Title: Filling in the Blanks: A Theory of Cognitive Categories and the Structure of Social Affiliation Lint
1Filling in the Blanks A Theory of Cognitive
Categories and the Structure of Social
AffiliationLinton C. Freeman
- Ahmet Guler
- October 9, 2006
2What is the topic?
- Human Social Affiliation
- Affiliation means strong ties which refer to more
or less stable interpersonal relationships that
involve both frequent interaction and positive
sentiment (p.118) - How people perceive and recall their own
affiliations and those of the others around them?
3How can we measure affiliation?
- Basic components of affiliation
- Sentiment Asking people to measure sentiment
- Interaction The correspondence between reported
affiliation and interaction. Problem socially
constrained relations ( For ex job relations) - Researchers rely on peoples report about who is
affiliated with whom but people are good at
recalling others interaction but bad at
recalling their interaction.
4How people recall others interaction?
- People use cognitive categorization to perceive
and recall social affiliation. - People categorize objects and events according to
their characteristics such as age, occupation,
and ethnic background - Also, the mental structure of a human being has
the form of taxonomy. This taxonomy provides to
classify group categories at different levels
(group within groups)
5The structure of affiliation
- People apparently think about affiliation in
categorical and hierarchical terms - In order to be categorical in interaction there
has to be no intransitive triples - This means there could be no case where an
individual a interacted with another individual b
and b interacted with c, but where a and c did
not interact.
6The structure of affiliation cont
- Similarly, in order to be hierarchical,
interaction would have to exhibit no intransitive
triple at any level of interaction. - This means there could be no triple in which a
and b interacted a given amount, b and c
interacted the same amount, and a and c
interacted less than that amount (p.121).
7Are these applicable into everyday interaction?
- According to seven data sets, large numbers of
intransitive triples are apparent at almost every
level of interaction. - Therefore, how people categorize themselves and
other individuals into groups despite the fact
that interaction patterns do not allow them to do
so.
8How do people cope with messy data?
- People simplify the realities in their
environment. - People exaggerate the real world regularities to
part them into groups. - People avoid intransitivity in interaction.
9Construction Process of Cognitive Groups
- Members of the community cluster groups using
top-down approach. They categorize individuals
thorough more visible interaction to fewer
visible interaction. - When people confront an intransitive triple, they
assume that they missed the interaction which is
normally did not occur. -
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11Conclusion
- People use the mechanism illustrated above to
clean up messy data on interaction and they fill
in the blanks to categorize the data that
normally cannot be grouped.
12The Boundary Specification Problem in Network
AnalysisEdward O. Laumann, Peter V. Marsden, and
David Prensky
13What is the topic?
- The problem of specifying system boundaries in
the design of network studies. - The inclusion rule, which determines the boundary
of the social network study, has been overlooked
by researchers.
14Two Major Approaches
- Realist and Nominalist Approaches
- Realist Approach presumes that actors define the
boundaries of social entities therefore, the
network can be treated as a social fact . - Nominalist Approach states that the observer
defines the boundary of the network and he/she
uses his/her own conceptual framework on social
reality.
15Three components
- There are three components for defining the
boundary of the network actors, relations, or
activities - The most common approach is based on the
characteristic of actors. Also, there are two
common approaches when taking an actor as a focus
of the study - The Positional Approach
- the Reputational Approach.
16Difference between Two Approaches
- While the positional approach takes into
consideration the position of the actor in a
formally constructed group, the reputational
approach gives importance to the judgments of
informants in determining participant. -
17Relational Approach
- In this approach, the study starts with small
groups of actors and the boundary of the study
expands until the criterion of termination is
satisfied. - Also known as a snowball sampling.
- This method is rarely used by researchers
18Participation of Actors in Events
- The third approach looks at the participation of
actors in some events for analyzing the
relationship among these actors. - The boundary of the network is predetermined by
the observer by looking at the participation in
the event.
19A typology of Boundary Specification Strategies
for delimiting actors within a network
- Eight boundary specification approaches by
crosstabulating by crosstabulating
metatheoratical perspective and definitional
focuses for delimiting the boundary of the
network
20Eight Boundary Specification Approaches
- Realist-Attributes of Nodes Actors are defined
by realistic tactic which treats actors as nodes
in a network. Examples Corporate Group (Weber,
1947), Bank Wiring Room (Roethlisberger and
Dickson, 1939), school classroom (Davis, 1970)
and others - Nominalist- Attributes of Nodes Contrary to
category (I), actors are defined by their
attributes in the network. Examples doctors in
small cities (Coleman, Katz and Metzel, 1966),
American Business Elite ( Useem, 1979), Study of
Organizations in a small city (Galaskieiwcz,
1979)
21Eight Boundary Specification Approaches
- Realist-Relation The boundary of the study is
defined by the relational nexus of actors in a
network. Example Primary Group Clique (Cooley,
1909) - Nominalist-Relation The boundary of a network is
defined arbitrarily by the observer. The starting
point of study is defined arbitrarily and the
relations of actors analyzed at the satisfactory
level which defined by the observer. Example
Small World Problem (Travers and Milgram, 1969)
22Eight Boundary Specification Approaches
- Realist-Participation in Event or Activity The
inclusion rule for this approach is participation
of actors in one or more events, or activities.
