A summary of "Strength of Weak Ties"(Granovetter 1973)

1. The strength of weak ties
Presented by Naoki Maejima (Sociology – 3rd)

2. Referred Paper
Granovetter, M.S. 1973,
"The Strength of Weak Ties"
American Journal of Sociology, vol. 78, no. 6,
pp. 1360-1380.

3. The definition of “Strong Tie”
“the strength of a tie is a (probably linear)
combination of the amount of time, the
emotional intensity, the intimacy (mutual
confiding) and the reciprocal services which
characterize the tie.”(Ibid, 1361)

4. Triad

5. Forbidden Triad

6. Why “forbidden”?
Common strong ties to 1
will generate new one.

7. Bridging
Bridge plays important role in diffusion.
All bridges are weak ties.

8. Empirical credence
• A research of “hysterical contagion”
• Milgram’s “Small-World” experiment
• A research in a junior high in Michigan

9. Weak ties in egocentric networks
Strong ties form dense network.
ego
Weak ties form less dense.
Bridging weak ties lead ego to contacts distant from him.

10. Labor market study
OBJECT: Recent professional, technical, and
managerial job changers living in Boston
suburb.
QUESTION: how often they saw the contact
around the time that he passed on job
information to them.

11. Results
frequency proportion
Often 16.7%
Occasionally 55.6%
Rarely 27.8%
N=54

12. Weak contribute to “sense of community”
“When a man changes jobs, he is not only
moving one network of ties to another, but
also establishing a link between these.”
“this mobility sets up elaborate structures of
bringing weak ties between the more
coherent clusters that constitute operative
networks in particular locations.”(Ibid.1373)

13. By the dichotomy of “weak/strong”,
we can make the leap from micro to macro view.

14. Thank you for listening.