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 and the ties, edges, or links that connect them. Examples of social structures commonly visualized through social network analysis include social media networks, meme spread, information circulation, friendship and acquaintance networks, peer learner networks, business networks, knowledge networks, difficult working relationships, collaboration graphs, kinship, disease transmission, and sexual relationships. These networks are often visualized through sociograms in which nodes are represented as points and ties are represented as lines. These visualizations provide a means of qualitatively assessing networks by varying the visual representation of their nodes and edges to reflect attributes of interest.
In the social sciences, social structure is the aggregate of patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of individuals. Likewise, society is believed to be grouped into structurally related groups or sets of roles, with different functions, meanings, or purposes. Examples of social structure include family, religion, law, economy, and class. It contrasts with "social system", which refers to the parent structure in which these various structures are embedded. Thus, social structures significantly influence larger systems, such as economic systems, legal systems, political systems, cultural systems, etc. Social structure can also be said to be the framework upon which a society is established. It determines the norms and patterns of relations between the various institutions of the society.
Psychodrama is an action method, often used as a psychotherapy, in which clients use spontaneous dramatization, role playing, and dramatic self-presentation to investigate and gain insight into their lives. Developed by Jacob L. Moreno and his wife Zerka Toeman Moreno, psychodrama includes elements of theater, often conducted on a stage, or a space that serves as a stage area, where props can be used. A psychodrama therapy group, under the direction of a licensed psychodramatist, reenacts real-life, past situations, acting them out in present time. Participants then have the opportunity to evaluate their behavior, reflect on how the past incident is getting played out in the present and more deeply understand particular situations in their lives.
Role reversal is a psychotherapeutic technique in psychodrama that demonstrates a protagonist's intrapersonal conflicts deeply and explicitly on the stage. This technique is perhaps the single most important and effective technique in psychodrama. In the form of psychodrama, the protagonist is invited to move out of their own position or role into the significant other's position and enact that role. Therefore, the auxiliary ego can observe and learn how to play the role. For example, in a parent-child's session, a protagonist who is the child reverses role with one of their parents. This technique not only helps the protagonist get more insight of a specific role but also helps the director, the auxiliary egos, and the audience learn more about that specific role.
Jacob Levy Moreno was a Romanian-American psychiatrist, psychosociologist, and educator, the founder of psychodrama, and the foremost pioneer of group psychotherapy. During his lifetime, he was recognized as one of the leading social scientists.
A sociogram is a graphic representation of social links that a person has. It is a graph drawing that plots the structure of interpersonal relations in a group situation.
The diamond of opposites is a type of two-dimensional plot used in psychodrama groups. This tool can illuminate the presence of contradictions in processes that cannot be detected by any single questionnaire item using a traditional format such as the Likert scale. The diamond of opposites is a sociometric scaling method that simultaneously measures positive and negative responses to a statement.
Harrison Colyar White is the emeritus Giddings Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. White played an influential role in the “Harvard Revolution” in social networks and the New York School of relational sociology. He is credited with the development of a number of mathematical models of social structure including vacancy chains and blockmodels. He has been a leader of a revolution in sociology that is still in process, using models of social structure that are based on patterns of relations instead of the attributes and attitudes of individuals.
Mathematical sociology is an interdisciplinary field of research concerned with the use of mathematics within sociological research.
In sociology, social psychology studies the relationship between the individual and society. Although studying many of the same substantive topics as its counterpart in the field of psychology, sociological social psychology places relatively more emphasis on the influence of social structure and culture on individual outcomes, such as personality, behavior, and one's position in social hierarchies. Researchers broadly focus on higher levels of analysis, directing attention mainly to groups and the arrangement of relationships among people. This subfield of sociology is broadly recognized as having three major perspectives: Symbolic interactionism, social structure and personality, and structural social psychology.
Sociomapping is a method developed for processing and visualization of relational data. It is most commonly used for mapping the social structure within small teams. Sociomapping uses the landscape metaphor to display complex multi-dimensional data in a 3D map, where individual objects are localized in such way that their distance on the map corresponds to their distance in the underlying data.
The social graph is a graph that represents social relations between entities. In short, it is a model or representation of a social network, where the word graph has been taken from graph theory. The social graph has been referred to as "the global mapping of everybody and how they're related".
Sociometric status is a measurement that reflects the degree to which someone is liked or disliked by their peers as a group. While there are some studies that have looked at sociometric status among adults, the measure is primarily used with children and adolescents to make inferences about peer relations and social competence.
A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors, sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for analyzing the structure of whole social entities as well as a variety of theories explaining the patterns observed in these structures. The study of these structures uses social network analysis to identify local and global patterns, locate influential entities, and examine network dynamics.
New York Training School for Girls in Hudson was a reformatory school, where teenage girls, between the ages of 12 and 16, who were convicted of any form of juvenile delinquency in New York state were sent. The institution operated between 1904 and 1975. Since 1976 it has been a minimum security prison for young male adults, recently called Hudson Correctional Facility. It is famous for the sociometric research done by Jacob Moreno and Helen Jennings in the 1930s.
Zerka Toeman Moreno was a Dutch-born American psychotherapist and co-creator of psychodrama. She was a close colleague and wife of Jacob Levy Moreno.
Daniel Joseph Tomasulo is an American counseling psychologist, writer, and professor and the Academic Director and core faculty at the Spirituality Mind Body Institute (SMBI), Teachers College, Columbia University. He holds a Ph.D. in psychology, MFA in writing, and a Master of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and was formerly the Director of the New York City Certification in Positive Psychology for the New York Open Center. He is also a Review Editor for Frontiers in Psychology's special section on Positive Psychology and recipient of the Teachers College, Columbia University 2021 Teaching Award.
Helen Hall Jennings was a social psychologist and trailblazer in the field of social networks in the early 20th century. She developed quantitative research methods used to study sociometry, a quantitative method for measuring social relationships. This work is cited as being the birth of social network analysis.
Mary Louise Northway was a Canadian psychologist, recognized for her work in the area of sociometry. She was a faculty member at the University of Toronto.
Reva Potashin was a Canadian psychologist known for her contributions to the field of sociometry. She was a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
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