Intimacy was measured by a respondent's reported
likelihood of sharing a personal confidence with a target
individual. Support was measured by a respondent's
reported likelihood of extending everyday (as
opposed to emergency) assistance to a target individual
(Wellman 1979; Wellman etal. 1987). Finally, association
was measured by a respondent's professed
likelihood of spending a free afternoon with a target
individual. The four indicators were then summed to
create a 25-point, composite tie strength measure.
Composite measures were created for both inviteehostess
(IH) and invitee-demonstrator (ID) ties.
Reliability estimates were calculated to evaluate
the internal consistency and the longitudinal stability
of the tie strength composite. Cronbach's Alpha for
the tie strength composite was .93 for both the preand
post-party samples. The test-retest correlation
coefficient was .91 after a three-week interval between
pre- and post-party observations. Finally, there was
a .65 correlation between respondent and target tie
strength estimates, indicating a high degree of consensus
within a dyad regarding the status of a tie.^
Invitee Obligation. Data used to measure the degree
an invitee was obligated to her hostess prior to
the party were collected from invitee responses to two
questions. The first question asked invitees to indicate
whether the hostess owed the invitee a favor or
vice versa. Invitees completed a five-point scale that