7 - Sociality and Elementary Forms of Structure

Summary

By looking at networks as collections of smaller elementary structural forms – mainly all combinations of two nodes (dyads) and three nodes (triads) among whom ties may or may not exist – one can learn much about the larger structure. This is especially useful when that structure is very large and therefore difficult to see as a whole. And yet, these most elementary forms of social structure are not simply mathematical constructs; they reflect the fundamental ways that social actors relate with one another as individuals and as social units (i.e., sociality). Thus, a network with many social elements of one type, and fewer of another, suggests a certain way of relating involved in how the network has formed and where it might be going. In this chapter, we introduce the reader to dyads and triads as forms of interacting and relating. We cover techniques for decomposing networks into these constituent elements and connecting variation at the micro level as a way of seeing macro-level structures.