The Analysis of Social Interaction Data

A nonparametric technique is presented that is appropriate for comparing two social interaction matrices, either when both are obtained empirically, or when one is generated from some given theoretical position. Depending on whether the diagonals of the matrices are considered relevant to the analysis, the com-parison can be carried out using some variation on a cross-product statistic. In all cases, the chosen index is referred to an exact (or approrimate) permutation dis-tribution, based on the random matching of the rows and columns of one matrix to those of a second. Several examples are provided along with formulas for the first two moments of the permutation distributions for the suggested indices. lmost by definition the social sciences are involved inthe study of social interaction whether the behavior occurs, for example, in small groups (Hare et al., 1966), school classrooms (Flanders, 1970), between married couples (Weiss et al., 1973), or even among animals (Rajecki and Lake, 1972). Typically, a researcher interested in the area of social interaction relies on data collected formally or informally by a particular observational strategy and hopes that any patterning in the data will lead to a deeper understanding of the underlying social process. In general, two aspects of social interaction have receive