sociometry online

[Adam Blatner]

You're right, and more stuff keeps popping up. However, I don't know that there are many 
conclusions we can draw from any of this, or that we have much to offer.
    What we do have to offer, though, is a clearer voice about the depth psychology of 
sociometry. I find many people still don't think about these dynamics. They are ignored, 
as far as I can tell, in most textbooks of psychology, psychiatry, group psychotherapy, 
and even sociology: Whom do we prefer and why?
     I was just at a continuing medical education conference and the focus was on the way 
that the people who made the most errors seemed to correlate with the people who had the 
most interpersonal (inter-professional) conflicts. (Sociometric isolates/rejectees?)
       And as another theme, most good learning operated in the realm of informal teaching 
by residents, mentors---as much if not more in some situations as formal teaching in 
classes or on rounds.

        So, sensitizing people to this dimension is already a big deal. Warmly, Adam
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <johnf at earthlight.co.nz>
To: <list at grouptalkweb.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 3:19 AM
Subject: sociometry online


> Sociometrists might (and, in my view, should) be very interested in the
> fast growth of social networking sites - Bibo, Flickr, FaceBook, MySpace
> and so on. Why - because this is the kind of sociometry in action that
> Moreno advocated but which he could only laboriously detail with the
> resources then at his disposal. Now, it's possible to see both the
> moment-by-moment interactions and the cumulative significance, and
> relationships, of very large groups of participants through current
> research. And it's very interesting.
> One such recent paper actually uses the language of 'stars' (though
> there's no reference to sociometry) - and while the details may not be of
> interest to many readers, the results may be. This article can be
> downloaded from:
> http://www.tomkinshome.com/papers/starpower/starpower.pdf
>
> A source for much more research on online group interaction can be found at:
>
> http://www.danah.org/SNSResearch.html
>
> All this raises the question of where sociometrists or psychodramatists
> might fit in all this. Isn't this the sort of thing that we should be
> interested in and engaged with?
> John Farnsworth
> Dunedin
>
>
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