Had a great chat with a visiting speaker about social network analysis as it might relate to my dissertation.  I had been toying for some time with the idea of how individual responses to trust violations are constrained or influenced by the social context of the group.  I had been thinking about the idea of whether group norms around forgiveness exist and guide individual behaviour.  The SNA perspective has got me thinking about social influence through networks in forgiveness and trust repair.  To what extent do the attitudes of the members of one’s advice network influence individual responses to trust violations?  What kind of composition model would make sense?  Do we respond to the average attitude of our confidantes?  To the strength of the beliefs (i.e. sharedness; agreement) of those in the network?  Do organizational boundaries matter when tracing the influence of confidantes’ attitudes in response to a violation in the group context?

Not likely part of the dissertation, but it’s something I’m thinking a bit about.  Yet another side project? 🙂

Photo: porternovelli