Before reading Granovetter's paper, think of ways to define "strength" of a social relationship. Then think about how to measure them. What would be your favorite measure of strength of ties? What are your justifications for that?
Strength of a personal or social relationship is probably best measured subjectively, and mapped onto an imprecise scale: unknown, acquaintance, friend, good friend, best friend, and soul mate.
There are perhaps a set of objective questions (probably aiming towards binary answers) which could be deduced into values. Those values would feed into a formula of weights and measures that ultimately translate to a single numeric point. Plotting that point on the imprecise spectrum will finally yield the strength of the relationship in a literal term.
Of course, this "scientific" process must leave some "wiggle room" to allow for adjusting the result up or down based on some final subjective opinion.
My personal simple system for measuring the strength of ties would answer the following questions, but not be limited or necessarily be required to have "high scores" for all: (1) how long have I known a person? (2) how many intimate details do I know about their life? (3) how often do we interact on a personal and intimate level? (4) how do each of us feel empathy for each other?
- What's the main argument behind the "strength of weak ties", particularly regarding the job search? Do you agree? If yes, can you provide additional reasons? If no, can you argue your position?
- Are there empirical studies on the strength of weak ties? Do they support Granovetter's argument?
- In addition to the job searching, can there be occasions where weak ties become important or useful?
(1) The main argument behind weak ties and job search is that we spend a lot of time with those of whom we have strong ties, and the rate of "new information" (as it pertains to job opportunities, and such) is relatively low. However, when interacting with acquaintances, with whom we have weak ties, the flow of new information is much greater and more often. Thus it is the weak ties which bring the news of new job opportunities.
I tend to agree with this argument based on personal experience. In general, my best friends (those which whom I have stronger ties) and I discuss many topics but jobs and job opportunities are usually very infrequent. At a local Meetup group, where I interact with a group of peers with whom I am generally just acquainted (weaker ties) the discussion is around technology, projects, and then naturally and invariably leads to jobs and who is hiring.
(2) two studies cited by Granovetter:
- Korte's 1967 Small World study, and Korte + Milgram's 1970 Acquaintance Networks. These studies follow what we know from prior reading: a booklet is passed through a network, and at each step an indicator of "friend" or "acquaintance" is noted about the receiver. The completion rate for "friend" was lower than for "acquaintance," and thus he claims support for his argument
- the 1961 study by Rapport + Hovarth, Large Sociogram; this study analyzed the social connectivity from an ordered list of best friends. The smallest number of connections were made from the first and second choices: presumably the strongest friendships (ties). The greatest number of people were reached through the seventh and eighth choices, presumably much weaker ties.
(3) The importance/usefulness of weak ties can be extended beyond professional and career networking. Introducing people for possible romantic relationship would seem to be a logical extension of this. Out of a desire not to create an issue or tension in a triadic form, one would probably only introduce people with whom we have weak ties. This point (about triadic tension) is one of Granovetter's first points.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Assume that A and B are friends, and B and C are friends. Then we are sure that A and C are friends. | False |
| Why is it less likely that a strong tie would be a bridge between social groups? | Because strong ties foster triadic closure, thereby removing their status as a bridge. |
| Weak ties foster local cohesion while strong ties foster global cohesion. | False |
Two reasons why weak ties are strong (beneficial)
- Weak ties are bridges that lead to opportunities. But what is a bridge? A bridge is the only path between two points.
- Weak ties are strong because they increase SOCIAL COHESION on a global scale but are bad for local cohesion.