Social Structure and Social Interaction

1
Social Structure and Social Interaction

• Society and Social Structure
• How did society develop?
• What holds society together?
• Elements of social structure
• Social Interaction of Everyday Life
• Status and roles
• Social construction of reality
• Goffmans Dramaturgical Analysis

2
Society and Social Structure

• Society
• Population of people organized to carry out the
  major functions of life
• People in a defined territory

• Social Structure
• Recurring patterns of behavior
• Created through interactions and relationships

3
Lenski Evolution of Societies

• Hunting and gathering simple tools to hunt
  animals and gather vegetation
• Horticultural or pastoral hand tools to raise
  crops or the domestication of animals
• Agricultural large-scale cultivation using plows
  harnessed to animals or energy source
• Industrial production of goods using advanced
  sources of energy to drive large machinery
• Postindustrial technology that supports an
  information-based economy

4
Bioeconomic Society

• This began when Crick and Watson identified the
  structure of DNA in 1953.
• An economy that centers on the application of
  genetics.
• As we apply our growing knowledge of genetics,
  our medicines and foods will change.
• No longer will the transmission of information be
  limited to numbers, words, sounds, and images,
  but it will also include smell, taste, and touch.

5
What Holds Society Together?

• Ferdinand Tönnies
• From Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft
• Emile Durkheim
• From Mechanical Solidarity to Organic Solidarity
• Karl Marx
• Changes in economic relationships

6
Durkheim wanted to know WHAT HOLDS SOCIETY
TOGETHER??? Marx wanted to know WHAT CHANGES
SOCIETY???
Hunting Gathering Horticultural/Pastoral Agricul
tural Industrial
Durkheim Solidarity
Marx Means of Production
7
Social Structure Framework
8
Elements of Social Structure Groups

• Two or more people who identify and interact with
  each other
• Primary Group small social group whose members
  share personal and enduring relationships
• Secondary Group impersonal social group whose
  members pursue a specific goal or activity

9
Elements of Social Structure Status

• The first condition of having to deal with
  somebody . . . is knowing with whom one has to
  deal. (Georg Simmel 1950)
• Status Set All statuses a person holds at a
  given time
• Ascribed and Achieved Status
• Master Status Status that has special importance
  for social identity

10
Elements of Social Structure Role

• Role Set A number of roles attached to a single
  status
• Role Conflict Conflict among roles corresponding
  to 2 or more statuses
• Role Strain Tension among roles connected to a
  single status
• Role Exit Process by which people disengage from
  social roles
• You hold a status You perform a role

11
(No Transcript)
12
Social Construction of Reality

• Process through which people attach meanings to
  things and then act on the basis of those
  meanings
• We live in two worlds, the physical world and the
  world of meanings
• Reality is shaped by perceptions, evaluations,
  interpretations and definitions
• Thomas Theorem Situations that are defined as
  real are real in their consequences.

13
Self-fulfilling Prophesies

• Socially constructed situation whose meaning
  tells us what is going to happen
• Examples from our educational system
• Test taking
• Teaching-expectancy effect Pygmalion Effect
• Tracking

14
Social Construction of Reality

• Three steps in attaching meanings to things
• Categorizing dividing up physical world into
  parts or categories
• Naming Attaching symbols (X) to those parts
• Typifying Characterizing what a typical X
  looks like

15
Social Construction of Reality and Symbolic
Interaction

• Society viewed as ongoing interaction using
  symbols
• Social order is possible because of shared
  meanings
• Shared meanings arise from interaction and
  interpretation
• Studies how people construct social reality more
  than other paradigms

16
Social Construction of Reality and Theorists

• Harold Garfinkel Ethnomethodology
• Break the rules to discover how we make sense of
  events
• Erving Goffman Dramaturgical Analysis
• Presentation of self
• Impression Management

17
Social Construction of Gender

• Language defines women and men differently in
  terms of power and value
• Language both mirrors social attitudes and helps
  perpetuate them

18
How to do emotions

• What triggers an emotion
• Rules for the display of emotions
• How we value emotions
• Emotions on the job
• Managing Feelings Womens Abortion Experiences

19
Stanford Prison Experiment

• What happens when you put good people in an evil
  place?
• Does humanity win over evil, or does evil
  triumph?
• Summer of 1971 at Stanford University
• Conducted by Dr. Zimbardo and graduate students
  in psychology