Society and Social Interaction

1
Chapter 5

• Society and Social Interaction

2
Chapter Outline

• Understanding Social Interaction
• Types of Social Interaction
• Elements of Social Interaction
• Institutions and Social Organizations
• Societies

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Social Distance Zones

• Intimate
• Varies from direct physical contact with another
  person to a distance of 6 to 18 inches.
• Used for private activities with another close
  acquaintance.

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Social Distance Zones

• Personal
• Varies from 2 ½ to 4 feet.
• Is the most common spacing used by people in
  conversation.

5
Social Distance Zones

• Social
• Varies between between 4 and 12 feet.
• Employed during business transactions or
  interactions with a clerk or salesperson.

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Social Distance Zones

• Public
• Varies from 12 to 25 feet or more.
• Used by teachers in classrooms or speakers at
  public gatherings.

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Understanding Social Interaction

• Social Action - Anything people are conscious of
  doing because of other people.
• Social interaction - Two or more people taking
  each other into account.

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Question

• Most of the time you can be sure that other
  people want the best for you.
• Strongly agree
• Agree somewhat
• Unsure
• Disagree somewhat
• Strongly disagree

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The Context of a Social Interaction

• Three Elements
• The physical setting or place.
• The social environment.
• The activities surrounding the interactionprecedi
  ng it, happening simultaneously with it, and
  coming after it.

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Ethnomethodology

• The study of the rules or guidelines individuals
  use to initiate behavior, respond to behavior,
  and modify behavior in social settings.
• Ethnomethodologists view all social interactions
  as equally important because they provide
  information about a societys unwritten rules for
  social behavior.

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Dramaturgy

• Erving Goffman believed that human interaction
  can be studied on the basis of principles derived
  from the theater.
• In order to create an impression, people play
  roles, and their performance is judged by others
  who are alert to any slips that might reveal the
  actors true character.

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Types of Social Interactions

• Nonverbal Behavior
• Exchange
• Cooperation
• Conflict
• Competition

13
Eye Contact in the United States

• We make eye contact more when we listen than when
  we talk.
• The more rewarding we find the speaker, the more
  we make eye contact.
• The amount of eye contact we try to establish
  with other people is determined in part by our
  perception of their status.
• We feel uncomfortable if someone gazes at us for
  longer than 10 seconds at a time.

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Exchange

• When people do something for each other with the
  express purpose of receiving a reward or return,
  they are involved in an exchange interaction.
• Most employer-employee relationships are
  exchange relationships.
• The employee does the job and is rewarded with a
  salary.

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Question

• People who are better off should help friends who
  are less well off.
• Strongly agree
• Agree somewhat
• Unsure
• Disagree somewhat
• Strongly disagree

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Cooperation Interaction

• Occurs when people act together for common
  interests or shared goals
• Members of a team assist one another to achieve
  a common goalwinning the game.
• Family members cooperate to promote their
  interests as a family.
• College students cooperate by studying together
  for tests.

17
Question

• Suppose you had the flu and had to stay in bed
  for a few days and needed help around the house,
  with shopping and so on. How likely is that that
  you would ask an acquaintance for help?
• Very likely
• Somewhat likely
• Unsure
• Somewhat unlikely
• Very unlikely

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Conflict

• Conflict appears to be inevitable in human
  society.
• Conflict always involves an attempt to gain or
  use power.
• Competition is a form of conflict in which
  individuals or groups confine their conflict
  within agreed-upon rules.

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Competition

• A form of conflict in which individuals or groups
  confine their conflict within agreed upon rules.

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Marriage and Social Interactions

• Husbands and wives cooperate in household chores
  and responsibilities.
• They engage in exchange interactions.
• Married people experience conflicts in their
  relationship.
• The husband and wife whose marriage is damaged
  may find themselves in competition.

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Statuses

• Socially defined positions that people occupy.
• Master status - One of the multiple statuses a
  person occupies that seems to dominate the others
  in patterning a persons life.
• Ascribed statuses - Statues conferred by factors
  not controlled by our own actions or decisions.
• Achieved status - Statuses occupied as a result
  of an individuals actions.

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Statuses

• Common status
• Protestant, college graduate, African American,
  and teacher.
• Occupational status
• Doctor, computer analyst, bank teller, police
  officer, butcher, insurance adjuster, thief, and
  prostitute
• Nonoccupational status
• Son, daughter, jogger, friend, Little League
  coach, neighbor, gang leader, and mental patient.

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Statuses
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Question

• Family position, gender and racial identity are
  examples of
• achieved statuses.
• a role set.
• normative statuses.
• ascribed statuses.

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Answer D

• Family position, gender and racial identity are
  examples of ascribed statuses.

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Roles

• The culturally defined rules for proper behavior
  that are associated with every status.
• Role set - All the roles attached to a single
  status.
• Role strain - Conflicting demands attached to the
  same role.
• Role conflict - An inability to enact the roles
  of one status without violating those of another
  status.

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Roles
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Question

• A mother is torn between going to her son's
  soccer game or attending her daughter's ballet
  recital. This would be an example of
• role conflict.
• role strain.
• role playing.
• her role set.

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Answer B

• A mother is torn between going to her son's
  soccer game or attending her daughter's ballet
  recital. This would be an example of role strain.

