1.A Structural Theory of Social Influence by Noah E. Friedkin (2 Nov 2006)
Introduction:
This book addresses a phenomenon that has been much studied in anthropology, sociology and administrative science - the social structural foundations of coordinated activity and consensus in complexly differentiated communities and organizations. Such foundations are important because social differentiation makes coordination and agreement especially hard to achieve and maintain. Friedkin focuses on the process of social influence, and on how this process, when it is played out in a network of interpersonal influence, may result in interpersonal agreements among actors who are located in different parts of a complexly differentiated organization. This work builds on structural role analysis which provides a description of the pattern of social differentiation in a population. Interpretation of the revealed social structures has long been a problem. The steps for structural analysis that are proposed in this book are addressed to the above problem. To explain the coordination of social positions, the author pursues the development of a structural social psychology that attends to both social structure and process.
Contents:
Part A. Theory and Setting
1 Social Structure and Social Control 3
1.1 Social Differentiation 5
1.2 Social Process and Institutions 10
1.3 Interpersonal Agreements and Social Control 15
1.4 Concluding Remarks 21
2 Toward a Structural Social Psychology 23
2.1 Social Influence Network Theory 24
2.2 Concluding Remarks 34
3 A Setting in the Scientific Community 35
3.1 Anomy in Science 35
3.2 Social Differentiation 36
3.3 Social Process and Institutions 40
3.4 Interpersonal Agreements and Social Control 43
3.5 Corporate Organization and the Unity of Science 46
3.6 Concluding Remarks 49
Part B. Measures of the Theoretical Constructs
4 A Structural Parameterization 53
4.1 Interpersonal Influence 56
4.2 Self and Other 57
4.3 Social Positions and Initial Opinions 58
4.4 Equilibrium Opinions and Total Interpersonal Influences 59
4.5 Summary of the Approach 60
4.6 The Survey 61
4.7 Preliminary Social Network Concepts 65
5 Interpersonal Influence 68
5.1 Structural Bases of Interpersonal Influence 68
5.2 Probability of an Interpersonal Attachment 73
5.3 Nonrespondents 77
5.4 Construct Validation 78
5.5 Concluding Remarks 81
5.6 Appendix 84
6 Self and Other 86
6.1 Bases of Power and Measures of Centrality 87
6.2 Indegree and the Self-Other Balance 93
6.3 Concluding Remarks 97
7 Social Positions 100
7.1 Defining Social Positions 102
7.2 Social Distance, Affiliations, and Relations 105
7.3 Social Manifolds and Social Differentiation 116
7.4 Concluding Remarks 118
Part C. Analysis
8 The Structure of Social Space 125
8.1 Segregated Structures, Ridge Structures, and Bridges 126
8.2 Blockmodels, Link-Pin Organizations, and Social Circles 129
8.3 Macro-Structural Models and Transitivity 135
8.4 Analysis of the Faculties of Science 147
8.5 Concluding Remarks 158
9 The Production of Consensus 163
9.1 Structural Conditions of Consensus 164
9.2 Structure of Direct Interpersonal Influences 168
9.3 Reduction of Social Distance 177
9.4 Equilibrium Destinations 180
9.5 Concluding Remarks 183
9.6 Appendix: Mean Influence of Position-Clusters 185
10 Influence of Actors and Social Positions 187
10.1 Effects of Social Positions 188
10.2 Influences among Actors 191
10.3 Structural Foundations of Social Dominance 203
10.4 Concluding Remarks 205
11 Durkheim's Vision 207
11.1 The Transformation of Social Space 207
11.2 Prospects for a Structural Social Psychology 211
References 215
Index 225
|