the majority of participants use closeness as a basic recall principle.
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one third of participants do not follow the degrees of closeness throughout.
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recalls follow degree of closeness, roles and foci, and relationship properties.
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recall patterns vary according to socio-economic status of participants.
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closeness concepts refer to relationship properties, dynamics, and normative frames
Abstract
The paper investigates how study participants handle the so-called “hierarchical mapping technique”, an affective name generator developed by Antonucci (1986), which is accompanied by a diagram enabling respondents to compare alters with regard to different degrees of closeness. By applying the thinking-aloud method, we identified three patterns in the order of recalling alters: closeness as overarching schema (with either role relationships or relationship properties as subordinate schema), roles and foci as overarching schema, and a fraying schema. In addition, we investigated how study participants understand and interpret “closeness”. The meanings of closeness can refer to various relationship properties, cultural framing, and relationship dynamics. Results show that specific meanings of closeness are related to different recall patterns. Furthermore, recall patterns vary according to the socio-economic status of the participants. Finally, implications for the construction of name generators and data collection are discussed.
