Interpersonal perception. The effectiveness of perception is associated with socio-psychological observation. The object of cognition is both physical and social experience person. Mechanisms of interpersonal cognition: interpretation, identification, causal attribution (attributing to the perceived certain motives and reasons that explain his actions and other characteristics), reflection.

Interpersonal relationships are objectively experienced, in varying degrees conscious relationships between people.

Kinds interpersonal relationships:

1) by modality (positive (positive), negative (negative), ambivalent (ambivalent, neutral);

2) by purpose (business, personal);

3) by direction (vertical (different hierarchical levels), horizontal (one level).

Structure of interpersonal relationships:

1) cognitive component (involves awareness of what is liked and disliked in interpersonal relationships);

2) behavioral component (implemented in specific actions. If you like a person, the behavior will be friendly);

3) emotional component (experience, assessment of another person, determined by the sociocultural norms of groups).

Functions of interpersonal relationships, -

1) help to adapt to a new environment;

2) cognitive function (social cognition, knowledge of another person);

3) satisfy a person’s needs for contact with other people.

The main phenomena of interpersonal relationships: 1) sympathy - selective attractiveness. Causes a cognitive, emotional, behavioral response, emotional appeal;

2) attraction - attraction, attraction of one person to another, the process of preference, mutual attraction, mutual sympathy; 3) antipathy:

4) empathy (sympathy, the response of one person to the experience of another). Empathy has several levels. The first involves cognitive empathy. manifested in the form of understanding mental state another person (without changing your state). The second level involves empathy in the form of not only understanding the state of the object, but also empathy with it, i.e. emotional empathy. The third level includes cognitive, emotional and, most importantly, behavioral components. This level involves interpersonal identification, which is mental (perceived and understood), sensory (empathetic) and effective;

5) compatibility (optimal combination psychological characteristics partners contributing to the optimization of their joint activities) - incompatibility;

6) harmony (satisfaction from communication; consistency of actions).

Relationships are born, strengthened, reach a certain maturity, weakened, and broken. These processes depend on the following criteria:-1) the presence and depth of emotional connections; 2) frequency and intensity of contacts; 3) repeatability of contacts; 4) trust in contacts.

Levels of interpersonal relationships: 1) initial acquaintance; 2) friendly relations (create the basis for further development relationships); 3) companionship (allows you to consolidate interpersonal contact, a convergence of interests occurs, etc.); 4) friendly relations (stable, common interests, goals, etc.); 5) marital.

The manifestations of interpersonal relationships are influenced by gender, age, nationality, temperament, social status, profession, etc.

Interpersonal impact. Methods of influence are a set of techniques that implement influence on: 1) needs, interests, inclinations, i.e. sources of motivation for activity and human behavior; 2) on attitudes, group norms, self-esteem of people, i.e. on those factors that regulate activity: 3) on the states in which a person is (anxiety, excitement or depression, etc.); and which change his behavior.

No person is able to live in complete isolation; some form of interpersonal interaction will certainly be present. This need for close, long-term interactions lives in each of us. It is explained by social and biological reasons and is aimed at human survival.

Forms and types of interpersonal interaction

Psychology has long been interested in the issue of interpersonal interactions and considers them through the prism, since these phenomena complement each other, but these concepts should not be confused.

Communication will certainly be a means of communication (transfer of information) between two or more subjects; it can be personal or indirect (mail, Internet). But interaction does not always imply communication, which makes the latter a special case various types contacts. In social psychology, the term “interpersonal interaction” refers to the contact of two or more subjects, leading to a change in their behavior or mood. The three main objectives of such contact are: the formation of interpersonal relationships, interpersonal perception and understanding of a person, and the provision of psychological influence. To solve these problems, two main types of interactions are used: cooperation - progress towards the goal of one of the partners contributes or does not impede the success of others, and competition - the achievement of one of the partners excludes or makes it difficult for the others to successfully complete their affairs.

There is also a division of interpersonal interactions by type:

1. Depending on the purpose - business, personal.
2. Depending on the modality – positive, negative, ambivalent.
3. Depending on the direction - vertical, horizontal. An example of such relationships can be work contacts; in the case of communication with superiors or subordinates, the direction will be vertical, when talking with colleagues - horizontal.

