Chapter 4 Social Structure

1. Chapter 4 Social Structure

2. Social Structure • In the last chapter we examined rites of passage, which were ceremonies of initiation into a new setting, group dynamic, or social environment. • The main purpose of rituals are to teach new members the culture of the group they are joining – to pass on the norms, values, and styles of behavior they will be expected to display as members.

3. Sociologists use the term social structure to refer to the relatively stable patterns of social interaction that characterize human social life. • Culture and social structure are intimately interconnected. • Culture provides the blueprint for the ways people behave. • Social structure provides the setting in which the culture is acted out.

4. Status and Role • Status and roles are the smallest elements of social structure and are the basic building blocks of all social life. • Sociologists use the term status to refer to a social position that an individual occupies. • Your status defines who you are in relation to other people, especially when you do not know others intimately. • This usage has a different meaning than the everyday speech, where status refers to an individual’s level of prestige. A doctor to garbage collector for example.

5. Status Set • All of the statuses and individual occupies make up that person’s status set. • Your gender, race or ethnicity, age, religion, class, sexual orientation and many others are examples of your status set. • How many different qualifiers are in your status set?

6. Status Inconsistency • Sometimes the different statuses that make up an individual’s status set do not fit together smoothly because they are ranked at different levels, which is a condition called status inconsistency. • Examples of status inconsistency are 10 year old college students, a Ph.D. working as at a 7-11, a lawyer working at McDonalds. • These situations can be uncomfortable for the individual involved.

7. Status Symbols • We interact with others on the basis of the statuses we occupy rather than who they are, especially in an impersonal world. Think of the clerk at the fast food counter. They take the order you give and the transaction is usually very smooth because of the status of patron to employee. • Status symbols identify the status an individual occupies. • Note the contrary everyday usage and how it denotes either prestige or scrutiny. (Sports cars, dress, tats…)

8. Achieved and Ascribed Status • Ascribed statuses are those into which we are born and cannot change, or that we acquire involuntarily over the life course. • Gender, race, position in the family, and life cycle status are all examples. • Achieved statuses are those we acquire over time as a result of our actions. Occupation, education status, family status, are examples.

9. Master Status • A master status is a social position that is exceptionally powerful in determining an individual’s identity, often to the point that the other statuses are ignored. • A Catholic priest, the President, or a Queen are examples of master statuses. • Stigmas are negative master statuses, like a murderer or homeless person. • Tokens are those who make up the firsts in a group, like a male nurse, or female executive, or African American in an mostly white setting.

10. Role • The concept of role is closely related to status. • A role consists of the norms associated with a particular status-norms that specify the behavior required of an individual occupying that position. Consider the role of a gang member. • Roles are learned as all norms are, through socialization. • Keep them straight by remembering that we occupy a status but we play or enact a role.

11. Role Set • Most important statuses are accompanied by a cluster of related but somewhat distinct roles or what are called a role set. • A teacher occupies the role of teaching, but once you dig deeper into the profession, it includes preparing lessons, advising students, researching, serving on committees, coaching and other duties. • Role is based on an analogy between social life and theater, it is the insight behind the dramaturgical perspective pioneered but Erving Goffman.

12. Role Strain • Difficulty adequately performing all the elements of the role set connected to a single status. • A police internal affairs officer is expected to be a loyal member of the police force yet root out corruption on the force. • Role strain is especially likely to arise when role sets are relatively complex.

13. Role Conflict • In contrast to role strain, role conflict arises when the expectations for the roles connected to one status clash with those associated with one or several entirely separate statuses coincidentally occupied by the same person. • Think of someone who has to go to work, take a class, and raise their children at the same time.

14. Social Groups • A social group consists of two or more people who regularly interact and feel some sense of solidarity or common identity. • There is a difference between social groups and 2 other related concepts. • Aggregates are collections of people who are physically at the same place at the same time but do not interact in a meaningful way. (People in an elevator or on a corner.) • Categories are collections of individuals that share a social status. People with red hair, ZZ Top Fans, etc.

15. Types of Groups • People join groups for two reasons. • To relate to others and enjoy the common factor and combat loneliness. • To accomplish goals that would be difficult to do so alone. • Groups tend to specialize to some extent in one or the other of these functions.

