History of social network analysis Notes on the History of Social Network Analysis 11 April 1996. A Handbook . Although some of the ideas of network analysis are found in the writings of scholars going back to the ancient Greeks, the main development of the field occurred in the 1930's by several groups in different traditional fields working independently. They stressed the organized patterns that structure thoughts and perceptions. In part, we see objects like plants and people the way we do because we have preconceived conceptual schemes built into the mind.
Perception is a kind of pattern-matching process.
Moreno developed sociometry. He started asking people who their friends were and explored the ways in which their relations with others served as both limitations and opportunities for action and for their psychological behavior. He believed that large scale social phenomena, such as the economy and state, were sustained and reproduced over time by the small scale configurations formed by peoples patterns of friendship, dislike and other relations. Moreno used sociograms to identify social leaders and isolates, to uncover asymmetry and reciprocity in friendship choices, and to map chains of indirect connection. Lewin studied group behavior, which he said was a function of conflicting social forces.