How to calculate sociometric status?

The technique, developed by Jacob Levi Moreno, is used to diagnose intergroup and interpersonal relationships, with its help a sociometric status is established to change, improve and improve these relations. Also, sociometry allows you to study the typology of people's behavior in society, to judge about the social and psychological compatibility of people in the context of group activities.

Positive or negative sociometric status is a reflection of the properties of the personality, which is an element of the sociometric structure and occupies there some spatial position (otherwise - the locus). This means that the amount of preferences and rejections of this person received from the surrounding people is analyzed. In the group structure, properties are given to each element, but very unevenly, and therefore for comparative analysis, each relationship is measured and denoted by a number. This is the index of the sociometric status. An example of calculation will be given in this article.

Goals of Sociometry

The procedure of sociometric measurements helps to reveal the degree of disunity and cohesion in a group, and also to determine sociometric positions in the sense of the ratio of authorities based on signs of sympathy and antipathy. Thus, people who are given a sociometric status, for example, a leader or an outcast, are at different poles. In addition, within the group, it is necessary to find subsystems, some cohesive formations, where their informal leaders may also turn out to be. Activities within the framework of this theory help to measure the authority of leaders - both formal and informal, in order to regroup people by teams to reduce the tension in the team, which arises because of the dislike of people, most often mutual.

The sociometric status is determined by a certain methodology conducted with the group. It does not take long, just a quarter of an hour, but it brings a lot of benefits. Especially the technique is good in applied research, where work is carried out to improve relations.

The establishment of a sociometric status does not mean that all problems will be solved overnight, of course, this is by no means a radical way of removing intragroup tension. And the reasons for it should be searched much deeper, not in the individual sympathies and antipathies of the collective. Such problems have far more hidden sources. The reliability of the sociometric procedure primarily depends on the precise choice of criteria, but dictates their research program and a preliminary acquaintance with the specifics of the relations in the group.

Sociometric procedure

The general scheme of actions is the following: first, research tasks are set and measurement objects are selected, then positions and hypotheses are formulated that relate to the interview criteria of each member of the group. Anonymity to the sociometric procedure is not shown, since measurements in this case will not give the expected effect. The requirement of the researcher to reveal his sympathies, and especially antipathies, will inevitably cause many respondents not only internal difficulties, but also a sharp reluctance to take part in this poll.

These are the features of the sociometric status in the student age of the audience, among schoolchildren. Here it is best to use the form of cards, on which the selected questions and criteria are entered, or to arrange a questioning of the type of interview in oral form. The latter is particularly suitable if the study is arranged to measure the sociometric status in a small group.

Poll order

The questions are answered by each member of the group, choosing, depending on the inclinations, those or other groupmates, ranking them by their preferences in comparison with the others. The main criterion is their own likes or dislikes, mistrust or trust, and so on. Questions should be chosen in such a way that it is as easy as possible to find out the relation of one to another, to the leader, to the informal leader, to whom the group for some reason does not accept. The experimenter reads out two questions under letter a) and b), then gives the interviewees instructions. They must write on their sheets three names.

Under the first figure - the person who would be chosen first, the second - the person who would be chosen, if they had not been the first, and under the third - the one who would occupy this place, do not be the first two. Questions under letters can be composed as you like, depending on the situation. For example, if the characteristics of sociometric status are measured in the student's age of children, they may sound like this:

• Which of the bandmates would you be asked to help prepare for the exam? (First name, second, third).
• Which of the bandmates you would not like to ask for this, even in case of emergency? (Also - first name, second and third).

Sample questions

To find out how sociometric status corresponds to normal business relations, the questions should be somewhat different:

• With whom would you like to go on a long business trip?
• With whom would you not like to go on a long trip?

The second option:

• Who, in your opinion, will perform the functions of the trade union organizer, the elder or other organizer the best?
• To whom, in your opinion, it will be difficult to fulfill the duties of the organizer?

And so on. Questions should be fairly correct, but easily correlated with the desire for choice.

In the same way, the school of sociometric status recommends exploring personal relationships in the group. Questions are drawn up on the same principle, but within the boundaries of this topic. For example:

• With whom would you advise in a difficult situation, if it appeared in your personal life?
• To whom from the group you would not like to apply for any advice, on what occasion?

The following questions are possible:

• Who would you like to share a dorm room with?
• If your group were formed anew, who would not you like to see in the new group?

And another option:

• Who would you invite to a holiday, for example, for a birthday?
• Who did not want to see your birthday on your birthday?

To confirm the accuracy of the answers, this study can be conducted in the same group more than once, only with other questions.

Nonparametric form

The boundaries of the sociometric status are rather unstable if the first, nonparametric form of the study is used. However, it helps to detect in each member of the group some emotional expansiveness, to obtain a section of the group structure in the variety of interpersonal relationships. Moreover, it is also useful because it is most often used at the very beginning of research, and subsequently the team will be more frank as it gets used to the survey. Again, this method is good only for small groups, and if it has more than twelve people, you will need computer technology to calculate the results. The principle of research is this: each subject answers card questions without any choice. If he likes eight people out of nine (the ninth is himself), he enters their names one by one. (Some, especially secretive ones, write alphabetically or save ink by signing: "I choose everyone!")

