1) The first person I gave the folder to is a female College student. To begin with, my friend is a of the same gender as the target person. According to Milgram in his “The Small-World Problem”, “participants were three times as likely to send the folder on to someone of the same sex as to someone of the opposite sex” (65). Thus, I believe that the fact that my friend is also female will help in the process of having the folder reach the target. Furthermore, the fact that she’s a college student and a psychology major could be advantageous, since she is more likely to have taken an Education course, or had more interactions with people related/associated with the Education school. Added to this, even though we are close, we also have different interests and different groups of friends. This could potentially be of benefit as, even though she is a strong tie, she could also serve as a bridge to other networks, and consequently, expand and increase the possibilities of knowing someone in the Education school.
2) Both Burt and Granovetter say that weak ties are strong, and that these will provide us with new information and access to novel opportunities. However, I believe that if the first person I had given the folder to was just an acquaintance, a weak tie, then that person might not have cared as much as someone that I know well would have. Therefore, I gave the folder to a friend of mine who I trust very much in. Thus, I believe that this factor will contribute to the success of the passing of the folder to the 3rd person since she’ll make the effort, even during her busy schedule, to give the folder to someone that she believes that could help reach the target. This is supported by McPherson et al in “Social Isolation in America”, when they say that “the closer and stronger our tie with someone, the broader the scope of their support for us” (354).
3) The target is an assistant professor in the graduate school of Education. Since she is Asian, the fact that the first person to whom I gave the folder to is White could be a potential problem, according to Milgram and Korte. They state that there are racial boundaries and that gatekeepers are needed in order to cross these. Moreover, they emphasize the “need for recognizing the role of social structure in [their] model of the small world” (108). However, I don’t believe that this racial boundary will be an issue in our experiment. Since Penn is such a diverse university, ethnicity and racial boundaries seem to be less strong and pronounced than in other places, especially compared to the 1970s, when Milgram’s experiment was carried out. Also, since Miss Yoon is in such a high structural position, her status could dilute the potential problems that could arise because of her ethnicity.
However, her structural position should be noted as a potential problem too. Being an assistant professor suggests that she isn’t someone that has been in the Penn community for a long time, and also, that she won’t be known to too many people. This is pushed further by the fact that she is part of the Graduate school of education, which means that undergraduate students have limited, if any, contact with her and her school, since Education is not offered as a major at the undergraduate level.
4) But hope is not lost! As Milgram and Korte have noted, occupational similarity plays an important part in increasing the chances of having the folder delivered to the target, even across racial boundaries. Thus, I believe that the folder will enter the network of the graduate school of Education, and once in there, it will most likely pass into the hands of other members of similar occupations, such as other assistant and faculty members. I expect these people to be mostly female, not only because of Milgram’s study results, but also because the Education school tends to have a higher female ratio than males. Since the target is someone that could be considered marginal within her network (given her status as assistant professor), I think that people who have been in the Penn community for a while, and are central figures within the Education network, will be most likely to deliver the folder to the target. Also, it could be said that the person to actually make the delivery would be of a higher structural status, since, as Milgram and Korte’s study has shown, “one of the most striking patters in the data was the status descent of the chain at the last link” (107).
5) I think that the folder will go through at least 5 people, including myself, before it reaches the target. My friend would be second person, and then I expect several inaccurate decisions made along the way. Killworth et al have shown that “an accuracy of around 50% is present” (94) in the decisions made, especially in closed systems, and the Education school could be considered a closed system.
I think that the folder will reach the target in 2-3 weeks since the day that it was delivered, so by the 2nd week of October.