Essentials of Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach, 11e James M. Henslin

1. Essentials of Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach, 11e James M. Henslin

2. Essentials of Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach, 11eJames M. Henslin Chapter 5 Social Groups and Formal Organizations

3. LO 5.1 Groups within Society • Primary Groups • Secondary Groups • In-Groups and Out-Groups • Reference Groups • Social Networks

4. LO 5.2—Primary Groups • By providing intimate, face-to-face interaction, your primary groups have given you an identity, a feeling of who you are. • No matter how far you move away from your childhood roots, your early primary groups will remain “inside” you. There, they will continue to form part of the perspective from which you look out onto the world.

5. Primary groups such as the family play a key role in the development of the self. As a small group, the family also serves as a buffer from the often-threatening larger group known as society. The family has been of primary significance in forming the basic orientations of this couple, as it will be for their son.

6. LO 5.1—Secondary Groups • Secondary groups are larger, more anonymous, and more formal and impersonal. These groups are based on shared interests or activities, and their members are likely to interact on the basis of specific statuses, such as president, manager, worker, or student. • They often fail to satisfy our deep needs for intimate association. Consequently, secondary groups tend to break down into primary groups.

7. Secondary groups are larger and more anonymous, formal, and impersonal than primary groups. Why are these cyclists lined up at the start of a race an example of a secondary group?

8. Aggregates are people who happen to be in the same place at the same time.

9. The outstanding trait that these three people have in common does not make them a group, but a category.

10. How our participation in social groups shapes our self-concept is a focus of symbolic interactionists. In this process, knowing who we are not isas significant as knowing who we are.

11. LO 5.1—In-Groups and Out-Groups • In-groups • We feel loyalty • Shape our perception of right and wrong • “Us” • Out-groups • We feel antagonism • “Them”

12. LO 5.1—Reference Groups • Evaluate Ourselves • Family, Neighbors, Teachers, Classmates All of us have reference groups—the groups we use as standards to evaluate ourselves. How do you think the reference groups of these members of the KKK who are demonstrating in Jaspar, Texas, differ from those of the police officer who is protecting their right of free speech? Although the KKK and this police officer use different groups to evaluate their attitudes and behaviors, the process is the same.

13. LO 5.1—Social Networks • Social network: people who are linked to one another. Your social network includes your family, friends, acquaintances, people at work and school, and even “friends of friends.” • The “six degrees” phrase is based on the idea of social networks, that people are connected through the people they know.

14. LO 5.1—Social Networks • Barriers that divide us into small worlds are primarily those of social class, gender, and race–ethnicity. • The analysis of social networks has become part of applied sociology. An interesting application is its use to reduce gang violence. When a gang member is shot, the gang retaliates by shooting members of the rival gang. This leads to endless violence, with each trying to even the score.

15. LO 5.2—The Characteristics of Bureaucracies • Bureaucracy: a formal organization with a hierarchy of authority and a clear division of labor; emphasis on impersonality of positions and written rules, communications, and records. • These five characteristics help bureaucracies reach their goals. They also allow them to grow and endure.

16. When society began to be rationalized, production of items was broken into its components, with individuals assigned only specific tasks. Shown in this wood engraving is the production of glass in Great Britain in the early 1800s.

17. LO 5.2—Goal Displacement and the Perpetuation of Bureaucracies • In a process called goal displacement, even after an organization achieves its goal and no longer has a reason to continue, it does.

18. The March of Dimes was founded by President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s to fight polio. When a vaccine for polio was discovered in the 1950s, the organization did not declare victory and disband. Instead, its leaders kept the organization intact by creating new goals—first “fighting birth defects,” and now “stronger, healthier babies.” Sociologists use the term goal displacement to refer to this process of adopting new goals.

20. McDonald’s in Tel Aviv, Israel The McDonaldization of society does not refer just to the robotlike assembly of food. This term refers to the standardization of everyday life, a process that is transforming our lives. .

21. McDonaldization: Sociologist George Ritzer uses the term to describe how the fast food industry applies to work: • Efficiency. Tasks are completed efficiently. • Calculability. Size, cost, and time are more important than quality. • Predictability. Products are standardized • Control through technology. Automation replaces human labor.

