Position Generator Method
The position generator, developed by Nan Lin and colleagues, is a survey instrument for measuring an individual's social capital — the resources embedded in their personal network. Respondents are presented with a sample of occupations spanning the prestige hierarchy and asked, for each, whether they know anyone in that job. From these answers, the method derives indicators such as the number of positions accessed (extensity), the highest-prestige position reachable (upper reachability), and the range of prestige spanned, summarizing the volume and diversity of resources a person can mobilize through their contacts.
Source record
Citations copied verbatim from the method’s source record. No claim-level verification is inferred from them.
- Lin, N. (2001). Social Capital: A Theory of Social Structure and Action. Cambridge University Press. · ISBN 978-0-521-52167-3
- Van der Gaag, M., & Snijders, T. A. B. (2005). The Resource Generator: Social capital quantification with concrete items. Social Networks, 27(1), 1–29. · DOI 10.1016/j.socnet.2004.10.001
Curated claims
Claims persisted in the evidence ledger, each with its own assessment.
This view does not invent a claim assessment when the ledger has none.
Related methods
Generated from the method graph and shown as machine-suggested relations — no evidence claim is inferred.