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Interventions aimed at changing the psychological attributes of individuals who form a social system may be limited by reliance on models and methods which do not account for the effects of social interaction on individual attributes. The use of network analysis to model the effects of social contagion on personal attributes is demonstrated in an evaluation of an organizational intervention. Sociometric indices of the norms created by social contagion predicted subjects' self-perceptions better than either expectations imposed on them in small groups or their own observable behavior. Social contagion stabilized the subjects' self-perceptions over time, despite the efforts of the intervention to change their self-perceptions through small group socialization and organizational restructuring. Network models of social contagion may provide useful tools for the design and evaluation of interventions that aim to change the attributes of individuals who form social systems. Further, these models theoretically integrate social relations and social cognition in a manner that helps to bridge the sociological and psychological study of human relations.

The development of network organizations is increasingly necessary in a global information-oriented economy. The network organization is a highly decentralized and densely integrated social system that maximizes mutual influence and communication. An intervention to develop a network organization in the context of a merger conducted by a major multinational corporation is evaluated here, using a network analysis of sociometric survey data. The computer program, STRUCTURE, developed by Burt, was used to compute indexes of the structure of social influence. Repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance indicated a decrease over time in structural differences between hierarchy levels and between geographic divisions. These changes in social networks may be attributable to the organizational merger, particularly the intervention designed to facilitate that merger. Leadership style appeared to be associated in a reciprocal fashion with the structure of social influence. Network analysis may be a practical tool in structural and process approaches to organizational development, especially in network-style organizations.

This paper assesses the hypothesis that depressive syndrome is associated with socioeconomic status, using longitudinal data from the Baltimore Epidemiologic Catchment Area Followup. Socioeconomic measures include those used in most studies of status attainment, as well as measures of financial dependence, non-job income, and work environment. Analyses include inter-and intra- generational mobility, and replicate the basic aspects of the status attainment process, as well as psychiatric epidemiologic findings regarding gender, family history of depression, life events, and depressive syndrome. But the involvement of depressive syndrome in the process of status attainment, either as cause or consequence, is small and not statistically significant. There are strong effects of financial dependence and work environment on depressive syndrome. The findings shed doubt on the utility of the causation/selection/drift model for depression, to the extent it is based on linear relationships and socioeconomic rank at the macro level, while lending credibility to social-psychologically oriented theories of work environment, poverty, and depression.