Sociology Social Groups and Organizations Intro, Groups, Aggregates, and Categories, Group Classifications & Social Integration
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Introduction
Though individuality is positive and natural, we all need other people in our lives, and we form alliances with others every day. One of the most basic ways to arrange human beings is into groups. Large or small, groups serve many functions. They give an individual a sense of identity, as well as meet individual needs such as the need for emotional intimacy. In some groups, we have close personal ties to the other members. Other groups are so large and impersonal that we might never get to meet the other members. Some groups work to accomplish a task, and others meet just because the members feel a personal connection to one another.
As societies modernize, the sizes and purposes of groups change. In nonindustrialized societies, few groups exist, but in large, industrialized societies, residents commonly claim membership in a wide variety of groups. Because many types of society are so different from one another, it only makes sense that groups can differ widely in importance, purpose, and prevalence depending on the society in which they exist.
Groups, Aggregates, and Categories
Sociological study relies on the ability to classify the people being studied in order to arrive at correct conclusions. Classifications include groups, aggregates, and categories.
Groups
A group consists of two or more people who are distinct in the following three ways:
- Interact over time.
- Have a sense of identity or belonging.
- Have norms that nonmembers don’t have.
Example: A class of students is a group. Classes by definition consist of more than two people, meet at least a few times a week for an entire semester, and identify themselves on the basis of what classes they are taking. Students in a class must follow that professor’s class and test schedule, as well as rules for behavior and contribution in class.
Many different types of groups exist in industrialized societies, including school classes, social clubs, sports teams, neighborhood associations, religious communities, and volunteer organizations. Within any group, it is not uncommon for a few people to have an especially close relationship and form a clique, which is an internal cluster or faction within a group.
Aggregate
The word group is sometimes confused with the word aggregate. An aggregate is a collection of people who happen to be at the same place at the same time but who have no other connection to one another.
Example: The people gathered in a restaurant on a particular evening are an example of an aggregate, not a group. Those people probably do not know one another, and they’ll likely never again be in the same place at the same time.
Category
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.
Example: Categories of people might include people who have green eyes, people who were born in Nevada, and women who have given birth to twins.
Group Classifications
Humans have a natural tendency to form groups, and a single person can be a part of several groups at a time.
Primary Groups and Secondary Groups
A person can belong to several groups at once, but not all of those groups will be of the same importance or have the same effect or role in his or her life.
A primary group offers a great deal of intimacy. Members of a primary group meet the following criteria:
- Meet frequently on a face-to-face basis.
- Have a sense of identity or belonging that lasts a long time.
- Share little task orientation.
- Have emotional intimacy.
A secondary group is more formal and less personal. Members of a secondary group meet the following criteria:
- Do not meet frequently, or they meet only for short periods of time.
- Share a sense of identity or belonging only until the group ends.
- Are task-oriented.
- Feel little emotional intimacy.
Example: A family is an example of a primary group, and an after-school job in a fast-food restaurant is an example of a secondary group.
Criterion
Family (primary group)
After-school job (secondary group)
Frequency of meeting
Every day for years or decades
Several hours a week, probably less or none if the person finds a different job
Duration of sense of identity
A lifetime, despite changes in comp-osition (moving out, divorce, remarriage, or death)
Usually disappears when not at place of work
Task orientation
None. A person belongs to family simply by virtue of existence.
A person is there to accomplish a specific task and do his or her job.
Emotional intimacy
Strong. Family members see each other at their best and worst and are privy to one another’s feelings.
It is inappropriate to show strong emotion or to discuss personal problems. Relation-ships are generally impersonal and work-related.
Social Integration
Social integration is the degree to which an individual feels connected to the other people in his or her group or community.
Durkheim’s Study of Suicide
The term social integration first came into use in the work of French sociologist Émile Durkheim. Durkheim wanted to understand why some people were more likely than others to take their own lives.
Durkheim’s term for a lack of social integration was anomie. He concluded that three characteristics put some people at a higher risk of suicide than others, and that anomie was partly to blame:
- Gender (male): In most societies, men have more freedom and are more independent than women. While this might sound like a good thing, it can lead some men to feel that they have few significant relationships with other people and that it would be an admission of weakness to seek advice or comfort from others. This can lead to feelings of being cut off from a group or community.
- Religion (Protestant): Durkheim felt that Protestants were more likely to commit suicide than Catholics or Jews because the religious practices of the latter two religions emphasize the development of closer ties among their members. People who do not develop close ties with others are more likely to commit suicide.
- Marital status (single): Durkheim used the idea of social integration to explain the higher suicide rate among unmarried people. He concluded that people who were not married had fewer connections to other people and were less likely to feel part of the larger community.
Durkheim’s connection of social integration to the suicide rate is still relevant today. People who attempt suicide are much more likely to say they feel lonely and isolated from others and claim to have few significant relationships, confirming what Durkheim hypothesized over one hundred years ago.
Group Dynamics
The term group dynamics implies that our thoughts and behaviors are influenced by the groups to which we belong and that, in turn, we influence how the group as a whole thinks and behaves.
Example: Children’s behavior is influenced by the behavior of other children. Clothing styles, speech patterns, and mannerisms spread quickly among groups of children. When a few children in a classroom begin using a particular expression, soon all the kids in the class will be using the same expression.
This example illustrates two ways in which group dynamics work. First, one or two children adopt a mannerism and it spreads to the group. After the majority of the group has adopted it, it is very likely that other individual children will adopt it. Groups influence individuals, and individuals influence groups.
Adults are also influenced by the behavior of others. When adults voluntarily join a new group, they usually want to fit in and show others that they are worthy of membership. New members of a group are even more likely to be influenced by group dynamics because they don’t want to seem obstinate or contrary. It usually takes a while before the new member is able to influence the thoughts and behavior of the group.
Group Size and Member Interaction
Georg Simmel was one of the first sociologists to look at how the size of a group affects interactions among its members. Simmel believed that in a dyad, a group of two people, interactions were intense and very personal. He also believed that a dyad was the least stable category of groups. A marriage is an example of a dyad. Simmel further said that a triad, a group of three people, was much more stable because conflicts between two of its members could be mediated by the third person. In general, Simmel believed that larger groups were more stable than smaller groups, but that in smaller groups the interactions between members were more intense and more intimate.
In the early 1950s, Solomon Asch conducted an experiment that illustrated how strongly group membership can influence behavior. He found that one-third of the subjects he tested were influenced by the group’s consensus, even though the group was obviously incorrect.
Social Pressure
To analyze the power of groups, Asch solicited students for a study of visual perception. Before the experiment began, he told all but one of the group of eight that the real purpose was to pressure the remaining person into going along with the group’s decision. He showed the group two cards—one with one line, another with three lines of varying heights. The students were supposed to identify the line on the second card that was the same length as the line on the first card. The correct choice was easy to identify. Most students made the appropriate choice until Asch’s accomplices began answering incorrectly. One third of all participants conformed to the group and answered incorrectly.
Sociology Social Groups and Organizations Intro, Groups, Aggregates, and Categories, Group Classifications & Social Integration