The complexity of the processes of interpersonal interaction gives rise to many classifications, some of which were given above, but the concept will not be fully disclosed without mentioning the forms of their manifestation, of which there are many. The main ones are: friendship, affection, love, care, pastime, play, social influence, competition, conflict and ritual interaction. The latter form is very common, distinguished by special rules that the relationship is subject to. This helps to symbolically express social status person in a group, this form was invented specifically so that everyone can satisfy their need for recognition. Everyone uses such rituals - when communicating with parents and children, subordinates and superiors, civil servants and store clerks. Each form of interaction performs one of three functions - assistance in adaptation to a new environment, cognitive, or satisfying a person’s need for contact with other people. This once again confirms the importance of the phenomenon, as well as its complexity.

Various forms of interpersonal interaction can be distinguished: affection, friendship, love, competition, care, pastime, surgery, play, social influence, submission, conflicts, ritual interaction, etc.

Various forms of human interaction are characterized by specific positions.

Ritual interaction- one of the common forms of interaction, which is built according to certain rules, symbolically expressing real social relations and the status of a person in a group and society. Ritual acts as a special form of interaction, invented by people to satisfy the need for recognition. Ritual interaction is based on the relationship: “Parent-Parent”. Ritual reveals the values ​​of the group; people express through ritual what touches them most, what constitutes their social value orientations.

The English scientist W. Turner, considering rituals and rites, understands them as prescribed formal behavior, as “a system of beliefs and actions performed by a special cult association.” Ritual actions are important for ensuring continuity between different generations in a particular organization, for maintaining traditions and passing on accumulated experience through symbols.

Ritual interaction is both a kind of holiday that has a deep emotional impact on people, and a powerful means of maintaining stability, strength, continuity of social ties, a mechanism for uniting people, increasing their solidarity. Rituals,

Rice. 6.9.

Rice. 6.10.

rituals and customs are capable of being imprinted on the subconscious level of people, ensuring the deep penetration of certain values ​​into group and individual consciousness, into ancestral and personal memory.

Humanity has developed a huge number of different rituals throughout its history: religious ceremonies, palace ceremonies, diplomatic receptions, military rituals, secular ceremonies, including holidays and funerals. Rituals include numerous norms of behavior: receiving guests, greeting acquaintances, addressing strangers, etc.

A ritual is a strictly fixed sequence of transactions, which are produced from and addressed to the Parental position, allowing people to feel recognized. If a person’s need for recognition is not fulfilled, then aggressive behavior begins to develop. The ritual is precisely designed to remove this aggression, to satisfy the need for recognition at least at a minimum level.

In the following type of interactions - operations- the transaction is carried out from the “Adult-Adult” position. WITH operations we meet every day: this is primarily interaction at work, school, as well as cooking, apartment renovation, etc. Having successfully completed an operation, a person confirms his competence and receives the approval of others.

Labor interaction, distribution and performance of professional and family functions, skillful and effective implementation of these responsibilities - these are the operations that fill people's lives.

Competition- a form of social interaction in which there is a clearly defined goal that must be achieved. All actions different people related to each other with this goal in mind in such a way that they do not conflict with each other. At the same time, the person himself, adhering to the attitude of another team player, strives to achieve better results than other team members. Since a person accepts the attitudes of other people, the opinions, attitudes, and expectations of team members influence what he will do in the next moment, taking into account some common goal, since he becomes an organic member of his group, society, accepting its morality.

In a number of cases, a person, being with other people in the same room and performing seemingly joint activities, mentally remains in a completely different place, mentally talks with imaginary interlocutors, dreams about his own things - such a specific interaction is called care. Care - quite ordinary and natural shape interaction, but still more often people with problems in the area of ​​interpersonal needs resort to it. If a person has no other forms of interaction left except care, then this is pathology-psychosis.

Pastime- the next type of approved fixed interactions that provide at least a minimum of pleasant sensations, signs of attention, “stroking” between interacting people. Pastime is a fixed form of transactions designed to satisfy people's need for recognition. The most common pastimes from the “Parent-Parent” position: discussing and condemning everything deviating from the norm in the behavior of children, women, men, authorities, television, etc., or spending time on the topic: “things” (comparing owned cars, televisions and etc.), “Who won yesterday” (football and other sports results) is a male pastime. “Kitchen”, “Shop”, “Dress”, “Children”, “How much does it cost?”, “Do you know that she...” - a predominantly female pastime. During these types of interactions, partners and the prospects for developing relationships with them are assessed.

Sustainable interaction between people can be caused by the emergence of mutual sympathy and attraction. Close relationships that provide friendly support and feeling (i.e., we feel loved, approved, and encouraged by friends and family) are associated with feelings of happiness. Studies have shown that close, positive relationships improve health and reduce the likelihood of premature death. “Friendship is the strongest antidote to all misfortunes,” said Seneca.

