Social Network Blog - y10

1. I gave my folder to Renata Holod, who is the Director of Visual Studies, which is an interdisciplinary major, tying Renata to many other departments. I think her personal characteristics increase the chances of the folder reaching its target, Susan Yoon.

As outlined by Milgram, people are more likely to pass on the folder to people like themselves and three times more likely to pass it on to someone from the same sex, so the fact they are both female should be beneficial. Also, both of these people are part of Penn faculty and have similar university affiliations. Although their racial characteristics are not similar, I don’t think this should become a barrier, even though the Korte & Milgram study brings up the difficulty of crossing racial barriers. However, this study is dated and I don’t think race will play an important role considering there is a lot of diversity at Penn.

The fact that Renata has been at Penn for a long time and that she is well-connected to different members of the Penn community also increases the chances of the folder reaching its target. The only personal characteristic that worries me is that Renata is extremely busy and it might take her a while to hand over the folder to someone else. Being a Professor herself though she would probably acknowledge the importance of such a study and carry it out, even though it’s not in her field of work.

2. Although I’ve known Renata since my freshman year, I can’t say that we have a very strong relationship. We don’t see each other that frequently and our relationship is on the advisor-advisee level.

However, based on Granovetter’s argument, weak ties like this are more likely to transmit information among networks and act as bridges, yet as Burt points out reliability becomes an important issue and I’m not sure how much I can trust Renata, which poses a problem for success.

3. Considering that Susan is an assistant professor, it’s likely that she hasn’t been at Penn for a long time, which would mean that her social network is not likely to be very broad. It also decreases the chances of her being a very popular and prestigious figure, both within the Penn community and the GSE community. According to Monge, this lack of prestige would make her likely to have less in-degree relationships, making it harder for the folder to reach her. Moreover, although I don’t believe that racial boundaries will be a problem, the fact that she is Asian will not make things easier either. For all these reasons, I don’t think she is a very accessible target. However, as we saw in the Milgram study, knowing the “right” people, like the stockbroker in Massachusetts, is the key to the success of this study.

4. Although Renata doesn’t know the target person, she does know some faculty members in the GSE, who are very likely to know Susan. Therefore, I’m assuming that the folder will pass from Renata to a GSE faculty member and then to pass onto either another GSE faculty or Susan. So the folder should travel mainly among faculty. I expect this chain to be mostly women considering that the starting person and the target person are both female, and considering that there are more females in the GSE. I’m expecting the folder to pass from Annenberg to GSE and I would expect that the people in the chain would have been at Penn for a while since they are more likely to know other people, who could be old or new to the campus.

The person who finally passes the folder to the target is likely to be a faculty member who is a superior of Susan. This person could possibly be the department head or a faculty member with seniority, especially considering that the Krote & Milgram study showed that racial boundaries are more likely to be crossed moving down the ladder of organizational hierarchy. It’s also very likely that this person might be a hub in the network.

5. I think the folder will be passed through 2-3 people before it reaches the target, and this process should take little about a week.