Social Structure

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Social Structure
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Building Blocks of Social Structure

• Social structure is the network of interdependent
  statuses and roles that guide human interaction
• Status is a socially defined position in a group
  or in a society
• Role is the behaviorthe rights and
  obligationsexpected of someone occupying a
  particular status

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Status

• Statuses are ways to define people
• You can be more than one status at a time
• Example You are a student, an employee, a
  son/daughter, a teenager and a friend
• Ascribed v. Achieved statuses
• Ascribed means that you are assigned that status
  because of qualities beyond your control
• Example you are a teenager because of your age,
  you are an African American because of your DNA
• Achieved means you are that status because of
  something you did
• Example you are on the football team because you
  are good at sports
• Master status is the status that plays the
  biggest role in shaping a persons life and
  determining his or her social identity
• Can be ascribed or achieved
• Could be occupation, wealth, marital status, or
  parenthood

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Roles

• You occupy the status, but play the role
• This means that you are a son or daughter, but
  you have to play the role of son or daughter when
  you are home
• Reciprocal roles are those that require
  interaction with another role
• A husband cannot be a husband without someone
  providing the role of wife

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Role Expectation and Role Performance

• Role expectations-what are you expected to do
• Doctors are supposed to treat patients, parents
  care for children, children respect adults
• Role performance-what you actually do
• Doctors sometimes harm patients, parents mistreat
  their children, children dont always respect
  authority

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Role Conflict and Role Strain

• Role sets are all the different roles attached to
  a single status
• Because we hold many statuses, they sometime
  conflict with each other
• Role conflict is when fulfilling the role of one
  status conflicts with another
• Ex being a parent of a sick child and an
  employee means you have to leave one for the
  other
• Role strain is difficulty meeting the roles of
  one status
• A boss who must maintain morale while asking
  employees to work overtime

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Social Institutions

• When statuses are organized to satisfy one or
  more of the basic needs of society it is called a
  social institution
• There are several social institutions, however
  sociologists usually focus on the following
• Family
• Economy
• Politics
• Education
• Religion

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Types of Social Interaction

• Interactions takes on many forms
• There are five common forms of social
  interaction
• Exchange
• Competition
• Conflict
• Cooperation
• Accomodation

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Exchange

• Exchange occurs when someone interacts with
  another in order to illicit a response from the
  second party
• Exchange is the most basic form of social
  interaction includes dating, family, friends
• Reciprocity is the idea that if you do something
  for someone, they owe you something in return
• Could be material or nonmaterial-a thank you
  from your parents for doing the dishes
• Exchange theory is basically a self-motivation to
  interact with those that cause positive reward
  (repeat behaviors), and avoid behaviors regarding
  exchange that cause negative consequences
• Ex If you tell a joke that was really lame and
  people made fun of you, you would not tell that
  joke again, if the joke got a positive response
  you would tell others

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Competition

• Competition occurs when two or more people or
  groups oppose each other to achieve a goal that
  only one can attain
• Common feature of Western societies
• Positive motivator but leads to lack of unity,
  inequality, and conflict

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Conflict

• Conflict is the deliberate attempt to control a
  person by force, to oppose someone, or to harm
  another person
• There are four major sources of conflict wars,
  disagreements within groups, legal disputes, and
  clashes over ideology
• Conflict is not always negative
• Can strengthen a group (focusing on outside
  threats instead of differences)
• Lead to social change by making opposing sides
  seek solutions

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Cooperation

• Cooperation occurs when two or more people work
  together to achieve a goal that will help more
  than one person
• Cooperation is a social process that gets things
  done
• Group cannot achieve goal without cooperation
  from its members
• Football, for example, cannot be played unless
  the offense and the defense are willing to work
  together and the quarterback and the wide
  receiver are on the same page

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Accommodation

• Accommodation is the balance between conflict and
  cooperation
• Example If you buy a video game the store owner
  is accommodating you by giving you the game in
  exchange for 50
• If the owner were in cooperation with you, he
  would give it to you for free
• If the owner were in conflict with you, he would
  refuse to sell it to you
• A compromise (someone gives up something in order
  to make peace) and a truce are the two common
  forms of accommodations
• In a truce (agree to disagree until a solution is
  found) you may use mediation (have a third party
  give you ideas based on both sides) or
  arbitration (have a third party decide what is to
  be done)

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Types of Societies

• A group is a set of people who interact on the
  basis of shared expectations and who possess some
  degree of commonality
• A subsistence strategy is the way a society uses
  technology to provide for the needs of its
  members
• This is how sociologists often classify societies
• The three broad groups are called preindustrial,
  industrial, or postindustrial

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Hunters and Gathers

• Food production, carried out through human and
  animal labor, is the main economic activity
• They are divided according to their method of
  producing food
• Hunting and Gathering Societies collect wild
  plants and hunt wild game
• They do not build permanent villages
• Generally have fewer than 60, rarely 100
• Family is the main social unit
• Family is related by birth or marriage

