Sociology Social Groups and Organizations Groups Within Society & Quick Review
To view other note of Sociology Click Here.
Groups Within Society
Each society is made up of smaller groups and associations that are built on social class, personal interest, or common goals.
The Power Elite
Sociologist C. Wright Mills used the term power elite to refer to his theory that the United States is actually run by a small group representing the most wealthy, powerful, and influential people in business, government, and the military. According to Mills, their decisions dictate the policies of this country more than those of the voting public. Mills also pointed out that the influence of the power elite overlaps into many different areas. For example, a wealthy businessman may make large contributions to a particular political candidate.
Voluntary Associations
A voluntary association is a group that people choose to join, in which members are united by the pursuit of a common goal. Some voluntary associations operate on the local level, such as the parent-teacher organization at a particular school. Membership in any given PTA is voluntary, and the members unite to achieve the goal of encouraging communication between parents and teachers in the hope of benefiting local education.
Some voluntary associations operate on a statewide level, such as a campaign to reelect a particular state politician. Others function on a nationwide basis, such as the Girl Scouts or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Still others are international.
Voluntary associations can be temporary or permanent.
- In a temporary voluntary association, the group disbands once the common goal is achieved.
Example: A voluntary association forms to protest a particular piece of legislation. The association dissolves once the law is repealed.
- In a permanent voluntary association, the group exists as long as individuals are interested in belonging to it.
Example: Many individuals who join Alcoholics Anonymous remain active members for the rest of their lives.
Formal Organizations
A formal organization is a secondary group organized to achieve specific goals. Formal organizations tend to be larger and more impersonal than voluntary associations. There are many formal organizations in industrialized countries, but few exist in nonindustrialized societies.
Example: A corporation is usually a formal organization. Corporations tend to be large and are characterized by secondary relations among their employees. The goal of most corporations is very specific: to increase profits.
Bureaucracy
As identified by the sociologist Max Weber, a bureaucracy is a type of formal organization in which a rational approach is used to handle large tasks. Weber believed that as societies modernize, they become more rational, resulting in the creation of bureaucracies. As they industrialize, they grow larger, which means that the tasks to be accomplished become more numerous and complex.
Weber was convinced that bureaucracies would gain increasing power over modern life. Before long, almost every aspect of society would be governed by bureaucratic rules and regulations. Weber called this process the rationalization of society.
The Bureaucracy of Communication
Before industrialization, communication was accomplished simply and most often in person or via messenger. Today, we must be able to communicate with members of our own society as well as those in other societies. One of the most popular communications media is the telephone. The amount of information transmitted over telephone lines through faxes, modems, and telephones is enormous, and the company entrusted to provide this service, the phone company, has become a classic example of a bureaucracy.
Characteristics of a Bureaucracy
According to Weber, a bureaucracy has several characteristics that distinguish it from other formal organizations.
- A bureaucracy is characterized by a division of labor. In a bureaucracy, people specialize in the performance of one type of work. Using the phone company as an example, there are people who handle customers’ bills, others who provide directory information, and others who climb the poles and repair the wires. The people who repair the wires do not handle customers’ bills and vice versa.
- In a bureaucracy, there are written rules for how jobs are to be performed. All jobs in a certain category must be performed exactly the same way, regardless of who is doing the work. All of the people who perform a specific job receive similar training, and the same standards for job performance are applied equally to everyone.
- Jobs are arranged in a hierarchy. If the workplace were a pyramid, the top levels would represent upper management and the bottom levels would represent the rank-and-file workers. The top spot is usually occupied by a single person, while the bottom levels are occupied by an increasing number of jobs. Each level assigns tasks to the level below it, and each level reports to the level above it.
- Official communication is written down to minimize confusion and to facilitate the organization and maintenance of records. Keeping written or electronic records documents the performance of individuals, departments, and the corporation as a whole. Communication is also written because it is more reliable and not susceptible to an individual’s memory lapses or inaccurate interpretation of information.
- Employees have an impersonal relationship with the organization. The most important factors of a bureaucracy are the office and the job, not the individual doing the job. Each employee’s loyalty should be to the organization, and not to the individual to whom they report.
Ideal Type
Weber’s original concept of a bureaucracy represented an ideal type. An ideal type is a description of how an organization should ideally be run and is often very different from how it operates in reality. In Weber’s view, if everyone did exactly as they were supposed to and no one deviated from their assigned tasks in any way, the bureaucracy would operate perfectly, and all goals would be accomplished. But in a complex bureaucracy, what exists on paper may bear little resemblance to reality.
Bureaucratic Goals
All bureaucracies have officially stated goals, which are sometimes called missions or objectives. One of the most common goals of all bureaucracies—usually unstated—is simply self-perpetuation. No bureaucratic organization wants to face extinction. When a bureaucracy’s stated goals are met or prove to be unrealizable, the organization must come up with new goals in order to continue to exist. This is called goal displacement (sometimes called goal replacement). Goal displacement occurs when an organization displaces one goal with another in order to continue to exist.
Example: The National Foundation for the March of Dimes was organized in the 1930s with the specific goal of eradicating polio. Approximately twenty years later, Dr. Jonas Salk developed a vaccine for the crippling disease, and the March of Dimes was faced with the bittersweet reality of having to admit that its mission had been accomplished. Rather than face extinction, however, the nonprofit organization displaced their original goal with a new one: the eradication of birth defects. Birth defects, in all their myriad forms, will probably never be totally eliminated, so the National Foundation for the March of Dimes will continue to exist for many years to come.