Factors that contribute to the formation of attraction (attachment, sympathy):

• - frequency of mutual social contacts, proximity - geographical proximity (most people enter into friendship and marriage with those who live in the same neighborhood, studied in the same class, work in the same company, i.e. with those who lived, studied, worked nearby ; closeness allows people to meet often, discover similarities in each other, and exchange signs of attention);
• - physical attractiveness (men tend to like women for their appearance, but women also like attractive men);
• - the phenomenon of “peers” (people tend to choose friends for themselves and especially marry those who are their peers not only in terms of intellectual level, but also in terms of attractiveness. E. Fromm wrote: “Often love is nothing more than a mutually beneficial exchange between two people in which the parties to the transaction receive the maximum of what they can expect, taking into account their value in the market of personalities."

In couples where attractiveness varied, the less attractive one usually has a compensating quality. Men usually offer status and seek attractiveness, and women often do the opposite, so young beauties often marry older men who occupy a high position in society;

• - the more attractive a person is, the more likely they are to attribute positive personal qualities(this is a stereotype of physical attractiveness - what is beautiful is good; people unconsciously believe that, with other equal conditions more beautiful ones are happier, sexier, more sociable, smarter and luckier, although not more honest or caring towards other people. More attractive people have more prestigious jobs and earn more);
• - the “contrast effect” can negatively influence attraction - for example, men who have just looked at magazine beauties, ordinary women and their wives seem less attractive, sexual satisfaction with their own partner decreases after watching pornographic films;
• - “reinforcement effect” - when we find traits similar to ours in someone, this makes the person more attractive to us; the more two people love each other, the more physically attractive they find each other and the less attractive all other people of the opposite sex seem to them;
• - similarity of social origin, interests, views is important for establishing relationships. (“We love those who are like us and do the same as we do,” Aristotle pointed out.);
• - to continue the relationship, complementarity and competence in an area close to our interests are necessary;
• - we like those who like us;
• - if a person's self-esteem has been wounded by some previous situation, then he will be more likely to like a new acquaintance who kindly pays attention to him (this helps explain why sometimes people fall so passionately in love after being previously rejected by another, thereby affecting their very self-esteem);
• - rewarding theory of attractiveness: the theory according to which we like those people whose behavior is beneficial to us, or those with whom we associate events that are beneficial to us;
• - the principle of mutually beneficial exchange or equal participation: what you and your partner get from your relationship should be proportional to what each of you puts into it.

If two or more people have a lot in common, then a factor of intimacy is formed, if their connections improve, they do nice things for each other, sympathy arises, if they see merit in each other, recognize the right for themselves and others to be who they are, - respect factor.

Forms of interaction such as friendship and love satisfy people's need for recognition. Friendship and love are superficially similar to pastimes, but there is always a clearly fixed partner towards whom one feels sympathy. Friendship includes the factor of sympathy and respect; love differs from friendship by its enhanced sexual component, i.e. love = sexual attraction + sympathy + respect, in the case of falling in love there is only a combination of sexual attraction and sympathy. These forms of interaction differ from all others in that they necessarily contain hidden “Child-Child” transactions expressing mutual recognition and sympathy. People can discuss any problems they want, even on a completely adult and serious level, nevertheless, in their every word and gesture the following will be visible: “I like you.”

Some features are characteristic of all friendships and love attachments: mutual understanding, dedication, pleasure from being with a loved one, care, responsibility, intimate trust, self-disclosure (discovering innermost thoughts and experiences in front of another person). (“What is a friend? It is a person with whom you dare to be yourself” - F. Crane.)

E. Berne studied this type of interaction between people as play and manipulation. A game is a distorted way of interaction, because all a person’s interpersonal needs are transformed into one - the need for control, and then a person resorts to force if he wants recognition and acceptance. Regardless of the type of need and life situation, the game offers only a forceful solution.

Games (or English word"Games") are a stereotypical series of interactions leading to a predetermined predetermined result; this is a series of manipulations that are designed to change the behavior of another person in the direction desired by the initiator of transactions without taking into account the desires of this other person. Games, unlike all other types of interactions - rituals, pastimes, operations, friendship, love - are dishonest interactions because they include traps, tricks, and payback.

