Showing papers on "Social network published in 1983"

Social Contexts, Social Networks, and Urban Neighborhoods: Environmental Constraints on Friendship Choice

Abstract: This article considers the influence of neighborhood social contexts on the content of social networks. Contextual explanations for individual behavior argue that (1) individual preferences and actions are influenced through social interaction, and (2) social interaction is structured by the social composition of the individual's environment. Thus, a preliminary step to constructing contextual theories of individual behavior is an examination of the way that the social context structures social encounters and friendship choice. The empirical correspondence between the content of neighborhood social contexts and the content of social networks is examined using a sample of white male Detroit residents. A mathematical model of associational choice is developed that incorporates the ability of individuals to enforce social preferences on their choice of friends while it maintains the role of the social context in structuring that choice.

Social Network: A New Perspective on Independence and Illiterate Adults:

Abstract: This study explores the social structures illiterate adults create, and their relationship to notions of dependence and independence. In-depth unstructured interviews and participant-observation were used with 43 adults in a medium-sized northeastern urban setting. Analysis shows that illiterate adults create social networks that include readers and are characterized by mutuality. Illiterate adults contribute a range of skills to their networks and see themselves as interdependent. Networks are related to the extent to which illiterate adults are involved in the larger society; this ranges from extensive, for cosmopolitans, to minimal for local adults. Dependent adults have networks that are characterized by asymmetrical relationships. Literacy programs must learn to respond to adults-in-networks.

Network and meaning: an interactionist approach to structure

Abstract: Social network is a concept interactionists might use to link individual behavior to the larger social system. A symbolic interactionist formulation of network would: 1) approximate the original, anthropological usage better than the current structural conception does, 2) offer symbolic interactionists a unit of social organization better suited to their perspective than the small group, and 3) allow symbolic interactionists to deal with “macro” sociological concerns. Network is conceived of as a set of relationships which people imbue with meaning and use for personal or collective purposes. By emphasizing subjective meaning and the investigation of multi-purpose and weak ties, the interactionist formulation provides theoretical insights into those aspects of society which “structural” approaches overlook. One of the major developments in sociology during the 1970s was the growth and popularity of the network construct to describe social structure.’ Many network analysts, particularly those in sociology, regard themselves as structuralists and rely heavily on mathematical models and statistical methodologies. However, despite its current usage, we argue that the network consrruct is compatible with the symbolic interactionist conceptualization of social structure. In fact, we claim that the symbolic interactionist approach fits anthropologists’ original conception of network better than the structuralists’ approach does. Following the formulations of British social anthropologists (Radcliffe-Brown, 1940; Barnes, 1954; Nadel, 1957), social structure (as network) is seen as a set of relationships between individuals. Symbolic interactionism, like the network formulation, suggests a relational approach to understanding social order. From the symbolic interactionist perspective, social order is constructed through meaningful, self-other interaction. “Society as symbolic interaction” (Blumer, 1969) is equivalent to the view (in network theory) that social structure is grounded in relationships-the self-other relationship is the basic

Romantic Involvement and Social Network Involvement

Abstract: The role of social networks has been largely overlooked in research on dyadic involvement. Hypotheses linking network involvement and romantic involvement were developed from an analysis of the interpersonal processes underlying structural transitivity. Data were gathered on 193 premarital romantic relationships. Results showed that romantic involvement was positively associated with perceived support from the subject's own network of family and friends, perceived support from the partner's network, attraction to the partner's network, communication with the partner's network, and the number of people met in the partner's network. Further analysis indicated that the network factors were tightly interrelated. Differences in support received from various network sectors were small, but significant. The "Romeo and Juliet" effect only occurred in one sector of,the network and then for only some levels of some variables. The predominant relationship between social support and romantic involvement was positive and linear.

Critical social psychology

Abstract: Academic practitioners of social psychology have traditionally adopted a liberal position against the extremes of capitalist and socialist ideology. But recently this middle position has become extremely precarious, and the fundamental crisis in social psychology can no longer be ignored. The purpose of this book is to repair the severed connection between social psychology, the culture of everyday life and the structure of society, along the lines of the Frankfurt School's critique of knowledge. Philip Wexler places both conventional social psychology and the emergence of an alternative in their historical context, revealing the ideological character of conventional social psychology and emphasizing the social basis of an alternative. He describes the foundations of this alternative, critical psychology, by analysis of theory and research on questions of self, social interaction and intimate or personal relations. This analysis proceeds through an historical and conceptual critique of concepts and paradigms, toward their social-cultural basis, and then back again to an alternative paradigm. In presenting a coherent theoretical social psychology, and by introducing Marxist categories such as commodity fetishism, exploitation and alienation, the author enables social psychologists to overcome their cultural isolation.

Impact of late-life depression on the social network.