22. Technology has changed our lives fundamentally. The connection to each telephone call used to have to be made by hand. As in this 1939 photo from London, England, these connections were made by women. Long-distance calls, with their numerous hand-made connections, not only were slow, but also expensive. In 1927, a call from New York to London cost $25 a minute. In today’s money, this comes to $300 a minute!

23. How is this worker trying to avoid becoming a depersonalized unit in a bureaucratic-economic machine?

24. LO 5.3 Working for the Corporation • Self-Fulfilling Stereotypes in the “Hidden” Corporate Culture • Diversity in the Workplace

25. LO 5.3—Self-Fulfilling Stereotypes in the “Hidden” Corporate Culture • Self-Fulfilling Stereotypes and Promotions

26. Bureaucracies have their dysfunctions and can be slow and even stifling. Most, however, are highly functional in uniting people’s efforts toward reaching goals.

27. The cultural and racial–ethnic diversity of today’s work force has led to the need for diversity training.

28. LO 5.4 Technology and the Control of Workers: Toward a Maximum-Security Society • Technology allows bosses to monitor millions of workers

29. Candidates for jobs are sometimes rejected when the prospective employer finds negative images or information on social media sites.

30. LO 5.6 Group Dynamics • Effects of Group Size on Stability and Intimacy • Effects of Group Size on Attitudes and Behavior • Leadership • The Power of Peer Pressure: The Asch Experiment

31. LO 5.6 Group Dynamics Continued • The Power of Authority: The Milgram Experiment • Global Consequences of Group Dynamics: Groupthink

32. LO 5.6—Effects of Group Size on Stability and Intimacy • Dyad: Two People • Triad: Three People • Stability • Coalitions • More Group Members  More Stability

33. Group size has a significant influence on how people interact. When a group changes from a dyad (two people) to a triad (three people), the relationships among the participants undergo a shift. How do you think the birth of this child affected the relationship between the mother and father?

35. LO 5.6—Effects of Group Size on Attitudes and Behavior • Increase in Size Increases Formality • Increase in Size Diffuses Responsibility

36. LO 5.6—Leadership • Types of Leaders • Instrumental • Expressive • Leadership Style • Authoritarian • Democratic • Laissez-faire

37. Through the Author’s Lens Helping a Stranger As I was walking in Vienna, a city of almost 2 million people, I heard a crashing noise behind me. I turned, and seeing that a man had fallen to the sidewalk, quickly snapped this picture. You can see strangers beginning to help the man. This photo was taken about three seconds after the man fell.

38. Two strangers are helping the man, with another two ready to pitch in. They have all stopped whatever they were doing to help a man they did not know.

39. The man is now on his feet, but still a bit shaky. The two who have helped him up are still expressing their concern, especially the young woman.

40. By this point, the police officer has noticed that I have been taking photos. You can see him coming toward me, his hand on whatever he is carrying at his hip, his shoulders back, glowering and ready for a confrontation. He asked, “What are you doing?” I said, “I am taking pictures” (as though he couldn’t see this). He asked, “Do you have to take pictures of this man?” I said, “Yes,” and hoping to defuse the situation, added, “I’m a sociologist, and I’m documenting how people help each other in Vienna.” He grunted and turned away. This photo really completes the series, as this individual was acting as the guardian of the community, placing a barrier of protection around the participants in this little drama.

41. Adolf Hitler, shown here in Nuremberg in 1938, was one of the most influential—and evil—persons of the twentieth century. Why did so many people follow Hitler? This question stimulated research by Stanley Milgram (discussed in the text on pages 165–166).

42. LO 5.6—The Power of Peer Pressure: The Asch Experiment • Conformity • Experiment in Which Respondents Often Conformed to a Group of Strangers

44. LO 5.6—The Power of Authority: The Milgram Experiment • Milgram found that participants would “hurt” strangers by following the authority of the scientist

45. In the 1960s, social psychologists did highly creative but controversial experiments. This photo, taken during Stanley Milgram’s experiment, should give you an idea of how convincing the experiment was to the “teacher.”

46. LO 5.6—Global Consequences of Group Dynamics: Groupthink • Groupthink • Collective Tunnel Vision