Networks can show how introverted a social group is, such as when most individuals are connected only to families, clan members and those in their local community.

Networks can also suggest the tightness of family ties by how many external network members someone has outside of their family and immediate neighborhood.

Many social networking sites are a classic model of this type of modeling of human behavior. Pulling up an individual's profile shows their network. In the West, ties are more likely to be based on shared interests or community. In the East, coworkers will comprise most of the relationships outside of family and clan.

• Soft Systems Methodology (SSM)

Rather than looking at the individual or a network of relationships, the Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) defines a problem by its clients, actors, transformation, social rules that define the system, who has control of the system and the external constraints. The SSM model works well for social models that are defined by a problem or an issue that needs to be solved. The clients are those who will benefit from the current system or who need to be helped. Actors are those who take action. The transformation is the process undertaken in the model. The worldview justifies the model. The owner monitors, maintains or measures the system. The environmental constraints are those limits on the system that any solution must fall within.

In a medical care model, the clients are patients while the actors are doctors and nurses. The transformation is hopefully the recovery of the patient or delivery of medical care. (The problem being reviewed may be unacceptable patient outcomes, from death to repeat Emergency Room visits.) The worldview can range from "health insurance defines this process" to "that's how we always did it". The owner can be a health quality auditor or the hospital administrator. Environmental constraints would be money, available beds and staffing levels.