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***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.sfu.ca/~insna/ ***** Dear socnetters We are currently studying social networks and people's lay epistemologies from a cognitive developmental perspective. At the hearth of the perspective is the idea that encountering diversity and conflicts stimulates cognitive development (see eg. Perry 1970, Baxter-Magolda 2002). . We believe that the most important setting where diversity is effectively encountered is in day-to-day interactions with the members of ones social network. We set the hypotheses that large and diverse personal networks and a wealth of weak links fosters cognitive development in general and leads people to more complex views on what knowledge is, what is the role of authorities, how to obtaing the ultimate truth etc - what we call lay epistemological theories and which is our main interest in this study. No doubt there is also an causal connection in the other direction - people with more reflective style of thinking are prone to seek more diverse connections, see http://www.diversityweb.org/Digest/Sp.Sm00/tolerance.html Our problem is the that although the hypotheses does not sound very revolutionary, we cannot find any literature bearing on it. So I'm turning to the list to ask for any references linking cognitive development/skills/style and personal networks. To get an idea of the field we are working in, "Reflective thinking"- paradigm (see http://taxa.psyc.missouri.edu/~wood/rci/ ) comes close in empasizing the environment and real life contacs, but I have seen no direct references to social networks. Also we do not fully share the Piaget-Kohlberg type of sequential view of cognitive development. I will summarize to the list. -Timo Harmo (& Anna-Maija Pirttilä-Backman & Susanna Lähteenoja) Faculty of Sial Science, dept of Social Psychology, U of Helsinki _____________________________________________________________________ SOCNET is a service of INSNA, the professional association for social network researchers (http://www.sfu.ca/~insna/). To unsubscribe, send an email message to [log in to unmask] containing the line UNSUBSCRIBE SOCNET in the body of the message.