sociometry's relevance

[Adam Blatner]

Dear Bud, aha, the so-what question. Very good! I assume you're responding to my response 
about issues of social integration, the usefulness of the social atom, sociometry, and the 
like.

         I hint at that near the end of my message: Talking about, teaching about 
sociometry, about rapport, about paying attention to how you actually feel about a person 
aside from how you are supposed to feel based on kinship, organizational, or other role 
relationships.. that this is part of a becoming more psychologically-minded, more 
sensitive to subtleties that in the past were ignored or not talked about.

    I think sociometry is very incomplete, very young as a method or approach. There is 
much yet to be learned. But it is associated with a number of excellent tools. Don't get 
me started on the value of using the role concept as a tool in work--I could go on for 
weeks.

           Looking at the tele dynamics, the rapport dynamics in life, examining them in 
therapy, is profoundly valuable. Considering the criteria for why you choose this or that 
person can be more revealing than dream-work.      More responses are interspersed with 
Bud's questions:
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "BARNETT WEISS" <budweiss at verizon.net>
To: "Adam Blatner" <adam at blatner.com>; <list at grouptalkweb.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 8:46 AM
Subject: Re: Friendship


>
> Dear Adam and all:
> > What is the usefulness of any of this in the long run?  (I am assuming you are 
> > speaking about sociometry and sociological analysis?--ab) What can it do for me as a 
> > practioner or community organizer or teacher or head of a company or life trainer for 
> > example.  Are happy folks preventable? and is being happy such a great thing for 
> > everyone? I'm not being facetious or however you spell it here.
          AB:  Happiness is an overgeneralization. There should be a differentiation 
between the foolish aspiration to complete happiness or a belief that it is or should be 
attainable; and a mere inclination to seek more happiness and relief from pain, which is a 
value gradient inherent in life. I've just been reading some recently published books 
about happiness. One makes the point, like Alfred Adler, that the most fulfilling type of 
happiness is participation in activities that help others to be happy or happier also.

BW:  I think that the most important aspect of all of this is for wwhat purpose and how it 
can predict both about
the person in terms of their future actions and ability to influence people, possible job 
performance in a specific kind of job or group. For example, for the people who are just 
wanting to manipulate people for their organization's "benefit" you don't want someone who 
is going to be doing certain kinds of jobs which require high levels of technical 
information work to be too closely related with others as it would get in the way of their 
being efficient and maintaining secrecy.
        AB: A somewhat wary if not paranoid approach to how social science research is 
pursued may be justified in this era of psychology being used by advertisers and political 
spin doctors. However, the goal of "prediction" in science may be overrated, and in the 
complexity of life, may be inappropriate.
       I think the most important aspect of this is that thinking about sociometry--and 
other things that most folks don't think about, nonverbal communications, semantics, 
semiotics, role theory, depth psychology, the ways we deceive ourselves, types of 
oppression and cultural beliefs that are obsolete, and so forth-- we need to raise the 
consciousness of people to think about all of these matters. While it may seem daunting, 
consider how much time is being spent in education learning facts and skills that are for 
the most part irrelevant to everyday living.

    BW Of course in working to develop either a program or educational process or 
organizing a group or
> community, knowing how these social atoms and the sociometric groupings make a 
> difference in terms of
> placement and therapy is what it is all about.
        AB: yes.

   BW  IN psychotherapy, either we have research to show that  people having "good Tele" 
of a certain count is
desireable to be healthy both physically and mentally, or it isn't an issue so why worry 
about it.
       AB: I can't figure out what you're saying here. Also, either-or questions frustrate 
me because I find them missing the middle or other alternatives.

 BW  I am fairly sure that there was some decent research done about people who are both 
prone to accidents and poor health in terms of poor sociometric status.  for accident 
proness, I think it is pretty much straight
forward concordance and interestingly on the other hand, people who are isolates may be at 
greater risk for suicide, and they may, like schizophenics be less prone to certain 
diseases like Cancer.  That's my 3 cents just now. ( Of course, Adam, I know you are going 
to ask for the references and rightly so. Maybe someone has that at their finger tips. 
Jim Sacks is in transit just now I believe, and I will see about asking him if he can
give me a reference.  Anyone else who may have a direct reference to some research on this 
point would be appreciated.)
    AB: Actually, I'm not at all interested in this kind of sociological research, because 
such statistical approaches ("nomothetic" research) so often become biased in their trends 
by including or mixing together populations that are marginally functional for many 
reasons and other populations that are more resilient and healthy. For this reason, I find 
much of what pretends to be scientific in the behavioral sciences to be practically 
useless in terms of how shall we do politics, education, religion, parenting, community 
building, therapy and so forth. This brings us back to Bud's beginning questions--what is 
the relevance.

        So I don't see sociometry as that useful as a "science," but rather it is very 
very useful as an orientation, a growing mental sensitivity, like paying attention to 
nonverbal communications, for example. Here it has many applications.  Whaddaya think Bud 
or others?   warmly, adam