Citation

Mitchell JC. Soc. Netw. 1987; 9(1): 37-47.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1987, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/0378-8733(87)90016-5

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The sociological imagination seems to have been captivated by the engaging paradox of "the strength of weak ties" almost to the exclusion of consideration of what is nevertheless surely the most significant aspect of social relationships -- the role of strong ties in everyday life.
Yet as Marsden and Campbell (1984) point out, when Granovetter (1973, 1982) was developing the idea of "weak ties" he was reasonably clear about what the characteristics of strong ties were, so it was not necessary for him to pursue the matter in any detail. Recently Marsden and Campbell (1984) using data previously used by Laumann (1973), Marsden and Laumann (1978) and by Verbrugge (1977) have pursued a sophisticated piece of analysis from which they conclude that: a measure of "closeness" or the emotional intensity of a relationship, is on balance the best indicator of the concept of tie strength among those available to us (1984: 498). Confirmation of this point is available from very different material using different methods of analysis.