Sociograms

Sociograms are visual representations of a set of interpersonal relations within a group. They contain nodes (dots) and edges (lines), where nodes often represent individuals (organizations, nations, or other entities) and edges indicate relationships among them. A sociogram depicts how the individuals in a group are related to each other. It makes the structure of social networks readily visible and measurable, enhancing the interpretation of relations in the group. Given the simplicity and readability, sociograms have been widely used to represent social relationships in many branches of science. They help to discover and present group structure and are often used to identify cohesive subgroups in a network. Sociograms may also display the evolution of networks over time. This entry summarizes the key features of sociograms, ...