
In
social network analysis
Social network analysis (SNA) is the process of investigating social structures through the use of networks and graph theory. It characterizes networked structures in terms of ''nodes'' (individual actors, people, or things within the network) ...
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
A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for ...
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. Acquaintances, by contrast, know people that we do not, and thus receive more novel information.
Included in the definition of ''absent ties'', according to the American sociologist
Mark Granovetter
Mark Sanford Granovetter (; born October 20, 1943) is an American sociologist and professor at Stanford University. He is best known for his work in social network theory and in economic sociology, particularly his theory on the spread of inf ...
, 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.
They nevertheless support people's sense of familiarity and belonging.
Furthermore, the fact that two people may know each other by name does not necessarily qualify the existence of a weak tie. If their interaction is negligible the tie may be ''absent'' or ''invisible''. The "strength" of an interpersonal tie is a linear combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy (or mutual confiding), and the reciprocal services which characterize each tie.
History
One of the earliest writers to describe the nature of the ties between people was German scientist and philosopher,
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as tr ...
. In his classic 1809 novella, ''
Elective Affinities'', Goethe discussed the "marriage tie". The analogy shows how strong marriage unions are similar in character to particles of
quicksilver
Quicksilver may refer to:
* Quicksilver (metal), the chemical element mercury
Arts and entertainment
Music
* Quicksilver, a bluegrass band fronted by Doyle Lawson
* "Quicksilver" (song), a 1950 hit for Bing Crosby
* ''Quicksilver'' (sound ...
, which find unity through the process of
chemical affinity.
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 arbitrarily selected individuals". This argument became one of the cornerstones of
social network theory.
In 1973, stimulated by the work of Rapoport and Harvard theorist
Harrison White, Mark Granovetter published ''The Strength of Weak Ties''.
[ This paper is now recognized as one of the most influential sociology papers ever written.]
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. This pattern reminded Granovetter of his freshman chemistry lesson that demonstrated how "weak" hydrogen bond
In chemistry, a hydrogen bond (or H-bond) is a primarily electrostatic force of attraction between a hydrogen (H) atom which is covalently bound to a more electronegative "donor" atom or group (Dn), and another electronegative atom bearing ...
s hold together many water molecules, which are themselves composed of atoms held together by "strong" covalent bonds.
In Granovetter's view, a similar combination of strong and weak bonds holds the members of society together.[ This model became the basis of his first manuscript on the importance of weak social ties in human life, published in May 1973.][ According to ''Current Contents'', by 1986, the Weak Ties paper had become a citation classic, being one of the most cited papers in sociology.
]
In a related line of research in 1969, anthropologist Bruce Kapferer
Bruce Kapferer (born 1940 in Sydney
Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and ...
, 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. In telecommunications, a multiplexer is a device that allows a transmission medium to carry a number of separate signals. In social relations, by extrapolation, "multiplexity" is the overlap of roles, exchanges, or affiliations in a social relationship.
Research data
In 1970, Granovetter submitted his doctoral dissertation to Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
, entitled "Changing Jobs: Channels of Mobility Information in a Suburban Community".[ 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. Tie strength was measured in terms of how often they saw the contact person during the period of the job transition, using the following assignment:
*often = at least once a week
*occasionally = more than once a year but less than twice a week
*rarely = once a year or less
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.] 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. When seen from a macro point of view, weak ties play a role in affecting social cohesion.
Social networks
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. In its simplest form, a social network is a map of all of the relevant ties between the nodes being studied.
Weak tie hypothesis
The "weak tie hypothesis" argues, using a combination of probability
Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an Event (probability theory), event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and ...
and mathematics, as originally stated by Anatol Rapoport in 1957, that if A is linked to both B and C, then there is a greater-than-chance probability that B and C are linked to each other:
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. In this direction, the "weak tie hypothesis" postulates that clumps or clique
A clique ( AusE, CanE, or ), in the social sciences, is a group of individuals who interact with one another and share similar interests. Interacting with cliques is part of normative social development regardless of gender, ethnicity, or popula ...
s of social structure will form, being bound predominately by "strong ties", and that "weak ties" will function as the crucial bridge between any two densely knit clumps of close friends.
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. The arrangement of links in a network may matter as well as the number of links.
Further research is needed to examine the ways in which types of information, numbers of ties, quality of ties, and trust levels interact to affect the spreading of information.[
]
Strong ties hypothesis
According to David Krackhardt, 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 affective 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. He thought that strong ties are very important in severe changes and uncertainty:
He called this particular type of strong tie ''philo'' and define ''philos'' relationship as one that meets the following three necessary and sufficient conditions:
# ''Interaction'': For A and B to be ''philos'', A and B must interact with each other.
# ''Affection'': For A and B to be ''philos'', A must feel affection for B.
# ''Time'': A and B, to be ''philos'', must have a history of interactions with each other that have lasted over an extended period of time.
The combination of these qualities predicts trust and predicts that strong ties will be the critical ones in generating trust and discouraging malfeasance. 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. Thus, change is the product of ''philos''.
Positive ties and negative ties
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. During these years, formulas were derived that connected local parameters such as closure of contacts, and the supposed existence of the B–C tie to the global network property of connectivity.[
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 In the psychology of motivation, balance theory is a theory of attitude change, proposed by Fritz Heider. It conceptualizes the cognitive consistency motive as a drive toward psychological balance. The consistency motive is the urge to maintain on ...
of relations. In a larger network represented by a graph
Graph may refer to:
Mathematics
*Graph (discrete mathematics), a structure made of vertices and edges
**Graph theory, the study of such graphs and their properties
*Graph (topology), a topological space resembling a graph in the sense of discre ...
