PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL NETWORKS

                         MOANE, GERALDINE THERESE; PHD

                         UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, 1985

                         PSYCHOLOGY, PERSONALITY (0625); PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL (0451)
 

                         Network analysis presents itself as a paradigm which can address the interface of the individual and the
                         social system. While explicitly acknowledging the importance of individual agency, however, it has
                         produced little theory or research designed to address the question of how characteristics of individuals
                         are related to the form that social networks take. The personality research paradigm provides well
                         developed perspectives and methods which are used to address this question. Measures of the
                         structure, composition and relational content of social networks were obtained from a sample of college
                         educated midlife women, along with the following measures of personality: the CPI, the ACL, the MBTI,
                         and the Washington Sentence Completion Test. These data were obtained as part of a longitudinal
                         study which collected a variety of data concerning family and social status, life history and so forth.
                         Analysis of the relationship between social network measures and personality and social measures
                         indicated that a variety of personality and social measures were related to social networks measures in
                         specific and coherent ways. Personality measures were the most important predictors of all of the
                         network measures except for the size of the network and the frequency and duration of the relationships
                         with network members. Personality Inventory scales measuring empathy, social poise, extraversion,
                         intuition, an orientation toward change and variety, and well-being and maturity correlated mainly with
                         density and with measures of network composition. Personality inventory scales measuring nurturance,
                         affiliation, dependency and anxiety were mainly related to measures of the kinds of relationships that
                         obtained between ego and alters. In general, social variables were more likely to correlate with network
                         structure and composition, with the exception of socio-economic status, which correlated mainly with
                         measures of the relationships between network members. Discussion of the findings highlighted the
                         psychological dimensions and functions that were found to underlie aspects of egocentric social
                         networks. Further explorations of the relationship between social networks and personality drew on
                         symbolic interactionism, psychoanalysis, interactional approaches to personality, and the developmental
                         perspective.

 


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