Example Participants in a community controversy
(Dahl, 1961), Participants in common social
events ( Homans, 1950), Street Corner Society (
Whyte, 1955) - Nominalist-Participation in Event or Activity
This approach does not use realist tactic to
delimitate the boundary of the network. Actors
are defined according to their inclination, and
interest. Examples Invisible College (Crane,
1972, Burt 1978)
23Eight Boundary Specification Approaches
- Realist- Multiple Foci This approach uses more
than one analytic feature of the network to
define the boundary of the study from the realist
perspective. Examples Klasse fur sich (Marx),
Ethnic Community (Barth, 1975) - Nominalist- Multiple Foci This approach uses
more than one analytic features of the network to
define the boundary of the study from the
nominalist perspective Example National Elite
Circles (Moore, 1979)
24The Inclusion Rule for Relations
- Despite the explicit selection strategies for
actors, the inclusion rules for relationships
havent been developed by the researchers. - The main issue in analyzing relationship is
using particular relations as generators of a
social structure. With neglecting the data that
are not available causes the partial system
fallacy.
25The Inclusion Rule for Participation of Actors in
Events
- The problem of setting limits on the inclusion of
events, activities, or interests in network
studies is the arbitrariness of the observer. - There has to be a developed strategy for sampling
or selecting focal events in the network for the
boundary specification of the activities.
26Conclusion
- The problem of boundary specification has
ignored by the researchers during the past
decade, and more attention to this problem will
help to the success of network methods.
27The Problem of Informant Accuracy The Validity
of Retrospective DataH.Russell Bernard, Peter
Killworth, David Kronenfeld, and Lee Sailer
28What is the topic?
- The problem of informant accuracy in reporting
past events, behavior, and circumstances. - Literature Review to alleviate problem
29The Literature on Informant Accuracy
- 1. Recall of child care behavior
- 2. Recall of health seeking behavior
- 3. Recall of communication and social
interactions
30Results of studies
- All of the studies about informant accuracy state
that on average, about half of what informants
report is probably incorrect in some way. - The prevalence of informant inaccuracy threatens
the validity of the studies. -
31Why do people recall inaccurately?
- Memory Effects
- Omissions
- Telescoping
- Omissions happen due to the fact that memory
decays in time. - Telescoping occurs because events in the past are
likely to be recalled as being more recent than
they actually are.
32Why do people recall inaccurately?
- In addition, the memory of informants is subject
to systematic distortion because of cultural
norms.
33What can be done?
- There are various interviewing techniques to
increase the accuracy. For example data
collection techniques such as aided recall,
record assisted recall, and bounded recall
increases the accuracy by an average of about
10.
34What can be done?
- When informants are asked about the events or
things that not happened or existed they tend to
provide information according to their
presuppositions. Therefore, in order to increase
the accuracy of information, the interviewer has
to show more resistance to badgering.
35What can be done?
- The groups are better than individuals for
recalling the details of information. - While individuals are not good at recalling whom
they communicated with, it is stated that groups
know who most popular persons (communicated-with)
in the network are.
36What can be done?
- According to the theory of individual differences
in information accuracy, there are relatively
accurate informants and relatively inaccurate
informants.
37Appendix C Centralization or Democratization
Assessing the Internets Impact on Policy
Networks A Theoretical and Empirical InquiryR.
Karl Rethemeyer
38The Focus of the Survey
- The effect of the Internet on the actors of state
mental healthy policy - the impact of the Internet on the policy
participation process, communication and
relationship among actors in the policy network.
39The Structure of the Survey
- The survey consists of seven parts
- Part I General Information,
- Part II Communication,
- Part III Relationships,
- Part IV Influence and Communication,
- Part V Mobilization Efforts,
- Part VI Computers and Internet,
- Part VII Information about Participant
40Part I General Information
- Questions about the organization of the
interviewee, and its activities in the mental
health policy. - There are seven different actors (organizations)
in the survey related to the state mental health
policy.
41Part II Communication
- Questions about the different communication types
such as Routine, Non-Electronic Communications,
Routine, Internet Communications, Confidential,
Non-Electronic Communications, Confidential,
Internet Communications, Policy Information
Collections, Non-Electronic, and Policy
Information Collections, Internet
42Part III Relationships
- Questions about formal or informal relationship
among policy actors, the funding and regulatory
relationships, ownership, control, membership and
shared resources among policy actors in mental
health policy.
43Part IV Influence and Communication
- Questions about how much influence has any actor
on the state mental health policy. Whose more
influential as a policy actor in a six-year
period (the last three years, now, and the next
three years)?
44Part V Mobilization Efforts
- Questions about the mobilization efforts of the
organization to encourage participation in policy
shaping process and questions about the rate of
internet usage for mobilization efforts.
45Part VI Computers and Internet
- How the organization uses the computer and the
Internet. Also, questions about the beliefs and
attitudes of policy actors and workers - in organizations about internet communication.
46Part VII Information about Participant
- Questions about the interviewees role in the
organization.