16. Primary and Secondary Groups • Primary Group: Small groups characterized by warm, informal, and long-lasting interaction. (families, groups of friends, military units.) • Called primary for two reasons • They are the first kind of group we experience. • They are central to our lives. • Often called significant others. Our membership is vital to identity and mental health.

17. Secondary Group: Groups that tend to be formal, emotionally cool, and often temporary. • Involvement is usually rational and calculative. (most classrooms, offices, PTA, church organizations) • Although emotionally cool, secondary groups are taken very seriously. • *One of the most important patterns of change in today’s society has been a gradual but steady decline in the time people spend in primary groups and a corresponding rise in their secondary group involvements.

18. In Groups and Out Groups • In-Groups: Groups which individuals belong and feel pride and loyalty to. • Out-Groups: Groups which they do not belong and feel disdain or hostility towards.

19. These are both relative. We see ourselves as different from Californians, (out-group) yet if we came together in Russia, we would view ourselves as Americans (in-group.) • Group membership tends to bias judgment. • Commitment tends to strengthen by conflict with out-groups. • “Markers” identify groups (gangs “colors”.) • Conflict arises over limited resources.

20. Reference Groups • They are groups of people we look to as a way to evaluate our own behavior. They serve 2 related but distinct functions. 1. Normative function – show how we are to act. 2. Comparative function – is how we asses ourselves according to others. • Role Model: When both functions are provided by one individual.

21. Group Dynamics • Group Dynamics is the reciprocal influence between the group and the individual. • Small groups – each member can interact directly with all others, its harder above 12. • There are 4 major topics of group study. 1. Impact of size 2. Leadership 3. Conformity 4. Decision Making

22. Group Size • Dyads- groups of two. • Triads- groups of three. • As group size gets bigger, it gets less intimate, but also more stable. Size of groups offer more relationship opportunities, but it also becomes more formal. • You end up addressing groups, not conversing with them.

23. Leadership • Are leaders born or made? • It Could be how they respond in a group that they are suited for. • Usually they are problem solvers, and self-confident. • There are two types of leaders. • Instrumental (task) leader: primarily concerned with making decisions to help the group achieve its goals. • Expressive leader: Concentrates on keeping group morale high. • Good instrumental leaders earn their group’s respect; good expressive leaders receive their affection.

24. Group dynamics researchers have identified three types of instrumental leaders based on how direct they are. • An authoritarian leader assigns tasks, makes major decisions for the group, pays relatively little attention to the concerns of the followers and praises or criticizes group members without adequately explaining the one which they are being judged. • In contrast, a democratic leader encourages group discussion, input, and explains reward and punishment. • The laissez-faire leader is highly nondirective, letting members make their own decisions without much help or input.

25. The third is least effective, and gender plays a role. Males are usually more authoritarian and women more democratic. Typically these findings have been taken from the US, which is prone to democracy and male orientated in leadership. • Conformity – When individuals experience pressure to fit into the group, they will often make decisions they know to be wrong in order to fit in or not stand out. • Groupthink – The tendency of highly cohesive groups to make poor decisions because the members don’t want to threaten the group’s solidarity.

26. III: Larger Elements of Social Structure • The most important large units are networks, formal organizations, communities, strata, institutions, and entire societies. • Network – A broad web of social ties that radiates out from a given individual, linking him/her to a large number of people. They include primary and secondary group members. They also have strong links as well as weak links.

27. Formal Organization – This is a large secondary group that is explicitly designed to accomplish specific tasks by means of an elaborate internal division of labor. (World Health Organization, IUP, UPJ, our Pa. State Government.) • Community – Traditionally, the term referred to a large group of people who lived in a geographic area and were connected by social bonds. Now, sociologists have dropped the territorial base, and use terms like business community or geriatric community. Conventional examples are villages, towns, and neighborhoods.

28. Strata – Viewed as layers, (singular is stratum) and are segments within a large population that receive different amounts of scarce and valued resources by virtue of their position in a ranked system of structural inequality. • Institutions – Social institutions are predictable, established ways to provide for one or more of a society’s basic needs. There are five core institutions, family, religion, the economy, the political, and education, which fulfill 5 critical needs. • Replace members – responsibility of the family. • Socialize new members – family, education, religion. • Produce and distribute goods and services – economy. • Preserve order – Politics, (uses law, justice, and military.) • Provide meaning and purpose – traditional function of religion. • Many others have emerged in society distinct from the five above and will be approached later.