Networking
Bureaucracies and other formal organizations are often large and impersonal. Newcomers may be daunted when other members are unfamiliar, and the sheer size and complexity of the company can be disconcerting. In a vast organization, successful navigation requires the formation of networks. A network is a series of social ties that can be important sources of information, contacts, and assistance for its members.
Example: Mary joins a large corporation as an accountant. At first, she feels like an outsider because she seems to have little in common with anybody, and she is one of only two female accountants in the company. She introduces herself to that accountant and they start having lunch together once a week. Soon, other female executives join in, and the size of the group increases. Eventually, female executives from other companies join the group, and an effective network emerges. They talk about changes in accounting law, workplace problems, and job opportunities. As time goes on, new members might be added to the network, and existing members might drop out. However, the network will continue to exist as long as there is a need for the information, contacts, and assistance it can provide.
Problems with Bureaucracies
Though bureaucracies can be efficient, many problems can hinder them.
On paper, bureaucracies appear to be the most rational approach to accomplishing stated goals, but human beings are not always rational.
- In formulating the ideal type bureaucracy, Weber did not allow for the inevitable formation of primary relationships, which are antithetical to the stated goals of a bureaucracy because loyalty shifts from the organization to the individual. Primary relationships tend to develop in bureaucracies because people feel a sense of alienation, or feelings that they are being treated as objects rather than people.
Sometimes the rules and regulations in a bureaucracy grow rigid to the point of inefficiency.
- If a person with a Ph.D. applies for a job as a college professor and is told to present his or her high school diploma as part of the required paperwork, the bureaucracy’s regulations are too rigid and may hurt that bureaucracy’s chances of hiring a quality employee.
In some bureaucracies, so much literal and figurative distance exists between the highest and the lowest ranks that the bureaucracy is rendered ineffective.
- In many corporations, those making the decisions have never actually done the work of the people their decisions affect, so their directives are either insufficient to solve the problems at hand or are ignored altogether. In an ideal bureaucracy, all directives are carried out exactly as they are issued. To do otherwise contributes to inefficiency.
Iron Law of Oligarchy
Sociologist Robert Michels theorized that bureaucracies tend to be run by a small group of people at the top, who he believed acted primarily out of self-interest, and who carefully controlled outsiders’ access to power and resources. He called this the Iron Law of Oligarchy. The term oligarchy means the rule of many by the few.
Michels believed that top bureaucrats had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, which benefited them most of all. He said that positions of power, as well as access to resources such as money, were passed among the members of the group, thereby excluding outsiders. When a U.S. president takes office, he usually awards top cabinet posts to people he knows or to those who have been loyal to him in the past. Though policies such as term limits and checks and balances are supposed to prevent an oligarchy from developing at the highest levels of government, a close examination of a sitting president’s cabinet lends partial credence to Michels’s theory. If oligarchies go too far, however, they run the risk of provoking a backlash among the very people they are trying to govern.
Quick Review
Groups, Aggregates, and Categories
- A group consists of two or more people who interact over time, have a sense of identity and belonging, and have norms that make them act differently from nonmembers.
- An aggregrate is a collection of people who just happen to be in the same place at the same time.
- A category is a collection of people who share a particular characteristic. They do not necessarily interact with one another and have nothing else in common.
Group Classifications
- Primary groups tend to be small and are characterized by emotional intimacy among members.
- Secondary groups tend to be larger and meet primarily for the purpose of accomplishing some kind of task.
- An in-group is a group to which we belong and to which we feel a sense of loyalty.
- An out-group is a one to which we don’t belong and to which we don’t feel a sense of loyalty.
- For purposes of self-evaluation, people often turn to reference groups. Reference groups can be either primary or secondary in nature, or they can be general categories or even celebrities.
Social Integration
- It’s important to feel an emotional connection to one’s group or to one’s community. Such a feeling is called social integration.
- Émile Durkheim coined the term anomie to indicate a lack of social integration. He concluded that anomie was one factor in putting single, male Protestants at greater risk for suicide.
- Sociology also studies group dynamics, which is the term that implies that our thoughts and behaviors are influenced by the groups of which we are members. In turn, our thoughts and behaviors can influence those of other group members.
- Georg Simmel studied how group size affects interactions between group members. He found that a dyad, a group of two people, is less stable than a triad, a group of three people.
- Irving Janis coined the term groupthink to refer to the tendency of people in positions of power to follow the opinions of the group and to ignore any dissenting opinions.
Groups Within Society
- Each society is made up of smaller groups and associations.
- According to C. Wright Mills, the power elite, a small group representing the most powerful and influential people, runs the United States.
- A voluntary association is a group that we choose to join, in which the members are united by the pursuit of a common goal. These associations can be temporary or permanent.
- As societies modernize, groups change in size and purpose. A feature of modernized societies is the formal organization, a secondary group organized to achieve specific goals.
- A bureaucracy is an example of a formal organization that arises as a result of modernization. Weber argued that bureaucracies gain increasing power over everyday life in a process called rationalization of society.
- A bureaucracy is characterized by a division of labor, written rules, hierarchy, official communication, and impersonal relationships within the organization.
- Bureaucracies appear to be the most rational approach to accomplishing the stated goals, but human beings are not always rational. This conflict makes bureaucracies inefficient.
- Sociologist Robert Michels theorized that bureaucracies tend to be run by an oligarchy, a small, ruling group.
