Sociometry
What is it for?
An active way of measuring individual relationships in a group, and for connecting people to each other and to the topic.
Time & People
Numbers limited mostly by space available. We’ve run this with groups from 8 to 200
Materials
Bell/chime to call attention
Source
Jacob Moreno
And also...
Be careful not to ask people questions they can’t answer, or questions that are too personal, such as number of children they have.
The idea is to get people moving and connecting quickly, avoid taking any questions or hearing back from everyone.
Stop before people have had enough, rather than one questions too many. If you can, go straight from sociometry into the next activity which relates to the purpose of the meeting.
Description
There are three main types of sociometry: 1) Line-up, also known as a continuum
2) Groups, also known as category 3) Maps
You will need to decide in advance what questions are appropriate for the group. Start with something simple, like forming groups according to your birthday month (category) or line up from January 1 to December 31 (continuum).
Have the participants stand up. Describe the line, explaining the two extremes at each end, and then invite people to stand on the line according to their own assessment. When using categories or a map, clearly identify which parts of the room relate to each category, or how the ‘map’ can be visualised on the floor.
Examples of line-up questions:
Length of time working with ‘x’
How long it took you to travel to this meeting
Amount of experience or understanding you have of
the topic (can ask people to take one step towards more understanding/experience and describe what they need from the meeting)
Can ask one end of the line to double-back creating pairs
A build on this is to create two “axes” in the room to make a grid so people choose a spot that answers on two scales at the same time.
How to use category questions:
Invite people to stand at one of the categories, eg
o Select the one that best describes you oSelect the one that is most challenging/easiest/hardest for you to understand/ You would like to work on
Invite participants to talk with each other about why they chose to stand where they did
Hear some responses from each group
How to use map questions:
Create an imaginary map of the world, country or territory on the floor and invite people to stand on the map according to certain criteria eg where they were born, where they are now working, where they would most like to holiday etc.