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Hierarchical structure of participation in natural groups
Author(s) -
Tsai YungMei
Publication year - 1977
Publication title -
behavioral science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.371
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1099-1743
pISSN - 0005-7940
DOI - 10.1002/bs.3830220106
Subject(s) - ranking (information retrieval) , rank (graph theory) , rank correlation , residual , statistics , econometrics , mathematics , natural (archaeology) , psychology , computer science , geography , artificial intelligence , combinatorics , algorithm , archaeology
The meeting minutes of the ECOSOC Council of the UN, as a small natural group, were content analyzed to reveal the frequency of participation of the Council's delegates. Three different methods of coding yielded a very high correlation in ranking the order of frequency of participation among the delegates. The rank order of frequency of participation was used to test the exponential model of the distribution of group participation described by Stephan and Mishler (1952), and further formalized by Horvath (1965). The results did not fit the model statistically and the residual trend seemed to persist even after the modification of the model. It was speculated that the model may not be appropriate for a small group of relatively large size. However, for one parameter model, given the magnitude of the errors, it does not do badly at all.