Alex Bavelas was a researcher at MIT. He
did most of his social networks related work in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Bavelas
was a social psychologist, but he also used mathematics to formalize the
definition of his theories.
He worked as part of a group at MIT called
The Group Networks Laboratory. Some prominent members of the group include R.
Duncan Luce, Leon Festinger or Perry.
With his group at MIT, Alex Bavelas designed
a number of experiments centered around issues of communication and information
diffusion within small groups. In particular, this work focused on how
information travelled within a small group of actors, and which kind of network
structures affected the speed and efficiency of this information diffusion.
These experiments led to the development the concept of centrality. For Bavelas, centrality rested on the notion of
distance. Therefore, a central actor is relatively close to other actors in the
network, and they are optimally positioned for integrating information from the
dislocated parts of the network.
This also led to the development of the
centrality index, which was used as an indicator for how quickly information
would travel through the network. This centrality index is still used nowadays
but it is referred to as “centralization”.
The Group Networks Laboratory also
developed mathematical formulas to better measure centrality and
centralization. Both of these concepts are key notions of social networks
analysis, and the work of Bavelas and his team is a cornerstone in the science
of analyzing human interactions.
Two of the major articles published by Alex
Bavelas:
Bavelas, A. (1948) “A mathematical model
for group structures”, Applied
Anthropology, 7: 16-30
Bavelas, A. (1950) “Communication patterns
in task-oriented groups”, Journal of
Acoustical Society of America, 57: 271-82
Entry is based on Prell "Social
Network Analysis"
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