Sociology and External Links

Introduction to
Sociology
Edition 1.0 6th March 2006
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Note: current version of this book can be found at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Sociology 2
Contents
INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY.........................................................................1
AUTHORS...............................................................................................................6
INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................7
What is Sociology?...............................................................................................................7
History....................................................................................................................8
Sociology and Other Social Sciences ....................................................................11
Sociology Today......................................................................................................................13
Technology and the Social Sciences..................................................................................................................13
References .............................................................................................................13
External links ........................................................................................................14
SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS ..................................................................................15
Introduction...........................................................................................................15
The Development of Social Science ......................................................................16
The Scientific Method............................................................................................17
Correlation and Causation ....................................................................................21
Quantitative and Qualitative.................................................................................23
Objective vs. Critical..............................................................................................24
Ethics......................................................................................................................24
What Can Sociology Tell Us? ................................................................................25
Notes .....................................................................................................................26
References ............................................................................................................26
External Links ......................................................................................................26
GENERAL SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY....................................................................27
Introduction..........................................................................................................27
Structural-Functionalism......................................................................................28
Conflict Theory .....................................................................................................30
Symbolic Interactionism.......................................................................................31
Role Theory............................................................................................................32
Social Constructionism .........................................................................................34
Integration Theory ................................................................................................34
Notes ......................................................................................................................35
References .............................................................................................................35
External Links .......................................................................................................36
SOCIETY ................................................................................................................38
Introduction..........................................................................................................38
Societal Development...........................................................................................38
Classical Views on Social Change.........................................................................44
Notes ....................................................................................................................47
References ...........................................................................................................47
External Links .....................................................................................................48
CULTURE ............................................................................................................50
Introduction........................................................................................................50
Subcultures & Countercultures...........................................................................53
Ethnocentrism & Cultural Relativism.................................................................54
Theories of Culture .............................................................................................55
Cultural Change...................................................................................................56
Cultural Sociology: Researching Culture ...........................................................57
Notes ....................................................................................................................58
References ...........................................................................................................58
External links ......................................................................................................59
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SOCIALIZATION .................................................................................................60
What is Socialization?.......................................................................................................60
Elements of Socialization ...................................................................................60
Theoretical Understandings of Socialization.....................................................64
Research Examples .............................................................................................65
Notes ...................................................................................................................67
References ..........................................................................................................67
History.................................................................................................................68
GROUPS ..............................................................................................................69
Introduction........................................................................................................69
Social Identity Theory ........................................................................................71
Primary and Secondary Groups..........................................................................74
Leadership...........................................................................................................75
Conformity ..........................................................................................................75
Reference Groups................................................................................................75
Ingroups and Outgroups ....................................................................................75
Group Size............................................................................................................75
Networks .............................................................................................................80
Notes ...................................................................................................................84
References ..........................................................................................................84
External Links ....................................................................................................85
DEMOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................87
Introduction.......................................................................................................87
Why study demography? ...................................................................................87
History................................................................................................................87
Data and Methods.............................................................................................87
The Demographic Transition ...........................................................................92
Population Growth and Overpopulation.........................................................94
Notes .................................................................................................................99
References ........................................................................................................99
External Links ..................................................................................................100
HUMAN SEXUALITY.........................................................................................102
DEVIANCE AND NORMS..................................................................................102
Introduction.....................................................................................................102
Theories of Deviance .......................................................................................103
Crime Statistics ................................................................................................107
Social Control ..................................................................................................116
Notes ................................................................................................................117
References ........................................................................................................117
History...............................................................................................................117
External Links ...................................................................................................117
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY ......................................................................................118
Subfields.............................................................................................................118
SP 's three angles of research .............................................................................118
The concerns of social psychology.....................................................................119
Empirical methods .............................................................................................120
Relation to other fields ......................................................................................121
Major perspectives in social psychology ...........................................................125
Well-known cases, studies, and related works .................................................130
History.................................................................................................................131
References ..........................................................................................................131
Related topics......................................................................................................131
AGEING................................................................................................................132
RACE AND ETHNICITY........................................................................................133
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Race and Ethnicity ...............................................................................................3.

……….

