Often, due to our individual characteristics, we are faced with a huge number of conflict situations and disagreements in the team. Moreno's sociometry was designed to diagnose interpersonal relationships within a group.
The sociometry method consists of several stages.
How to conduct sociometry?
- Collection of preliminary information on the relationship in the group and the structure of the team, by monitoring by the general activities
- Carrying out a sociometric survey, which in itself is very simple, but requires special conditions. One such is personalized participation.
- Analysis of the data obtained, their interpretation.
Sociometry as a test requires the group to clearly define its boundaries and a fairly long period of its full-fledged functioning for two or three months or even six months or more. Random people who are not directly related to this team should not participate in this procedure. The absence of an opportunity to vote anonymously means the voluntary participation of interviewers in the interview, because during the interview the emotional aspects of interpersonal relations in the group are touched.
Another nuance is that the conduct of such a survey should not fall for the time being close to any corporate events or parties. Changes in the conditions of communication and the informal environment can literally turn over the whole picture of the relationship in the team.
There are also requirements to the specialist who conducts the procedure: he does not have to be a direct participant of the team, but at the same time he should enjoy his confidence.
Sociometry - methodology of conducting
To conduct the procedure, the subjects are collected in a separate room. The specialist reads out the instruction for conducting the survey, then the participants fill out the forms. This usually takes no more than five minutes.
In the form, the participants are asked to select 3 members of the team they are most sympathetic to and 3 people to whom they are disliked and would like to exclude them from the group.
On the contrary to each of the 6 elections in a special column, you must indicate for which qualities you have chosen this or that person. These characteristics can be written in your own words in an arbitrary form, thus, how would you explain this choice to your friends.
After that, on the basis of the participants' answers forms, a sociometric matrix is drawn up, or in other words the table in which the results of all survey participants are presented, on the basis of which the results of sociometry are determined.
In order to make it more convenient for a specialist to process the received data, he assigns +1 positive to each positive choice and 1 point to each deviation.
The conclusion on sociometry is to assign to all participants sociometric - statuses on the basis of the elections they received + 1 point and deviations - 1 point. Due to what you can see the true structure of the team.
Sociometry goal
- Measurement of the level of cohesion - disunity in the group.
- The definition of "sociometric - statuses" - the relative level of authority of each member of the group on the principle of sympathy - antipathy to his person on the part of the group. The person most sympathetic will be the "leader" of the group, while the non-recruited members of the team will be treated as "rejected".
- Identification within the collective, cohesive subsystems, in which there may also be informal "leaders".
Sociometry research can be conducted in absolutely any age groups except preschool children, since the relationships of children of this age are very unstable and the results of the survey will only be true for a short period of time. In school classes, student groups or work collectives, the sociometry of interpersonal relations is simply an indispensable tool for obtaining exhaustive answers to questions about the organization of group activities and the interaction of its participants among themselves.