Showing papers on "Social network published in 1974"

Some perspectives for industrial psychology.

Abstract: We industrial psychologists are a curiously introspective lot about our professional selves. For some reason or another we are greatly concerned about what we are doing, how we are doing it, and what we ought to be doing. In the very early days of industrial psychology, our folk heroes, people such as Viteles, Link, Bingham, Paterson, and Burtt, all had their say about the role of industrial psychology and what it should be concerned with. Those of us who formed the next generation continued to insist on telling each other at great length who we are, what matters we ought to consider, and how we should do what we do; and the current generation has continued this custom of a periodic auditing of our field. T propose now to continue this custom, and I shall discuss a rather mixed bag of matters that I believe we as industrial psychologists ought to think about. I shall consider some notions about the nature of the variables we use, the study of organizations, the role and nature of theory, the impermanence of facts, and individual differences and individuality.

Human Behavior in the Social Environment: A Social Systems Approach

Abstract: Since the publication of the first edition of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, several generations of students have successfully used this classic text, which takes a social systems approach to human behavior. This systems approach is still widely accepted in the human services disciplines, including social work, education, nursing, psychology, and in human services programs themselves. Its ideas have become the organizing framework for curriculum, as well as fruitful sources for new applications of theory and practice. Among the advantages of the social systems approach is that it permits students and practitioners to see connections between fields of practice, between methods, and across professional disciplines and bodies of theory.The book serves as a template of the concentric circles of human behavior, with chapters on fields of behavior, beginning with the person and ranging outward to culture and society. Abundant examples from practice and from behavioral patterns are drawn from the social sciences, topical events, literature, and the authors' personal and professional experiences. This volume responds to the needs of students and instructors as these have developed since the publication of the previous edition.

On the connectivity of social networks

Abstract: In the context of analyzing social structures through the use of graph theory, some binary matrix operations for valued graphs are presented. These operations are demonstrated in the analysis of social network data presented by Kapferer. Further examples of where the procedures should prove useful are suggested.

Structural resolutions of collective action problems

Abstract: This paper concerns itself with the general problem of achieving cooperation in human groups and higher levels of social systems. Several social situations are considered where cooperation is problematic because self-interest contradicts group or collective interest: the prisoners' dilemma game; the commons' problem (Hardin, 1972); the collective action problem, i.e., the failure of memberships of many large interest groups, e.g., consumers and the general public, to cooperate to achieve common goals (Olson, 1968); and the problem of competitive panics, e.g., a crowd in a burning theater. We introduce a structural framework and methodology, using social system level concepts, to characterize and analyze such problems. It is shown that the various cases have a common underlying structure. In the analysis, we focus on the social context of the problematic situations and, in particular, on social processes that structure human interaction and collective behavior. A basic idea guiding the analysis is that actors purposively structure and transform interaction situations or games into situations of greater or less cooperation or conflict, depending upon the social context. We examine specific social control processes that may be found operating in social systems to resolve problems of achieving cooperative action, that is, to deal with contradictions between individual interests and autonomy on the one hand and group interest and need for cooperative action on the other. In particular, we focus on the social structuring and restructuring in groups of perceptions and evaluations, action possibilities, and decision procedures and, therefore, likely interaction patterns of those involved.

Social network correlates of avowed happiness.

Abstract: Measures of five social network dimensions, developed on the basis of factor analysis, were given to a sample of Seattle area women. Significant correlations were obtained between the women's avowed happiness and the social network dimensions of assistance, value similarity, and concern. However, the pattern of correlations differed for married and unmarried women. As a possible explanation for this difference, it is suggested that the presence of a stable conjugal relationship may make assistance and concern less problematic for a person, while making value similarity more problematic. It is pointed out that development of detailed knowledge regarding relationships between social network properties and psychological characteristics offers considerable benefits for psychotherapy—particularly those therapies which attempt to aid a distressed person by helping him to restructure his social network. Additional research of a longitudinal nature is needed in order to elucidate the precise nature of social network—psychological state relationships.

The Concept of Social Structure

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to elucidate the concepts of society, social group, power, class, structure, and change. This clarification is performed essentially with the help of the concepts of relation (in particular equivalence relation), set (in particular equivalence class), function, and matrix. In addition to that analysis, a framework for sociological hypotheses and theories is evolved, reminiscent of certain ideas in mathematical ecology. Thus social structure is defined as a matrix exhibiting the distribution of the total population of a community among the various social groups resulting from the partitions of the society induced by so many social equivalence relations. And social change is defined as a redistribution of the relative populations of those social groups. The advantages and limitations of this approach arc discussed. Also, a number of methodological remarks are made.

Aestheticism and social structure: style and social network in the dandy life*

Abstract: Extreme emphasis on style as a deference entitlement appears historically as a central feature of distinctive aesthetic cultural patterns The dimensions of social aestheticism are developed and illustrated in the present paper as part of a case study of the Regency milieu of Beau Brummell, the main figure of the dandy movement. To account for this pattern, and to suggest the conditions under which style enters into deference processes, the relationship between style and social structure is treated in terms of a theory of structural crystallization and decrystallization. Arguing that emphases on style are symptoms of the malintegration of culture and social structure, styles are examined as products of a market which generates demand for new models of social behavior. Decrystallization or structural loss in networks is seen to produce disjunction or lack of fit between prevailing cultural models and the actual structure of networks, producing this market for new models. Special attention is directed to the phenomena of celebrity and social decay. Style and style of life have a central place in the analysis of deference processes and

Network Techniques: Case Studies in the Screening‐Linking‐Planning Conference Method

Abstract: This article describes a technique for receiving, assessing, planning, linking, and monitoring people in crisis. Called the Screening-Linking-Planning (S-L-P) Conference Method, the technique takes advantage of certain characteristics of people in the heat of crisis that make them particularly amenable to change and allow a care-giver to promote marked positive growth in brief periods of time. The method encourages the social network of the person in crisis to cluster around the person in a supportive way, to make positive expectations, and to provide feedback for identity-repair purposes. The technique has proved effective with persons in acute crisis as well as those who have chosen a career of chronic crisis (i.e., chronic patienthood). A major part of this paper is devoted to case studies describing the application of this technique in a variety of situations.

On the Study of Urban Social Movements

Abstract: The article makes a critical assessment of the approach to urban protest developed by Manuel Castells and colleagues. Problems are identified in the definition of the term urban social movement, the identifation of their effects and the theoretical assumptions made about the central and local state. The approach is shown to neglect the mobilization process, and to ignore effects obtained by conventional institutional methods of demand-making. The advantages of a social network approach to mobilization are shown.

Occupational Communication as Boundary Mechanism

Abstract: / -he field of study we call the sociology of occupations j has concentrated on examining the problems and members of occupations but has neglected an important area of investigation that might be profitable. There have been few studies of occupational cultures (for example: Bryant, 1972, on circus performers; Cottrell, 1940, on railroaders) and their attendant problems. We have studies of police, doctors, railroaders, truck drivers, and yet few of these discuss the occupation’s culture or its transmission from one occupational generation to another. Although there is some discussion implicitly there is little explicitly. How, for

Social Science, Ontology and Explanation: Some Further Reflections:

Abstract: While I am grateful to Mr. Howard for the careful attention he gave to my paper, ’Ideals of Order: History and Sociology’, I cannot, in the end, accept his suggestion concerning the nature of the dispute between Flint and Bousma. Howard thinks that ’they are concerned (though perhaps without quite realizing it) with the major and minor premises respectively of the hypothetico-deductive model rather than operating from two entirely differ-