Abstract: The author tested the hypothesis that a major depressive disorder contributes to a decline in social support by studying data from 331 subjects 65 years of age and older who had been selected at random from a larger community group and screened for a major depressive disorder and the availability of social supports. Impaired social support was associated with the presence of a major depressive disorder. Thirty months later, however, the surviving subjects whose social supports had improved were 2.62 times more likely to have been depressed earlier than those whose social supports did not improve. Major depressive disorder was a significant predictor of improvement in social supports at follow-up.

Aggression and Criminality in a Longitudinal Perspective

Abstract: Since 1965 a longitudinal research program with the title “Individual development and environment” has been in progress at the Department of Psychology, the University of Stockholm. The purpose of the project is to study individual development from early age to adulthood, with particular emphasis on the development of social adjustment. Main subprojects within the program are directed to the study of the genesis of alcoholism, criminality and mental illness. In view of the important role that the individual’s educational-vocational career process and his/her social network play in the development, they have been afforded special attention. (For information about the program, its main aims, strategies and data collections, the reader is referred to Magnusson, in press; Magnusson and Duner, 1981; Magnusson, Duner and Zetterblom, 1975).

A Social Network Approach to Organizational Design-Performance

Abstract: Prior research has failed to confirm a direct relationship between organizational design and group performance. The reason, as revealed by this literature review, may be that organization-level characteristics first affect group structural properties, which, in turn, have a direct impact on performance. In support of this view, this paper offers both a conceptualization of a moderated design-performance relationship and a set of literature-derived hypotheses to serve as guides for empirical research.

Social support factors and drinking among college student males.

Abstract: The present investigation focused on social support and social competence among male college freshmen and the relation of these variables to alcohol use and psychological adjustment. Recent critical analyses of the social support literature suggest that studies in this area have generally failed to distinguish between different modes of support. Therefore, measures pertaining to possible dimensions of the social support construct (i.e., social network characteristics and perceived social support) were administered to 137 male college freshmen, along with a measure of social competence, and these data were factor analyzed. As a result, three interpretable factors were identified: Network Functions, Perceived Intimacy/Support, and Social Competence. Measures representing social network characteristics (e.g., network size, density, amount of social contact), perceived support, and social competence were used to predict alcohol use and psychological symptomatology. Results indicated that alcohol use was positively related to social network characteristics that reflect high levels of social interaction (e.g., network density, amount of social contact) and measures of social competence. Drinking was not significantly related to measures of perceived social support. Psychological symptomatology was negatively related to measures of perceived support, social competence, and network density. Thus, this study concludes that different modes of support and different measures of psychological adjustment should not be treated as if they are equivalent. And this study reaffirms a growing concern that the social context provides frequent opportunities for alcohol use and abuse in a college community.

Social Psychology from the Standpoint of a Structural Symbolic Interactionism: Toward an Interdisciplinary Social Psychology*

Abstract: Publisher Summary Social psychology is ideology and relates to the way human beings are conceptualized. This chapter discusses the structural symbolic interactionaism and developments in the two social psychologies. The common developments and developments in psychological and sociological social psychology are reviewed in the chapter. The ultimate end of an interdisciplinary social psychology and the more immediate goals of maintaining contact and benefitting from one another obviously require that the separate social psychologies be open to mutual influence. There are two main social psychologies with important internal variants––one with a disciplinary base in psychology and the other in sociology. The attack on the theories and methods of contemporary sociological and psychological social psychology that asserts their ideological character follows closely from what has already been said about relevance. The social psychologies have, of course, been criticized from a variety of metatheoretical perspectives implying very different conceptions of human beings, of social interaction, and of society.

Beyond Causality in The Social Sciences: Reciprocity as a Model of Non-Exploitative Social Relations

Abstract: The problem to which I address myself in this paper is the construction of an adequate model of explanation in the social sciences. Causal models of explanation have been criticized as inadequate in their conception of human action. Such criticisms have been offered by, among others, Anscombe, Peters, Melden and Hamlyn in their critique of behaviorism, Winch in his critique of causal explanation in sociology, von Wright in his discussion of explanation in history and the social sciences, and of course Husserl, Heidegger and Sartre in their analyses of consciousness, Dasein and choice. In general, I am in agreement with the well-known criticisms which these philosophers have offered, but I want to go beyond them in various ways. In particular, the criticism of causal models which I shall propose in the first part of my paper will focus not only on the inadequacy of these models in their account of human action, but also on their inadequacy as accounts of interaction. However, in rejecting causal explanations of human action and interaction, I do not intend to exclude causality from the social sciences. Rather, I will claim that human agency is causal insofar as it acts on nonhuman objects. As such, causality will be seen to be a delimited but important aspect of a total explanation in the social sciences.

Social science and social physics

Abstract: Social science was born with the ambition to be social physics. In the hands of Galton, Pearson, and their successors, it became instead a search for causal explanations that are of a different logical kind from the explanations provided by celestial mechanics. Many critics of social science continue to demand that the social sciences produce systematic theories explaining social phenomena from general laws. The demand is inappropriate, and is not satisfied by many sciences that provide causal explanations without providing general laws. The unity of the sciences derives from a common conception of rational inquiry, rather than from sameness of technique or theoretical structure.