Games differ from other ways of structuring time in two ways: 1) hidden motives; 2) the presence of winnings. Each participant in the game, even those who are defeated, receives a gain, but an extremely specific one - in the form of negative feelings of resentment, fear, guilt, hatred, suspicion, humiliation, contempt, arrogance, which serves as a kind of confirmation of the correctness of the life position of these people, according to which “people are bad, I am bad, life is bad."

E. Berne noted that many people play these unconscious games, receiving specific negative payoffs, since these games are an important part of a person’s unconscious life plan or scenario. Each game begins with a bait that the active participant, the initiator, offers to the passive participant, taking into account his character traits - “weakness”. Then follows a series of double transactions that invariably lead to a pre-planned result. Once you start a game, it is almost impossible to get out of it, especially if you are a passive participant, which results in payback or winnings.

In order to get out of the game and not become a victim of other people’s manipulations, it is important to try to replace double transactions with open, direct ones, since the game is possible only if there is a hidden subtext in words and transactions.

Mechanisms and techniques of social psychological influence, features of conflict interaction are presented in Fig. 6.11, 6.12, 6.13.

Communication as interpersonal interaction
The study of communication as a complex socio-psychological phenomenon involves identifying a universal property in its structure that determines all forms of its manifestation. Such a property for communication is interaction.
In philosophy the category " interaction"is used to determine the general form of connection between things or phenomena in their mutual change, influencing one another.

Social interaction is a component and form of manifestation of a general, universal interaction. In other words, society is a system of real connections and interactions of a person with other people, social groups, the totality of all social relations - indirect and direct, conscious and unconscious.
In the process of activity, people exchange not only information, but also various actions. These actions ensure planning of joint activities, their coordination and distribution of functions. With their help, mutual stimulation, mutual control and mutual assistance in the decision process are carried out common task. This assumes that each of the participants - interaction partners - makes their contribution to its decision, ensuring greater efficiency of the corresponding activity compared to the sum of the individual individual actions of these participants.
Thus, interaction (interaction) in socio-psychological terms is an aspect of communication and the psychology of communication, manifested in the organization by people of mutual actions aimed at implementing joint activities and achieving a certain common goal.
A person, interacting with other people, simultaneously enters into certain specific connections and relationships with them, with various social groups, and with society as a whole. Therefore, in the structure of interactive communication (interaction) two sides can be distinguished: internal (substantive) and external (formal).

Internal (substantive) side of interaction is the totality of relationships between an individual and social environment, which can be considered in two aspects: broad (social) and narrow (interpersonal).
IN in a broad sense a person is the subject of numerous and varied relations: industrial, political, religious, national, moral, etc. Such relationships are often called public, or social, they characteristic feature is that they are devoid of individualized, personal expression and reflect connections and interactions not between specific individuals, but between representatives of different social groups, between different social types. These relationships are objective in nature: a person enters into them regardless of their desires and aspirations, likes or dislikes.
Social relations reflect significant connections between various areas life activities of people who perform certain tasks in society social functions(roles). The system of these functions determines and regulates a person’s behavior to certain norms, reflecting the most typical, socially necessary types of activities and methods of their implementation.
But for each specific person such social relations very rarely appear in a “pure” form. Reflecting in his inner
world, they acquire a subjective, personal coloring, individual display and form of manifestation, they become a fact of consciousness as interpersonal relationships, as a concrete result of its interaction with the social environment.
Socio-psychological and personal aspects of social relations manifest themselves in a person’s behavior, his motives, feelings, moods, and assessments. Therefore, at the empirical level, the interpersonal socio-psychological aspect of social relations appears as an immediate reality not only for participants, but also for researchers.
This fact is quite often the epistemological source of one of the common errors in socio-psychological research. Thus, in the concept of interactionism, in the sociometry of J. Moreno, social relationships are identified with interpersonal interaction. Hence the conclusion is drawn about the determining role of the microenvironment in the development of society and the individual.
In reality, everything that happens within interpersonal relationships is substantively determined by a certain type of social relationship, specified by the goal of joint activity of people. Interpersonal relationships themselves are formed not somewhere outside social relations, but within them, as a specific personification of impersonal social connections.
The dependence of interpersonal relationships on social ones was well demonstrated by the American psychologist J. Furst. In his book “The Neurotic, His Environment and inner world“He talked about the owner of the factory - a polite and attentive person to his workers, who gave them the opportunity to earn good money, created certain working conditions, and was patient even with their trade union organization. But when, in a competitive environment, his profits began to decrease, he began to fire workers, cut their wages, and dispersed the union. In the end, his relationship with the workers changed radically: they became hostile, antagonistic. Consequently, in social relations, the individual psychological characteristics of specific people who enter into Mide’s communication with each other are important, first of all, for the performance of official functions, and only then for establishing interpersonal relationships.
Thus, the content of interaction between people is a certain set of economic, legal, and political relations that is specific to the social structure of society. The implementation of this content in the specific activities of people requires certain means and forms of expression. They can be both rational and emotional in nature, manifested in specific features of socio-psychological and interpersonal communication.
Both types of relationships- And social, And interpersonal- are realized precisely in communication (direct or indirect), in the activities of people and social groups. But each of them manifests itself in specific forms of communication.
Interpersonal relationships are formed under the influence of the immediate conditions of human life; their specific feature is emotional coloring. The feelings that define these relationships can be divided into two groups: conjunctive And disjunctive.
TO conjunctive belong to the feelings that bring people together, unite them in cooperation, express their readiness to cooperate, to act together. Disjunctive feelings divide people, make relationships tense and conflictual. The intensity of the identification of feelings affects the effectiveness of group members and is one of the indicators of the socio-psychological climate of the group.
The implementation of relationships in specific activities occurs in the form of mutual exchange of actions, which determines the external (formal) side of interaction. It is this exchange (of skills) that is the basis of interaction as the material, practical aspect of communication, in contrast to the informational aspect as the exchange of thoughts, feelings, and values.
Traditionally in social psychology, all types of interactions are divided into two groups. The first includes actions that contribute to the organization of joint activities, ensuring its integration, consistency, and efficiency. Such forms of interaction are cooperation, agreement, adaptation, cooperation, etc. The second includes competition, conflict, opposition, that is, actions that lead to inconsistency in joint activities and a decrease in their effectiveness.

