Weak Ties

Harvard PhD student Mark Granovetter in 1960s called “weak ties” as a casual acquaintance or a connection between people who were “neither strangers nor pals”–friends of friends. His studies found that weak ties have more significant role in business setting. Asking a stranger to vouch for you for a position in a company rarely occur than asking a close friend. Granovetter studies found that casual acquaintances are just as likely to accept such requests¹.

Due to peer pressure and #Social Habits, we are likely to help a friend of a friend for fear of being disliked by others who might be connected to the person asking for a favor.

Sociologists examines how opinions move through communities and found that “weak-tie acquaintances are often as influential–if not more–than our close-tie friends.”

Also, weak ties keeps us up-to-date with informational news such as an open position in a company or an advancement opportunity, because we talk more about personal sentiments with our close friends rather than about business. Granovetter wrote,

"Individuals with few weak ties will be deprived of information from distant
parts of the social system and will be confined to the provincial news and
views fot their close friends. This deprivation will not  only insulate them
from the latest ideas and fashions but may put them in a disadvantaged
position in the labor market, where advancement can depend . . . on knowing
about appropriate job openings at just the right time."

Further more, weak ties helps explain how protests can grow from a small group of friends into a activist movement with difficult and dangerous undertaking, just as the #civil rights movement in 1955 accomplished.