Social Network Blog - y7

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Race, The Plastics & The Missing Pieces

With race, is it black and white?.
Stanley Milgram’s article “The Small World Problem” examines the probability that any two people, selected from a population, will know each other (62). The small world method consists of giving several “starting people” the task of passing selected information in a folder to a “target person”. Korte & Milgram’s article “Acquaintance Networks Between Racial Groups” breaks this study down to examine what happens to acquaintanceship chains as they are impinged upon by social structure (102). A major finding was that white target chains exhibited a greater chance of completion than the black chains.

Many people today are trying to convince us that the world is getting smaller and closer with technological advances. However, this study also reflects that we may not be as close to living in a small, interconnected world as we think- in fact, the world is still a place divided by social barriers, class and race. The most common reason for the crossing of racial barriers was the occupational similarity- most acquaintances ties crossed were male and had professional status. In fact, more shockingly, 80% of incompleted “Negro” targeted chains never crossed the racial barriers, proving that perhaps it is only a small world within and not outside of racial groups.

The Plastics
The reality is, that many times people network to meet the rich and the beautiful. For those of you who haven’t seen Mean Girls (2004), "The Plastics" are the A-list clique, the groups everyone wants to meet, know and be. Gladwell’s article “Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg” examines some interesting connections between power and quality vs. quantity of relationships. As Gladwell states, “the old idea was that people got ahead by being friends with rich and powerful people—which is true, in a limited way, but as a pratical lesson in how the world works is all but useless…the old-boy network is always going to be just for the old boys” (12). In fact, you want to get to know “connectors”- not someone who is necessarily charismatic, beautiful, rich or extremely extroverted- but someone who can spread information and ideas, has the ability to connect varied and isolated parts of societies and someone with social power.

A very interesting aspect of this is power in our relationships. Gladwell discusses Granovetter’s argument that “what matters in getting ahead is not the quality of your relationships but the quantity –not how close you are to those you know but, paradoxically, how many people you know whom you aren’t particularly close to.” While I agree that this may help with networking for jobs and climbing the social and corporate ladder, your emotional well-being is still dependent on the quality of relationships. No matter how many people we are friends with, in the end, it is your close friends that are going to be there when you need comforting, support and a shoulder to lean on.

“Poverty is not deprivation. It is isolation”

In last week’s readings, Wellman stated that “larger, more heterogeneous and denser networks provide more support” (25). Lois Weisberg argues that this also applies when helping the poor: "I don't believe poor kids can advance in any way by being lumped together with other poor kids (10). She started a program where poor kids would be able to mix with middle class kids in their afterschool extracurricular activities and it was a great success. While I agree that many times poverty is about isolation and not having the access or the knowledge of the necessary networks and resources, it is not about finding “a way to get out of [your] neighborhood altogether” (Gladwell, 12).

While Wellman established that “neighborhood” is not synonymous with “community” in terms of its provision of support, the Watts article on “The ‘New’ Science of Networks” shows that network structure is important locally (because an individual neighborhood provides one with information and resources) as well as globally (in that it enables him to navigate when searching for information or resources outside his neighborhood). Leaving the “problem area” will only worsen the situation and is not a solution to the root of the problem. On a global scale, the human capital flight (or “brain drain”) phenomenon is widespread and increasingly problematic when the trained and most talented individuals leave the country. Simply put, the importance of the neighborhood community should not be lost in the development of impoverished areas.

Missing Pieces

Three major issues came up when I read the Milgram article. Firsty, while some of the cases were remarkably successful, such as the case with two intermediaries, how many were not completed, and what conclusions could we draw from this? As mentioned in the beginning of my blog, Milgram’s study was also not representative of the ‘real world’ with its predominantly white, upper middle class, professional makeup. Lastly, does the selection of the “target person” affect the outcome of the study? Had the target been someone less well established and of a different race/class, would the results be replicated?

Killworth et. al also illustrates that in the real world, limited information available to individuals lead to more mistakes and is in fact predominant, leaving us with serious implications for deductions for issues like the spread of infectious diseases. Despite the limitations, in today’s increasingly technological and internet-based world, Milgram’s study could be stronger and more relevant than before. It would be interesting to further investigate a Milgram-style study via electronic mail and perhaps on a global scale.

Weak Ties: Implications for society today

An overwhelming amount of the literature on social capital/social structure in the media is about the increasing isolation and loneliness we are experiencing in today’s society. Putnam’s “Bowling Alone” on the collapse and revival of the American community has expanded beyond the study of social networks and into the ‘mainstream’. This week’s readings explore a refreshing perspective on how weak ties can be beneficial to our lives and are in fact a crucial part of our social structures.