Among the various forms of interpersonal interaction, one can highlight such as attachment, friendship, love, competition, care, pastime, surgery, play, social influence, submission, conflict, ritual interaction, etc.

* One of the common forms is ritual interaction, which is built according to certain rules, symbolically expressing real social relations and the status of a person in a group and society. Ritual acts as a special form of interaction, invented by people to satisfy the need for recognition. Ritual reveals the values ​​of the group: people express through ritual what touches them most; what constitutes their social value orientations.

Throughout its history, humanity has developed a huge number of different rituals: religious rites, palace ceremonies, diplomatic receptions, military rituals, secular ceremonies, including holidays and funerals. Rituals also include numerous norms of behavior: receiving guests, greeting acquaintances, addressing strangers, etc.

* Operation - a type of interaction in which communication is carried out from the position of “Adult - Adult”. We encounter operations every day: at work, at school, in almost any type of creative activity. Having successfully completed an operation, a person confirms his competence and receives confirmation from others. Labor interaction, distribution and performance of professional and family functions, skillful and effective implementation of these responsibilities - these are the operations that fill people's lives.

* Competition is a form of social interaction when there is a clearly defined goal that must be achieved, and all the actions of different people are correlated with each other taking into account this goal. At the same time, a person has an inherent desire to achieve better results than other team members.

* In a number of cases, a person, being in the same room with other people and performing seemingly joint activities, mentally remains in a completely different place, talks with imaginary interlocutors, and dreams about his own. This specific interaction is called grooming.

* Pastime is the next type of approved fixed interactions, providing at least a minimum of pleasant sensations, signs of attention, “strokes” between interacting people. Pastime - fixed form transactions(units of interaction), designed to satisfy people's need for recognition. The most common topic of pastime is “Things” (comparing existing cars, televisions, etc.). Men's pastimes often revolve around the topic “Who won yesterday” (football and other sports results). Mostly women's themes- “Kitchen”, “Shop”, “Dress”, “Children”, “How much?” and so on.

* Friendship and love as forms of interaction satisfy people's need for acceptance. Friendship includes a factor of sympathy and respect. Love differs from friendship by its enhanced sexual component, i.e. love = sexual attraction + sympathy + respect. In the case of falling in love, there is only a combination of sexual attraction and sympathy.

These forms of interaction differ from all others in that they necessarily contain hidden transactions of the “Child-Child” type, expressing mutual recognition and sympathy. Some features are characteristic of all friendships and love attachments: mutual understanding, dedication, pleasure from being with a loved one, care, responsibility, intimate trust, self-disclosure (discovering innermost thoughts and experiences in front of another person).

