Analyzing the Instrumental Use of Relations in the Context of Social Structure

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Abstract
Employing a variation of the Small World technique for tracing social relations in the context of a larger social structure, the instrumental uses of social relations are examined in terms of the prestige and types of relations characteristic of participants m the search process. The results show that successful chains tend to involve participants of higher occupational prestige as the chains progress before "dipping" down toward the target prestige level at the last link. Also, the successful chains tend to utilize weak and infrequent social relations rather than strong and frequent social relations.