Nelson-Denny Practice Test 9

The Surprising Value of Acquaintances

¹In 1973 the sociologist Mark Granovetter published a paper with a deliberately puzzling title, "The Strength of Weak Ties." He distinguished between strong ties, relationships with close friends and family marked by frequent contact and emotional closeness, and weak ties, such as those with acquaintances, former coworkers, or friends of friends.

²Strong ties, Granovetter observed, tend to cluster. A person's close friends are likely to know one another, and because they move in the same circles, they tend to hear the same news. Weak ties are different. An acquaintance often belongs to a social circle that the person does not, and so can act as a bridge to people and information the person would otherwise never reach.

³Granovetter tested the idea by interviewing professional, technical, and managerial workers in a Boston suburb who had recently changed jobs. Among those who had found their new position through a personal contact, more had heard about it from someone they saw only occasionally or rarely than from someone they saw often. Close friends were eager to help, but what they knew about openings was largely what the job seeker already knew.

⁴The argument does not claim that acquaintances matter more than friends in every respect. Close ties provide emotional support, trust, and help in a crisis. Granovetter's point was narrower: when the goal is new information, the value of a relationship depends less on its warmth than on where it leads.