Abstract
We present an analytic method for determining the model of exact micro- and macrostructures and their set of characterizing microprocesses for a given two-valued social relation in a human group. It is cast in terms which clearly show its applicability to any empirical network representing a relation in a group, human or otherwise, and, in principle, is extendable to networks in which a relation is multi-valued or there is more than one relation. At least for specific cases, such as those discussed in this paper, the method enables us to establish a connection between submodels and the constraining microprocesses which characterize and indirectly generate the micro- and macrostructures in them. A principal result of this method is a clear and exact processual characterization of cliquing and ranking in the macromodel which exactly fits the total empirical sociometric data sets of Davis-Leinhardt and Hallinan. Thus, the method produces a processual solution to some of the substantive structural questions discussed by Homans in The Human Group.
Some of the new results in this paper were presented at the Seventh Annual Social Network Conference in Clearwater Beach, Florida, February 14, 1987. The author wishes to thank the members of the Social Network Seminar at UCSB for their very useful discussions.
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Johnsen, E.C. (1989). The Micro-Macro Connection: Exact Structure and Process. In: Roberts, F. (eds) Applications of Combinatorics and Graph Theory to the Biological and Social Sciences. The IMA Volumes in Mathematics and Its Applications, vol 17. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-6381-1_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-6381-1_7
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