Theoretically, the possible number of elections made by each member of the collective will be (N-1), where N is the number of people in the group. And each subject can choose the same (N-1) number of times. This quantity, by the way, is always the main quantitative constant of all sociometric measurements. But a nonparametric procedure makes it unique for both the subject and the object of choice. Also, its disadvantage is the great chance to get a random choice. Noting all hardly really is in such an undifferentiated amorphous system of relations with others. Rather - it demonstrates formal loyalty and deliberately disingenuous. That is why the researchers changed the procedure of the method and thus reduced the percentage of probability of random selection by dividing the categories of sociometric statuses.

Parametric procedure

In the second option, the number of elections is limited. For example, members of a group can name only a strictly fixed number of surnames. If there are twenty people in the team, each is asked to choose, for example, only four or five names. This effect is called the limit of choice or sociometric restriction, and it must be said that the reliability of the data is significantly increased while also facilitating the statistical processing of the resulting material. Subjects are more attentive to the answers and feel psychologically responsible for their choice, and therefore they are almost never disingenuous, really marking only those people who correspond in their presentation to the proposed roles - a work companion, leader or partner.

The negative sociometric status is also more accurate. The election limit reduces the probability of random responses to almost zero, and also helps to standardize research conditions, even if groups in one sample have different numbers. All this makes it possible to compare the materials of different groups. Now it is considered that in teams of up to twenty-five people the minimum value of the sociometric limit should be four or five elections.

Standardization

A significant difference between the second variant of the procedure and the first one is that the sociometric constant (N-1) can be preserved only in the system of received elections - to the participant of the group. The system of given elections - from a participant to a group - is measured using a new value-d, which means a sociometric restriction. Thanks to its introduction, it becomes possible to standardize all external election conditions among groups of different numbers. The value of d is necessarily determined by the same probability for all groups of random choice. To determine this probability, there is a formula: P (A) = d / (N-1). Here P is the probability of a random event, (A) is a sociometric choice, and N is the number of participants in the group.

Usually P (A) is chosen to be approximately 0.20-0.30, and if we substitute these values in the above formula to determine d (and the value of N is known to us), we obtain the required number that shows the sociometric restriction in the given group. Disadvantages of this procedure are also available: it is impossible to see all the variety of relationships in the team, only subjectively important links are revealed, only selected, typical communications are reflected, and the entire structure in this group is not fully disclosed. Sociometric restriction does not show the expansive emotionality of the members of the collective.

Sociometric card

A questionnaire or a card for sociometric research is compiled already at the last stage of the development of this program. When completing the card, each participant should indicate their own attitude towards the rest of the group by certain criteria - solving business problems, working together, spending leisure time and so on. The criteria most depend on the purpose of research and following the program, that is, what is the subject: relations in the leisure group or in the production group, the collective is stable or it is temporary and so on.

The table gives an approximate content of such a map.

Calculation of results

After the cards are collected, the mathematical processing of the data will begin, and therefore it is necessary at least briefly to tell how to calculate the sociometric status. This can be done in three ways - indexological, graphical and tabular. The latter is characterized by the fact that the results are filled separately for personal and business relations. The list of names in the first column is located vertically, and horizontally opposite each one is the numbers: + 1, + 2, + 3, etc. Indicate those who were selected in the first, second and so on, and -1, -2, -3, etc. - those who were not elected in the first, second and next turn. The reciprocity of the positive and negative choices in the table is rounded off (the order is not taken into account).

After the completion of this work, the algebraic sum of all the received elections by each participant is calculated along the vertical line. Then, for each, the sum of the scores is calculated. In this case, it is necessary to take into account that the first turn of choice is +3 or -3, the second one is +2 or -2 and so on. And the last thing left is to calculate the total algebraic sum that determines the sociometric status of the subject in this group.

Sociometric indices

Here we need to distinguish between the personal and group index of the sociometric status. The calculation example will show that the first characterizes the individual social and psychological properties of the subject as a member of the collective, while the latter clarify the numerical characteristics of the entire sociometric choice configuration in the group, describing the properties of the communication structures. For example, if a schoolboy Ivanov received the first choice from a classmate Petrova, and Sidorov received a second choice from him, then corresponding figures are placed in the corresponding rows of the card and in the corresponding columns. If Ivanov, too, likes Petrov more than everyone else, that is, the choice was mutual, then these figures should be circled around.

At the bottom of the matrix is calculated the number of elections that Ivanov received, as well as Petrov and Sidorov. Further - pure algebra, the sociometric status of each student is calculated. The formula is one at all: C = M: (N-1). Here C is a sociometric status, M is the total number of elections, where positive ones are plus, negative minuses, N is the number of subjects. For example, Ivanov received 4: 9 = 0.44. It's not bad. But even if the result is disappointing, the school and parents have tremendous pedagogical opportunities for changing the pupil's sociometric status. The main thing is to make measurements and understand what the problem is.

The following categories of status are most often distinguished: sociometric stars, preferred, neglected, outcast and isolated. They differ in the number of positive and negative elections and their combination. It is very important to understand whether a person is aware of his status and how comfortable he is in this role.