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The Columbia Studies of Personal Influence

Social Network Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Heinz Eulau
Heinz Eulau*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
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Extract

In a strictly theoretical and methodological perspective, the Columbia studies of personal influence—conducted in the 1940s and early 1950s—are today of largely historical interest as particularly self-conscious and sophisticated examples of social-scientific discovery. Yet, there are indications that these studies are once more coming to scholarly attention and their long eclipse, so symptomatic of discontinuity in social-scientific research, may be coming to an end (Scheingold, 1973). There is a growing interest in describing and explaining electoral and related patterns of behavior in terms of the “social networks” to which people belong. The contribution of the Columbia studies to research on the effect of social networks in voting behavior and public affairs seems therefore worthy of retrospection.

Type
Retrospective Review
Information
Social Science History , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , Spring 1980 , pp. 207 - 228
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1980 

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