Citation/Abstract

Cliques and Cohesion in a Clinical Psychology Graduate Cohort: A Longitudinal Social Network Analysis

To date, no published research has utilized social network analysis (SNA) to analyze graduate cohorts in clinical psychology. The purpose of this research is to determine how issues of likability among students correlate with other measures, such as disclosure, health, spiritual maturity, help in projects, familiarity, and ease of providing feedback. The research also uses likeability to describe the relationships among members of the student cohort. A cohort of 23 first-year graduate students of clinical psychology at George Fox University's Graduate Department of Clinical Psychology (GFU GDCP) participated in this study by responding to a survey where they rated each of their peers on the above-mentioned measures. The survey was administered 3 times during the academic school year. Results of the study show that the cohort remains relatively dense throughout the year. Clique counts are significantly low when compared to a randomized network of the same size. Key players and their degree centralization are analyzed to show the development of subgroups throughout the school year. The findings are discussed with regard to training issues and the usefulness of SNA in describing group processes.