The obedience experiment (see yesterday’s post) is not the only reason Stanley Milgram is famous in the history of psychology. In the first issue of Psychology Today in 1967, Dr. Milgram wrote about “the small-world problem.”You’ve probably heard it called six degrees of separation or six degrees of Kevin Bacon.
The small-world problem is this: Starting with any two people in the world, person X and person Y, how many intermediate acquaintances, or links, are needed before X and Y are connected?
The answer is, about six.
Had you been selected as a subject in Milgram’s small-world experiment, you (person X) would have been asked to forward a document, via snail mail, to a stockbroker in Boston who you do not know (person Y).
You would have been told to mail the document, along with instructions, to only one person; someone you knew who was most likely to move the document along its way to Boston. Subsequent links in the chain likewise would have been told to forward the document to only one other person.
Six links. U.S. Mail. Pretty impressive.
How many links would it take you to find a particular stockbroker in Boston? What if you could ask all of your acquaintances, not just one? What if they could ask all of their acquaintances?
On Facebook? Two links. Three tops.
In tomorrow’s post I will connect the small-world problem, “going viral,” and psychology for Christian students, in an audacious promotion of my new book.
You see, someone you know needs to read it.
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