the characterization of large social networks in which the nodes are persons and the links are acquaintanceship. Moreover, acquaintanceship (in most cases) is a positive tie. However, there are also negative ties such as animosity among persons. In considering the relationships of three, Fritz Heider initiated a balance theory of relations. This effort led to an important and non-obvious Structure Theorem for signed graphs,[14] which was published by Frank Harary in 1953. A signed graph is called balanced if the product of the signs of all relations in every cycle is positive. A signed graph is unbalanced if the product is ever negative. The theorem says that if a network of interrelated positive and negative ties is balanced, then it consists of two subnetworks such that each has positive ties among its nodes and negative ties between nodes in distinct subnetworks. In other words, "my friend's enemy is my enemy".[15]
In these two developments, we have mathematical models bearing upon the analysis of the structure. Other early influential developments in mathematical sociology pertained to process. For instance, in 1952 Herbert A. Simon produced a mathematical formalization of a published theory of social groups by constructing a model consisting of a deterministic system of differential equations. Included in 'absent' are both the lack of any relationship and ties without substantial significance, such as a 'nodding' relationship between people living on the same street, or the 'tie' to the vendor from whom one customarily buys a morning newspaper. That two people 'know' each other by name need not move their relation out of this category if their interaction is negligible. In some contexts, however (disasters, for example), such 'negligible' ties might usefully be distinguished from non-existent ties. The concept of invisible tie was proposed to overcome the contradiction between the adjective "absent" and this definition, which suggests that such ties exist and might "usefully be distinguished" from the absence of ties.[2] From this perspective, the relationship between two familiar strangers, such as two people living on the same street, is not absent but invisible.
Similarly, laying an infrastructure, such as the Internet, intranets, wireless connectivity, grid computing, telephone lines, cellular service, or neighborhood networks, when combined with the devices that access them (phones, cellphones, computers, etc.) makes it possible for social networks to form. Such infrastructures make a connection available technically, even if not yet activated socially. These technical connections support latent social network ties, used here to indicate ties that are technically possible but not yet activated socially. They are only activated, i.e. converted from latent to weak, by some sort of social interaction between members, e.g. Given that such connectivity involves unrelated persons, the latent tie structure must be established by an authority beyond the persons concerned. Internet-based social support sites contain this profile. His argument asserts that weak ties or "acquaintances",[4][12] are less likely to be involved within the social network than strong ties (close friends and family). By not going further in the strong ties, but focusing on the weak ties, Granovetter highlights the importance of acquaintances in social networks. It follows that in an all-covering social network individuals are at a disadvantage with only a few weak links, compared to individuals with multiple weak links, as they are disconnected with the other parts of the network.
The extent in which individuals are connected to others is called centrality. Sparrowe & Linden (1997) argue how the position of a person in a social network confer advantages such organizational assimilation, and job performance (Sparrowe et al., 2001); Burt (1992) expects it to result in promotions, Brass (1984) affiliates centrality with power and Friedkin (1993) with influence in decision power. Other authors, such as Krackhardt and Porter (1986) contemplate the disadvantages of the position is social networks such as organizational exit (see also Sparrowe et al., 2001) and Wellman et al.,(1988) introduce the use of social networks for emotional and material support. In the early 1990s, US social economist James D. Montgomery contributed to economic theories of network structures in the labour market.
Granovetter, Mark (1973). "The Strength of Weak Ties" pristatė, kaip silpni ryšiai jungia skirtingas socialines grupes ir skatina naujų idėjų, išteklių bei galimybių srautą. Prieš Granovetterį sociologai laikė, kad svarbiausia yra artimiausi santykiai su šeima ir draugais. Paskui buvo parodyta, kad tiltų funkcija - tai pasiekti naują informaciją ir galimybes, kurių kitaip būtų sunku gauti.
Taip pat skaitykite: Karjeros formavimas ir žalioji ekonomika
Granovetterio idėjos plėtojamos ir digitalių tinklų kontekste: infrastruktūros (internet, intranetai, belaidžiai tinklai) sujungia žmones ir leidžia latentiniams ryšiams virsti socialiai aktyvuotais ryšiais. Siūlomos teorinės apžvalgos rodo, kad silpni ryšiai yra kritiniai informacijos plitimui, o per didelis jų skaičius gali užlieti ir užgožti stiprius ryšius.
Praktinės pasekmės ir taikymas
Tinklų teorija nagrinėja centralitetą ir įtaką, kurią žmogus turi organizacijoje ar socialinėje struktūroje. Pritaikant Granovetterio teoriją į darbo rinką, atskleidžiama, kad informacijos apie darbą dažnai plinta per silpnas pažintis, o ne per gilius, asmeniškai artimus ryšius. Tai lemia praktinius patarimus nuo tinklų plėtros iki poveikio sprendimų priėmimui organizacijose.
| Ryšio tipas | Aprašymas | Efektas |
|---|---|---|
| Stiprus | Artimi santykiai, didelis pasitikėjimas, emocinis įsipareigojimas | Stiprina pasitikėjimą, mažina nerimą, palaiko informacijos tikslumą |
| Silpnas | Mažesnis artumas, daugiau naujos informacijos šaltinių | Skatina informacijos diversifikaciją ir naujų galimybių atskleidimą |
| Absenti | Nesudėtingos ar visiškai neegzistuojančios ryšys | Gali būti latentūs, bet potenicijalūs tinklų turėtojai |
Analizės pažymi, kad tinklo modeliai dažnai orientuoti į stiprius ryšius, kas riboja jų pritaikomumą plačiam socialinių sistemų aprašymui. Tačiau silpni ryšiai - esminė jungiamoji grandis tarp skirtingų klasterių ir gali nustatyti kelia naujoms idėjoms bei įsigijimams.
Taip pat skaitykite: Metodai, ugdantys vaiko socialinius ryšius
tags: #socialiniu #tinklu #teorija #granovetter