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Social Institutions

• The ordered social relationships that grow out of
  the values, norms, statuses, and roles that
  organize those activities that fulfill societys
  fundamental needs.

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Society

• A grouping of people who share the same territory
  and participate in a common culture.
• Organized societies are rare among mammals with
  the exception of the wolf pack, the prairie dog
  town, and the baboon troop.
• Society is universal among humans and must have
  performed major adaptive functions that increased
  the chances of human survival.

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Types of Societies

• Hunting and food-gathering
• Horticultural
• Pastoral
• Agricultural
• Industrial and postindustrial

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Hunting and Food GatheringSocieties

• Early societies foraged for vegetables and small
  game, fished, collected shellfish, and hunted
  larger animals.
• They subsisted on whatever was at hand and when
  the food in an area was exhausted they moved on.
• Anthropologists estimate that humans hunted for 1
  million years, but it has been only 10,000 years
  since people began to experiment with the
  possibilities of organized agriculture.

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Horticultural Societies

• 12-15,000 years ago, a drying trend took place in
  what had been subtropical climates, and the
  deserts of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East
  developed.
• Some groups began to cultivate gardens and
  fields.
• It appears women invented horticulture by
  planting seeds with the goal of having a sure
  source of food later, by observing the
  relationship between seeds and plant growth.

35
Pastoral Societies

• Rely on herding and the domestication and
  breeding of animals for food and clothing.
• Pastoral societies appear in many regions that
  are not suitable for agriculture such as semiarid
  desert regions and the northern tundra plains of
  Europe and Asia.
• Pastoralism almost never occurs in forests or
  jungles.

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Agricultural Societies

• Societies that use the plow in food production.
• Plowing turns the topsoil deeper, allowing for
  better fertilization and producing more food.
• By 5500 B.C. farmers in the Middle East were
  using the plow and irrigation.
• Reliance on agriculture had dramatic consequences
  for society.
• Populations came together and gave rise to cities
  and new social arrangements.

37
Agricultural Societies

• For the first time society was not organized
  principally in terms of kinship.
• As cities developed, the need arose for some
  central authority that could serve the interests
  of the leaders by enabling them to collect taxes
  and create a military to protect the new centers
  of population.
• These developments led to the emergence of the
  centralized state.

38
Industrial Revolution

• Developed in the mid-18th century and gained
  momentum by the turn of the 19th century.
• In 1798, Eli Whitney built the first American
  factory for the mass production of guns.
• By the mid-1800s the invention of the steam
  locomotive and Henry Besemers development of
  large-scale production techniques at his
  steelworks in England, brought the industrial
  revolution into full swing.

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Industrial Societies

• Industrial societies use mechanical means of
  production instead of human or animal power.
• They require an immense, mobile, specialized,
  skilled and well-coordinated labor force.
• Industrial societies usually have an educational
  system open to all.
• They require an organized system of exchange
  between the suppliers of raw materials and
  industrial manufacturers and between
  manufacturers and consumers.

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Industrial Societies

• All industrial societies have at least two social
  classes
• A large labor force that produces goods and
  services but has little or no influence on what
  is done with them.
• A much smaller class that determines what will be
  produced and how it will be distributed.

41
Postindustrial Society

• Postindustrial societies depend on specialized
  knowledge to bring about continuing progress in
  technology.
• The computer and biotech industries are integral
  parts of postindustrial society.
• Postindustrial societies depend on a
  well-educated population.
• The economies of postindustrial societies are
  service oriented and more than half of theUnited
  States work is involved in service occupations.

42
Question

• An educational system open to all is a hallmark
  of ________ societies.
• hunting and gathering
• pastoral
• agricultural
• industrial

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Answer D

• An educational system open to all is a hallmark
  of industrial societies.

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Quick Quiz
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• 1. According to Hall, which of the following is
  not a part of the context of social interaction?
• The physical setting.
• The social environment.
• The relative power of each of the participants.
• The activities surrounding the interaction.

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Answer C

• According to Hall, the relative power of each of
  the participants is not a part of the context of
  social interaction.

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• 2. When people get together to promote common
  interests or achieve shared goals it is known as
• exchange.
• cooperation.
• conflict.
• competition.

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Answer B

• When people get together to promote common
  interests or achieve shared goals it is known as
  cooperation.

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• 3. Role conflict is likely to occur when an
  individual
• is unable to accomplish the tasks of the
  different roles.
• is having difficulty accomplishing the tasks of
  different roles.
• has a number of statuses that have different
  goals.
• is not able to meet the demands of a single
  status.

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Answer c

• Role conflict is likely to occur when an
  individual has a number of statuses that have
  different goals.

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• 4. The primary difference between conflict and
  competition is that
• conflict has negative effects on individuals.
• no one benefits in a conflict.
• competition is regulated by agreed upon rules.
• competition results in change.

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Answer C

• The primary difference between conflict and
  competition is that competition is regulated by
  agreed upon rules.

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• 5. _________________ is anything people are
  conscious of doing because of other people.
  _________________ involves two or more people
  taking one another into account.

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Answer social action, social interaction

• Social action is anything people are conscious of
  doing because of other people. Social interaction
  involves two or more people taking one another
  into account.