sociometry

[Peter Howie]

Hi Adam,

A quick thought - re: Status - and indeed all "systems" I would 
regard all systems as defined by their criteria. So status has a 
particular criteria adhering to it. Of course getting consensus about 
what that is would be tough. But I still think systems are defined by 
their criteria.

Sociometry makes use of flexible criteria choosing - training people 
to see the multiple layers of view of a system, made possible by the 
different criteria chosen is great work. What tends to happen in our 
academic culture and commercial culture is that one criteria becomes 
refined (such as status in your example, or rank by the process 
people) by one person or a group and then that model gets 
sold/flogged mercilessly to others.

I enjoyed JRH book immensely. I thought that her dilemma regarding 
what it is that a person learns from their family, as described by 
her, was very close to role theory. That is a person in a family 
learns certain roles that are unique to that family. By using role 
theory it puts the family into a system for which there are different 
roles played by individuals and groups.

Anyway now I will have to try her next book.


CHeers

Peter Howie
Brisbane, Australia


At 04:29 AM 30/08/2006, you wrote:
>Here's a good book that speaks to sociometry:
>    Harris, Judith Rich. (2006). No Two Alike: Human Nature and 
> Human Individuality. New York: WW Norton.
>           This is a provocative book, building on an earlier book 
> that questioned the generally dominant assumption that kids are 
> they way they are because of the way their parents raise them. She 
> noted in that earlier book that genetics needs to be recognized, as 
> temperament and other elements become more clearly understood. In 
> this book, she also talks about the socialization and status 
> systems, and these points overlap with sociometry.
>
>        I appreciate sociometry, mainly in terms of its relevance 
> and potential, not so much that it has matured all that much as a 
> field of scientific endeavor. Partly, it needs to open to the wider 
> explorations by folks in other fields, such as those alluded to in 
> Harris' book. Dan Wiener presented at a recent ASGPP conference on 
> "status," and this dimension does deserve further attention, 
> because (as I said) it overlaps with sociometry.
>
>    I'll be very interested in discussing this book by phone with 
> anyone who reads it and has some ideas they want to kick 
> around.    Warmly, Adam Blatner
>
>Adam Blatner, M.D.
>(please reply to <mailto:adam at blatner.com>adam at blatner.com)
>website: <http://www.blatner.com/adam/>www.blatner.com/adam/
>Grouptalk mailing list
>List at grouptalkweb.org
>http://grouptalkweb.org/mailman/listinfo/list_grouptalkweb.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/list_grouptalkweb.org/attachments/20060829/a0600419/attachment.html