What is relationship types?

Relationship types is a concept in personal epistemology: Connections that exist today may not have existed yesterday or may not exist tomorrow.

Example: In 1973, sociologist Mark Granovetter surveyed 282 men about how they found their jobs and discovered that weak ties — casual acquaintances seen only occasionally — were more valuable than strong ties for job transmission. But here is what most people miss about that study: the ties were not static categories. The same relationship that was a strong tie in one period could weaken into a distant acquaintance in the next. A former close colleague becomes a loose connection after one of you changes jobs. A stranger introduced at a conference becomes a collaborator within six months. Granovetter's own definition of tie strength — a combination of time invested, emotional intensity, intimacy, and reciprocal services — is explicitly temporal. Every variable in that definition changes with time. The strength of any given tie is not a fixed property. It is a measurement taken at a particular moment in a relationship that is always in motion.

This concept is part of Phase 13 (Relationship Mapping) in the How to Think curriculum, which builds the epistemic infrastructure for relationship mapping.