Benefits of Low-Stakes (Weak Ties) Relationships
The article above talks about the necessity of low-stakes, casual friendships. The author argues that having weak ties are actually beneficial to people in many ways. The article starts off with her own experience of getting a job position through an acquaintance, who is now one of her closest friends. According to Dr. Granovetter’s research, having weak ties not only allow us to find a job but also have a positive impact on our well-being by letting us feel more connected to other social groups. One is less likely to feel lonely in that network because weak ties contribute to one’s sense of belonging to a community. The article provides a 2014 study to show the results that the more weak ties a person has, the happier they feel. Some may think that putting effort into low-stakes relationships are not worth the time. However, the author argues that we need different kinds of people like from work or dog-walking in our lives to add different kinds of support.
This connects to our topic on the strength of weak ties by Granovetter from 1960s. We went over an example that conducted a survey asking people how they got their current jobs. The unsurprising part of the result was that most people said they got their jobs through personal contact. The surprising part was that it was more often through an “acquaintance” (weak tie) than a close friend (strong tie). We learned that this was because the local bridge that connects two separate graphs connect two nodes who do not have common friends. This new branch or bridge will give the person access to more information simply because one acquaintance can connect the person with a larger circle of people. Close friends tend to know the same things we do and so it doesn’t expand our information. From acquaintances, we have the potential to learn more provided a wider worldview. It was interesting to see that there are actually many studies and people who found out this was true. This article builds off of what we learned in class because it also talks about how to cultivate these relationships, which is divided into four steps: give yourself permission to talk to familiar faces, shift your attitudes by altering your expectations and engage in more, mirror an expert’s behavior, and make the conversations meaningful.