* Game, manipulation is another type of interaction between people. Games are a stereotyped series of interactions leading to a predictable, predetermined outcome. This is a series of manipulations that are designed to change the behavior of another person in the direction desired by the initiator of the interaction, without taking into account the wishes of the second participant in the transaction. Each game begins with a “bait” that the active participant, the initiator, offers to the passive participant, taking into account the characteristics of his character, his “weakness”. Then follows a series of double transactions that invariably lead to a pre-planned result. In order to get out of the game and not become a victim of other people’s manipulations, it is important to turn double transactions into open, direct ones, since the game is possible only if there is a hidden subtext in words and transactions.

The concept of a team.

The highest form of an organized group is a collective, but not every externally and internally organized group becomes a collective. A group organized only by internal goals that do not go beyond its scope refers to corporations that are hostile to each other (gangs of thieves, religious communities, groups of businessmen).

Team (from Latin collectivus - collective) - a group, a set of people working in one organization, in one enterprise, united by joint activities within the framework of an organization.

A group can act as a managerial, managed or self-governing structure with varying degrees of cohesion of its members - from an unorganized crowd to a single team. To be considered a collective, a group must satisfy several criteria, the main one of which can be considered the presence of a common goal among all its members. The latter can be formed as a result of the mutual influence of their individual goals or set from the outside in accordance with the mission of the organization, but it will always be joint, the same for everyone, and not just the same, similar.

Another sign of a collective is the psychological recognition by group members of each other and identification of themselves with it, which is based on common interests, ideals, principles, similarity or mutual complementarity of characters, temperaments, etc., although these points should not be overestimated.

Such psychological recognition makes possible permanent practical interaction people, as a result of which the potential of the team turns out to be significantly greater than the sum of the potentials of each of its members.

Firstly, interaction allows one to overcome the limitations of the physical and intellectual abilities of each individual.

Secondly, on its basis it is possible to perform a much larger volume of ordinary work due to the division and specialization of labor and the emergence, against the will of the participants, of a spirit of competition, mobilizing hidden reserves and significantly increasing the intensity of activity.

Thirdly, conditions are created for successful solution problems where, for one reason or another, it is impossible to distribute responsibilities between individual members of the group.

The fourth sign of a team can be considered the presence of a certain culture, expressed in common values, symbols, norms and rules of behavior in the team, joining or leaving it, requirements for the physical and moral appearance of its members. Each group has a tendency to idealize the past, present its history in the most favorable light, and maintain traditions. This forms a set of ideas about one’s own superiority, even in some narrow area, gives it additional strength, stability, cohesion, and prevents disorganization.

The team plays a huge role in the life of every person, which is difficult to overestimate. First of all, within its framework, the natural need of people for communication and business interaction, to belong to a group of their own kind is satisfied; from the team, when necessary, a person receives support and protection; In his team, he first of all finds recognition of successes and achievements. At the same time, along with the desire to be in a team, people want to be different from others, to remain as individuals as they are, worthy of respect.

By influencing people's behavior, the team largely contributes to its change. Here a person has the opportunity to take a fresh look at himself from the outside, evaluate himself and his role in society. The team changes a person, as he has to learn to live and work surrounded by other people, to adapt his desires, aspirations, and interests to them. The team significantly stimulates the creative activity of most people, awakens in them the desire for improvement, for primacy in competition.

Sociometry method.

To study the informal structure of a small group, the sociometry method proposed by D. Moreno is most often used. The main characteristics of the informal structure of a small group, identified using sociometry, are:

sociometric status of group members, i.e. the position they occupy in the system of interpersonal preferences and deviations;

characteristics of mutual preferences and deviations;

the presence of microgroups whose members are connected by relations of mutual preferences, and the nature of the relations between them;

the relative number of mutual preferences (the so-called sociometric cohesion of the group).

Sociometry is a theory of measuring interpersonal relationships, authored by an American psychiatrist and social psychologist J. Moreno. Less commonly, sociometry is a technique for studying intragroup connections and hierarchy in small groups.

An example of a simple differentiated sociogram

One of Moreno's innovations is the so-called sociogram. This is a diagram that consists of several concentric circles. Each circle corresponds to the number of preferences in a given group (the closer to the center, the more preferences). Preferences are identified through surveys or other research. The most popular member of the group (or several members) is placed in the center, then the less popular ones, in descending order, down to the outcasts (outermost circle). Lines with arrows are drawn between individuals, indicating mutual or one-sided sympathy or antipathy. Repeated measures taken in the same group allow the dynamics of relationships to be examined.

A modified version of sociometry can also be used to study larger groups, for example, organizations or population groups.