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Chapter 3: Sociometry

DOI:

10.1891/9780826197757.0003

Abstract

Sociometry, a relatively new science developed gradually since the World War of 1914-1918, aims to determine objectively the basic structure of human societies. The field work of sociometry was started with small sections of human society, spontaneous groupings of people, groups of individuals at different age levels, groups of one sex, groups of both sexes, institutional and industrial communities. From the point of view of a descriptive sociometry, the social atom is a fact, not a concept, just as in anatomy the blood vessel system, for instance, is first of all a descriptive fact It attained conceptual significance as soon as the study of the development of social atoms suggested that they have an important function in the formation of human society. The introduction of sociornetric procedure, even to a very small community, is an extremely delicate psychological problem.