, the totality of relations is represented by a signed graph
In the area of graph theory in mathematics, a signed graph is a graph in which each edge has a positive or negative sign.
A signed graph is balanced if the product of edge signs around every cycle is positive. The name "signed graph" and the no ...
.
This effort led to an important and non-obvious Structure Theorem for signed graphs, which was published by Frank Harary
Frank Harary (March 11, 1921 – January 4, 2005) was an American mathematician, who specialized in graph theory. He was widely recognized as one of the "fathers" of modern graph theory.
Harary was a master of clear exposition and, together with ...
in 1953. A signed graph is called ''balanced'' if the product of the signs of all relations in every cycle
Cycle, cycles, or cyclic may refer to:
Anthropology and social sciences
* Cyclic history, a theory of history
* Cyclical theory, a theory of American political history associated with Arthur Schlesinger, Sr.
* Social cycle, various cycles in soc ...
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". The imagery here is of a social system that splits into two clique
A clique ( AusE, CanE, or ), in the social sciences, is a group of individuals who interact with one another and share similar interests. Interacting with cliques is part of normative social development regardless of gender, ethnicity, or popula ...
s. There is, however, a special case where one of the two subnetworks may be empty, which might occur in very small networks.
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. A formal study of the system led to theorems about the dynamics and the implied equilibrium states of any group.
Absent or invisible ties
In a footnote, Mark Granovetter
Mark Sanford Granovetter (; born October 20, 1943) is an American sociologist and professor at Stanford University. He is best known for his work in social network theory and in economic sociology, particularly his theory on the spread of inf ...
defines what he considers as absent 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.[ From this perspective, the relationship between two ]familiar strangers
''Familiar Strangers'' (formerly known as ''Pretzels & Pills'') is a 2008 film about an American family going through the process of negotiating the changing relationships between parents and children, especially as those children grow into adultho ...
, such as two people living on the same street, is not absent but invisible. Indeed, because such ties involve only limited interaction (as in the case of 'nodding relationships'), if any, they are hardly observable, and are often overlooked as a relevant type of ties.[ Absent or invisible ties nevertheless support people's sense of familiarity and belonging.][
]
Latent tie
Adding any network-based means of communication such as a new IRC channel, a social support group, a Webboard lays the groundwork for connectivity between formerly unconnected others.
Similarly, laying an infrastructure, such as the Internet, intranets, wireless connectivity
Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most ...
, 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. by telephoning someone, attending a group-wide meeting, reading and contributing to a Webboard, emailing others, etc.
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. These are started by individuals with a particular interest in a subject who may begin by posting information and providing the means for online discussion.
The individualistic perspective
Granovetter's 1973 work proved to be crucial in the individualistic approach of the social network theory as seen by the number of references in other papers.
His argument asserts that weak ties or "acquaintances",[ 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. He argues, that the only thing that can connect two social networks with strong ties is a weak tie: "… these clumps / ]trong ties networks
Terong ( Jawi: تروڠ; zh, 直弄) is a mukim in Larut, Matang and Selama District, Perak, Malaysia. It is famous for the quality of its water and the presence of a waterfall. Tin was also mined there until 1980. It had Malay, Chinese and Ta ...
would not, in fact, be connected to one another at all were it not for the existence of weak ties.[
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. Another interesting observation that Granovetter makes in his work is the increasing specialization of individuals creates the necessity for weak ties, as all the other specialist information and knowledge is present in large social networks consisting predominately of weak ties.][
Cross et al., (2001) confirm this by presenting six features which differentiate effective and ineffective knowledge sharing relations:
"1)knowing what other person knows and thus when to turn to them;
2) being able to gain timely access to that person;
3) willingness of the person sought out to engage in the problem solving rather than dump information;
4) a degree of safety in the relationship that promoted learning and creativity;
5) the factors put by ]Geert Hofstede
Gerard Hendrik (Geert) Hofstede (2 October 1928 – 12 February 2020) was a Dutch social psychologist, IBM employee, and Professor Emeritus of Organizational Anthropology and International Management at Maastricht University in the Nether ...
; and
6) individual characteristics, such as openness" (pp 5). This fits in nicely with Granovetter's argument that "Weak ties provide people with access to information and resources beyond those available in their own social circle; but strong ties have greater motivation to be of assistance and are typically more easily available."[
This weak/strong ties paradox is elaborated by myriad authors. 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. Blau and Fingerman, drawing from these and other studies, refer to weak ties as '' consequential strangers,'' positing that they provide some of the same benefits as intimates as well as many distinct and complementary functions.]
Labour market
In the early 1990s, US social economist James D. Montgomery contributed to economic theories of network structures in the labour market. In 1991, Montgomery incorporated network structures in an adverse selection model to analyze the effects of social networks on labour market outcomes. In 1992, Montgomery explored the role of "weak ties", which he defined as non-frequent and transitory social relations in the labour market. He demonstrated that weak ties are positively correlated with higher wages and higher aggregate employment rates.
See also
* Dependent origination
* Human bonding
* Six degrees of separation
*Bridge (interpersonal) A bridge is a type of social tie that connects two different groups in a social network.
General bridge
In general, a bridge is a direct tie between nodes that would otherwise be in disconnected components of the graph.
This means that say that A ...
*Simmelian tie
A simmelian tie (can be capitalized as a Simmelian tie) is a type of an interpersonal tie, a concept used in the social network analysis. For a simmelian tie to exist, there must be three (a triad) or more of reciprocal strong ties in a group. A s ...
* Social connection
References
External links
{{Commons category
Caves, Clusters, and Weak Ties: The Six Degrees World of Inventors
– Harvard Business School, 28 November 2004
The Weakening of Strong Ties
– Ross Mayfield, 15 September 2003
Interpersonal relationships