Weak Ties vs. Weak Online Ties

In the article “The Strength of Weak Ties”, Granovetter argues that weak ties are important in expanding our knowledge of the world beyond our friendship circles and in terms of the access to information that is different from that which we already receive. But are weak ties necessarily making us more diverse? One of Granovetter’s hypotheses was that the stronger the tie connecting the individual, the more similar they are. With the spread of the internet and online technology, increasing numbers of people are seeking information about their interests and generally joining communities of people who are like them. Q: Do weak online ties share the same characteristics as the weak ties Granovetter talks about?

Interestingly enough, does strength matter? According to Burt, whether a relationship is strong or weak, it generally benefits when it is a bridge over a structured hole. He argues that the weakness of a tie is not a causal agent, but the structural hole it spans it and that the weak tie argument leaves out the control benefits of structural holes.

Finding a balance

It is said over and over again, that with most relationships, “you get what you put into it”, which builds on Granovetter’s criteria of having “reciprocal services” in a tie for it to be a strong tie. My question is: should we be more concerned with quantity than quality? Q: Should we spend the time networking, rather than getting closer to the people we already know? What are the implications for these changes on our social life?

In my opinion, it is necessary to have a fine balance between the two. No one is better than the other, because each is necessary for the existence of the other. Weak ties become strong ties, strong ties introduce weak ties, and more importantly, they provide very different things to our lives. I could not be happy with networking all the time and having 600 acquaintances but at the same time I would not be happy with only staying within my friendship circle. Weak ties are important in making possible mobility opportunities yet strong ties are important for us to stay emotionally sane- to have someone to talk to, cry to, share your life with.

The McPherson et al. article “Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks Over Two Decades” asked people with whom they discussed personally important topics with. They found that it still holds that American’s core discussion networks are heavily constituted by family. Perhaps it is because we have less time to invest in better to have 2 strong ones than 3 less than strong relationships. Work, mobility, leisure time and our ability to be picky- I think that all is a factor in who we now choose to talk to. Our relationships are increasingly specialized, and we talk to different people about different things.

Competition: Relations vs. Attributes.
Burt’s article on “The Social Structure of Competition” was definitely interesting especially as a senior looking for a job. Burt ends at the last section of his article that “competition is a matter of relations, not player attributes”. He adds that “the attributes of the players in whom the relations intersect- black, white, female, male, old, young, rich, poor- are an empirical curiosity irrelevant to the explanation”. This brings me back to last week’s discussion on the differences in poor and/or non-white social structures. Based on personal experience and the literature up to this point, I find it hard to believe that our personal attributes have no impact. Burt describes three main types of capital a player brings to the competitive arena: financial, human and social. Social capital, he says, is the final arbiter of competitive success and is of crucial value when financial and human capital is abundant. However, in reality this is not always the case, and a poor non-white applicant without an Ivy League education or a myriad of internship experience may not even be considered before he or she can display the social capital they have.

Small University Experiment Part 1

Target: Susan Yoon, Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Education

1. The first person I gave my folder to was June Chu, the Director of the Pan Asian American Community House. June is an Asian American female and also a staff member of the University. According to Milgram, gender is an important characteristic because “participants were three times as likely to send the folder to someone of the same sex as to someone of the opposite sex”.(65) Following that argument, June’s gender increases the probability of it reaching the target. Milgram also discusses race in another study. June’s race, is an advantage because she is probably more likely with the communication structures of Asians on Penn’s campus. June and Susan also have similar educational interests- they both have P.H.D’s in education/psychology/type fields. Lastly, June’s position as a director of a cultural resource center on campus gives her access to a variety of people. She, like Lois Weisberg, is a “connector” with many weak ties just steps away (Gladwell). June knows both student, faculty and staff and “the larger and more varied the pool of acquaintances a participant can draw on, the grater the opportunity of choosing an effective link” (Milgram, 107). In addition, according to Milgram, occupational similarity was a factor that increased the chances of having the folder delivered to the target.

2. June and I would have what classifies as a “strong tie”. We spend a decent amount of time together in many different contexts and is someone I can trust and depend on. This relationship of trust will increase the likelihood of my folder reaching the target because I trust her and can depend on her to participate and complete the task in a timely manner. This is an important factor because, like Milgram stated, “126 dropped out…these chains die before completion because on each remove a certain proportion of participants simply do not cooperate and fail to send on the folder” (65).

3. I think that Suasn’s personal characteristics make it more likely for me to get the folder to her, but her structural position poses a challenge . Why? Susan is an assistant professor at the School of Education, a Graduate students. Not many undergraduate students take classes there or in the building. This limits the number of people I know who could potentially be in contact with her. The student population and class size at the Graduate School of Education is definitely smaller than the other schools, which also is an obstacle. However, the fact that we are both Asian females does, according to Milgram, increase the chances of her receiving it because as his study in his 1970 shows, 80% of the incomplete African American target chains never crossed the racial barrier.

4. I’ve passed my folder onto June who knows Susan.

5. 1 Person, 2-3 Days.