The theory of weak connections found that weak connections are compared to strong connections

In the late sixties (of the twentieth century), Harvard University.

Mark Granovetter, a graduate student, explores social networks by asking residents of Newton, Massachusetts, how they find jobs. He was surprised to find that close friends were not as effective as those who were weakly connected. In fact, close friends don't help at all.

Rejected and unattended, it was not recognized until many years later, and is considered one of the most influential ** in modern sociology. It's the weak connections that allow new ideas to be transmitted from the outside world.

The weak connection theory was proposed by the American sociologist Mark Granovetter in 1974. Granovett pointed out that in traditional society, everyone has the most frequent contact with their relatives, classmates, friends, colleagues, ......This is a very stable but limited social cognition, which is a phenomenon of "strong ties"; At the same time, there is another type of social relationship relative to the former.

A broader, yet superficial, social perception. For example, someone inadvertently mentions or turns on the radio.

I heard it by accident ...... a personGranovetter calls the latter "weak ties." The study found that in fact, the social relationship that is most closely related to a person's work and career is not a "strong connection", but often a "weak connection".

"Weak connections", although not as robust as "strong connections" (pyramids), have extremely fast, potentially low-cost, and high-performance propagation efficiency.

Granovetter argues that the concept of weak ties is more important than the concept of strong ties in some network phenomena.

Weak connection refers to relationships in which the number of interactions is relatively small. Otherwise, it is a strong connection. The study found that:

In many cases, weak connections are far better than strong connections in terms of their chances of success, collaboration, promotion, and communication. It also reflects the Taoist thought of "useless use, only to be of great use".

Strong connections usually represent a high degree of interaction between actors, and are more intimate in some existing interaction patterns, so the information generated through strong connections is usually repetitive and tends to form a closed system of its own. Because members of the network have similar attitudes, the high frequency of interaction often reinforces the original perception and reduces the integration with other perspectives, so it is believed that strong network connections in the organization are not a conduit that can provide opportunities for innovation.

Weak connections are more able to convey non-repetitive messages between different groups than strong connections, so that members of the network can increase the opportunity to revise their original views. Thus, Burt's view is the same as Granovetter's view of weak connections, that is, to unite people in other network positions to reduce the constraints of the social structure in order to obtain structural benefits.

As for the definition of strong and weak connections, Granovetter designed four indicators, namely interaction time, emotional intensity, intimacy, and the connotation of reciprocal actions, but Granovetter did not specify the criteria used to determine strong and weak connections in 1973. However, many of the measurement methods used by subsequent researchers have clearly grasped the constitutive nature of what Granovetter called weak connections. Some studies regard strong connection as a reciprocal or rewarding interaction, weak connection as a non-reciprocal or non-rewarding interaction, and no connection as a non-reciprocal or non-reciprocal interaction. 1980), so the definition of connection strength is in fact a distinction of degree, and in terms of measurement, granovetter uses the number of interactions to measure the strength of the connection, and another measurement takes into account the number of recent interactions (Lin, Dayton & Greenwald; 1978)。

Naturally, people think that strong connections are more useful than weak connections. The results of Granovetter's survey show that people looking for jobs are more likely to get job information from people who rarely or even once a year. In general, the chances of finding a job with a weak connection are much higher than those with a strong connection.

In fact, weak connections play the same role in the diffusion of information. People in a person's circle of friends and relatives may know each other, so there is always redundancy in the communication information provided by others. For example, what I heard from this friend or relative may have already been heard from another friend, and they have also talked to each other about it.

There is no shortage of examples of this in daily life.

The relationship between people, in terms of the frequency of communication and interaction, can be simply divided into strong connections and weak connections. Strong connections are most likely to be your current work partner, business partner, and cooperating with customers, and there are many opportunities for interaction in life and work. Weak connections are more widespread, classmates, friends, relatives and friends, etc., that is, there are fewer opportunities for communication and interaction, and more due to personal time, energy, and communication opportunities.

It can be summarized that an individual has about 150 contacts, of which about 30 are strong connections and about 120 are weak connections.