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Pastoral

• Pastoral Societies rely on domesticated herd
  animals to meet their food needs
• They can support larger societies since food
  supply is reliable
• Live nomadic lives, moving their herds from
  pasture to pasture
• Since their were fewer people needed to make
  food, a division of labor developed
• Division of labor means that people specialized
  in performance of specific economic activities
• Ex. People became craftworkers, tool makers, etc.
• This encouraged trade

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Horticultural and Agricultural

• Both are more complicated than pastoral and the
  hunters and gathers
• Bartering, exchange of goods and services, grew
  out of agricultural societies
• Typically systems of writing and government
  emerge out of ag. societies

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Industrial Societies

• Focuses more on producing goods as main economic
  activity
• Causes a shift from home life setting (where most
  preindustrial societies work) to city life where
  factories are built
• This leads to urbanization which is the
  concentration of population in cities
• See more competition for status

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Postindustrial

• Economy is based on providing information and
  services
• This is what the US is
• About 73 of our workforce is based on info and
  services
• When switching from industrial to postindustrial,
  the standard of living increase, as well as a
  belief in rights

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Groups within society

• Society is a group made up of groups
• A group can be as small as two people on a date,
  or be large like 500 soldiers at boot camp
• A group can be either intimate like a family or
  formal like people at a conference
• There are four major features of a group
• There must be two or more people
• There must be interaction among members
• There must be shared expectations
• Members must possess some commonality

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Groups within society

• If the groups do not possess interaction,
  expectations, and commonality then they are
  considered an aggregate-group that lacks
  organization
• A social category is a means of classifying
  people (they do not necessarily have to interact
  in any way)
• Ex women, teenagers, etc. are examples of social
  categories

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Groups within society

• Group size
• Dyad-a group with two members
• If one person leaves, the group ceases to exist
• Triad-a group of three people
• The group takes on a life of its own, no one
  person can cause the group to stop existing
• Small group-means that everyone can interact on a
  face-to-face basis
• The more people in the group, the more
  face-to-face interaction has to take place
• Sociologists have found 15 people is the largest
  number for a group before it begins to break down
  into smaller groups

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Groups within society

• Group Time
• Some groups meet once and they never see each
  other again, some groups see each other everyday
• Interaction is not continuous, you do not see
  your family 24 hours a day
• Organization
• Formal group-structure, goals, and activities are
  clearly defined
• Informal group-there is no official structure or
  established rules of conduct

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Types of Groups

• The most common types of groups are
• Primary
• Secondary
• Reference
• In-groups
• Out-groups
• E-communities

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Primary and Secondary Groups

• Primary-small group of people who interact over a
  relatively long period
• Entire self of individual is taken into account
• Relationships often intimate and face-to-face
• Secondary-interaction is impersonal and temporary
  in nature
• Casual, limited personal involvement
• Importance to group lies in what function he or
  she performs
• Can be replaced easily

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Reference, In-Groups and Out-Groups

• Reference groups-any group with whom individuals
  identify and whose behaviors and values they
  adopt
• Thug mentality, Christian groups, etc
• Do not have to belong to the group
• In-Groups-A group that a person belongs to and
  identifies with
• Out-groups-Any group that a person does not
  identify with or belong to
• In-groups tend to separate themselves by use of
  symbols, clothes, etc. they view themselves
  positively and out-groups negatively they find
  themselves in conflict with out-groups

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E-Communities and Social Networks

• E-communities are where people communicate
  regularly through internet
• Some believe that these groups are primary groups
  because they interact on a more intimate level,
  but not face-to-face
• The web of relationships that is formed by the
  sum of a persons interactions with others is
  called a social network

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Group Functions

• Groups must do several things to exist
• Define boundaries (who can/cannot belong)
• Select leaders (people who influence the
  attitudes and opinions of others)
• Leader fall into two categories Instrumental
  (task-oriented) leader and Expressive
  (emotion-oriented) leaders
• Perform related functions of setting goal,
  assigning tasks, making decisions
• Control their members behavior

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The Structure of Formal Organizations

• Formal organization is a large, complex secondary
  group that had been established to achieve
  specific goals
• Includes businesses, schools, government
  agencies, religious organizations, labor unions
• Bureaucracy is a ranked authority structure that
  operates according to specific rules and
  procedures
• Most formal structure
• Been around since ancient times, came to
  prominence during Industrial Revolution
• Rationality involves subjecting every feature of
  human behavior to calculation, measurement, and
  control
• Bureaucracies were created to rationally organize
  groups to complete a set of goals

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Webers Model of Bureaucracies

• According to Weber bureaucracies have the
  following characteristics
• Division of Labor
• Ranking of Authority
• Employment based on formal qualifications
• Rules and Regulations
• Specific lines of promotion and advancement
• Large corporations fit this description rigidly,
  other organizations like voluntary (nonprofit)
  associations are less rigid

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How Effective are Bureaucracies?

• Bureaucracies advantages
• Create order by clearly defining job tasks and
  rewards
• Provide stability
• Weaknesses
• Lose sight of original goals
• Focus too much on rules instead of goals
• Iron Law of Oligarchy-a small group rules the
  larger group (sometimes promoting their own
  interests over others)
• People rise to their level of incompetence