Social Networks among Elderly Women: Implications for Health Education Practice

Abstract: The general aim of the present study was to examine and help clarify the properties of the distinctions between social networks and social support, their relationship to health status, and their implications for health education practice. More specifically, a secondary data analysis was conducted with 130 white women, community residents, between the ages of 60 and 68, which examined the relationship between psychological well-being and social network characteristics. These characteristics are categorized along three broad dimensions: structure--links in the overall network (size and density); interaction--nature of the linkages themselves (frequency, homogeneity, content, reciprocity, intensity, and dispersion); and functions which networks provide (affective support and instrumental support). A combination was made and relative strength investigated of several network characteristics representative of the quality of interactions (i.e., reciprocal affective support, intensity, and affective support) and those representing the quantity of interactions (i.e., size, density, and frequency).

Social Science and Policy Analysis

Abstract: It always seemed that social scientists could contribute a great deal to policymakers. Since policymakers needed information about the likely consequences of policy choices and social scientists were trained to reason and collect information about social processes in careful, rigorous ways, social scientists could reduce the uncertainty about the outcomes of policy choices. This simple syllogism stimulated the development of a large social science establishment and thickened the bonds between policymakers and social scientists. In fact, policy-making processes now routinely incorporate social scientists and social science findings as part of the appartus that determines (and legitimates) policy choices.1

Predictors of help-seeking in an urban setting: the search for child care.

Abstract: The aim of this exploratory study was to identify variables which predict how parents search for child care. Structured interviews were conducted with 50 parents of young children who had searched for full-time nonrelative child care. The respondents represented a 1% sample of Detroit parents. Search behaviors were found to be related to perceived neighborhood age, personal social network ties, and income and family structure. Personal social network ties related to contrasting sets of search behaviors, described as cosmopolitan versus parochial help-seeking patterns. However, perceived neighborhood age modified the relationship between social network ties and search behaviors in that the contrast between cosmopolitan and parochial help-seeking patterns was found only in neighborhoods where most residents had lived more than 10 years (established areas). The findings point to the need for multivariate investigations of the relationship between neighborhood context and patterns of help-seeking, especially in regards to the role of personal social networks. Implications of the findings for the design of a local child care information and referral service are discussed.

Social Science and the Policy-Making Process

Abstract: social science in policy making simpliciter as if there were one constant relationship between two fixed and stable entities. Instead, to address this issue sensibly, one must talk about the uses of different modes of social scientific inquiry for different kinds of policies under various circumstances. In some cases, the influence of social scientific research is direct and tangible, and the connection between the findings and the policy is easy to see. For example, the statistical and social scientific analyses of data generated by the census, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and similar government surveys are the bases upon which a wide variety of legislative and administrative decisions are made. Similarly influential have been large-scale social surveys directed at specific policy issues, such as the studies of educational policy conducted by the sociologist James Coleman. However, in other (perhaps most) cases, the influence of social scientific research on policy is indirect-one small piece in a larger mosaic of politics, bargaining, and compromise. Occasionally, as with the Coleman studies, the findings of social scientific research are explicitly drawn upon by policy makers in the formation, implementation, or evaluation of particular policies. More often, as Charles E. Lindblom and David K. Cohen and others have taken pains to point out, the categories and theoretical models of social science have an indirect bearing on policy by providing a general background orientation within which policy makers conceptualize problems and frame policy options.' At times, the influence of social scientific work is cognitive and informational in nature; in other instances, policy makers use social science primarily for symbolic and political purposes in order to legitimate pre-established goals and strategies. This latter situation is probably inevitable in our own or any other political system, but many social scientists-particularly those who have been bloodied by their occasional forays into the political arena-find it deeply disturbing because it seems to compromise the intellectual integrity of the social sciences. Nonetheless, amid this diversity, troubling general questions persistently arise and these became a central part of our project. They concern the epistemological validity of social scientific knowledge and its applicability, the proper

The Use of Social Science in a Norwegian Ministry: As a Tool of Policy or Mode of Thinking?:

Abstract: Both producers and users of social science tend to think of it as an instrument ; perspectives and results from science forming direct premises for policy decisions The article summarizes a study of how research contributions in specific fields of transport research are used in the Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communication. Despite institutional closeness and cultural similarities between research community and user community, we found that much direct use is unusual. The subject matters of social science, although frequently posed as social problems, may in effect constitute social conflicts, and as such cannot be solved by knowledge and information alone. The use of social science in the conceptualization process and as political ammunition is, however, important enough. The article points out obstacles to such use, primarily in the organizational structure of the Ministry.

Social Psychology and Language: a Taxonomy and Overview:

Abstract: The purpose of this overview is briefly to summarise the distinctive contributions of social psychology to the study of language, speech and communi cation. The breadth and depth of these contribut...