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.a33
The Changing Definitions of Race ...................................................................................................................133
Social Construct or Biological Lineage? .........................................................................................................135
Prejudice, Bias, and Discrimination ................................................................................................................140
Racism.............................................................................................................................................................141
Notes ...............................................................................................................................................................145
References .......................................................................................................................................................145
External links ..................................................................................................................................................146
GENDER................................................................................................................................................................148
Gender vs. Sex.................................................................................................................................................148
Biological Differences.....................................................................................................................................150
Social and Psychological D……………. ferences..............................................................................................................151 Sexism .............................................................................................................................................................152
Gender Theory ................................................................................................................................................153
Research Examples .........................................................................................................................................156
Notes ...............................................................................................................................................................156
References .......................................................................................................................................................156
External Links .................................................................................................................................................157
STRATIFICATION...................................................................................................................................................159
Introduction.....................................................................................................................................................159
Objective vs. Subjective Poverty ......................................................................................................................159
Socioeconomic Status......................................................................................................................................160
Global Inequality ............................................................................................................................................160
U.S. Inequality ................................................................................................................................................162
Theories of Stratification.................................................................................................................................162
Notes ...............................................................................................................................................................166
References .......................................................................................................................................................167
External Links .................................................................................................................................................167
ORGANIZATIONS...................................................................................................................................................168
FAMILY.................................................................................................................................................................168
Family cross-culturally ...................................................................................................................................168
Family in the West...........................................................................................................................................169
Economic role of the family .............................................................................................................................170
Kinship terminology........................................................................................................................................170
Western kinship terminology...........................................................................................................................171
See also ...........................................................................................................................................................173
References .......................................................................................................................................................174
External links ..................................................................................................................................................174
THE ECONOMY......................................................................................................................................................175
RELIGION..............................................................................................................................................................176
Introduction.....................................................................................................................................................176
Definitions of Religion ....................................................................................................................................176
The Church-Sect Typology..............................................................................................................................178
Theories of Religion ........................................................................................................................................181
World Religions and Religious History............................................................................................................185
Religion and Other Social Factors...................................................................................................................186
The Future of Religion ....................................................................................................................................188
Notes ...............................................................................................................................................................191
References .......................................................................................................................................................191
External Links .................................................................................................................................................193
POLITICS...............................................................................................................................................................193
GOVERNMENT ......................................................................................................................................................193
MEDIA..................................................................................................................................................................193
EDUCATION ..........................................................................................................................................................194
5
Overview .........................................................................................................................................................194
Origins of the Word "Education" .....................................................................................................................194
Formal Education ...........................................................................................................................................194
Technology and Education..............................................................................................................................195
History of education........................................................................................................................................195
Challenges in education..................................................................................................................................195
Parental involvement ......................................................................................................................................197
References .......................................................................................................................................................197
HEALTH AND MEDICINE........................................................................................................................................198
Introduction.....................................................................................................................................................198
The Evolution of Health Care and Medicine....................................................................................................199
Health Disparities ...........................................................................................................................................203
Paying for Medical Care.................................................................................................................................206
Behavior and Environmental Influences on Health .........................................................................................214
References .......................................................................................................................................................221
External links ..................................................................................................................................................222
COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOUR......................................................................................................................................224
Introduction.....................................................................................................................................................224
Crowds ............................................................................................................................................................224
Theories of Crowd Behavior ............................................................................................................................225
Diffuse Crowds................................................................................................................................................226
Research Examples .........................................................................................................................................227
Notes ...............................................................................................................................................................227
References .......................................................................................................................................................227
External Links .................................................................................................................................................228
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS ............................................................................................................................................229
Introduction.....................................................................................................................................................229
Types of Social Movements ..............................................................................................................................229
Stages in Social Movements .............................................................................................................................230
Social Movement Theories ...............................................................................................................................231
Examples of Social Movements.......................................................................................................................235
Notes ...............................................................................................................................................................235
References .......................................................................................................................................................235
External Links .................................................................................................................................................236
HUMAN ECOLOGY.................................................................................................................................................237
LICENSE................................................................................................................................................................238
GNU Free Documentation License ..................................................................................................................238
0. PREAMBLE ................................................................................................................................................238
1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS ........................................................................................................238
2. VERBATIM COPYING................................................................................................................................239
3. COPYING IN QUANTITY...........................................................................................................................239
4. MODIFICATIONS ......................................................................................................................................239
5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS......................................................................................................................240
6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS ............................................................................................................240
7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS .....................................................................................241
8. TRANSLATION...........................................................................................................................................241
9. TERMINATION...........................................................................................................................................241
10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE................................................................................................241
External links ..................................................................................................................................................241
6
Authors
· Exmoron Ryan T. Cragun, PhD student at the University of Cincinnati
· Contribution: Initial book layout and the development of most of the first 15 chapters
· Deborahcragun Deborah Cragun, MS Human Genetics; employed as a genetic counselor at
Cincinnati Children 's Hospital Medical Center
· Contribution: Developed the chapters on health care and medicine and race and ethnicity.
7
Introduction
Introduction
Sociology is the study of human social life. Because human social life is so expansive, sociology has many sub-sections of study, ranging from the analysis of conversations to the development of theories to try to understand how the entire world works. This chapter will introduce you to sociology and explain why it is important, how it can change your perspective of the world around you, and give a brief history of the discipline.
What is Sociology?
The social world is changing. Some argue it is growing; others say it is shrinking. The important point to grasp is: society does not remain unchanged over time. As will be discussed in more detail below, sociology has its roots in significant societal changes (e.g., the industrial revolution, the creation of empires, and the enlightenment of scientific reasoning). Early practitioners developed the discipline as an attempt to understand societal changes.
Some early sociological theorists (e.g., Marx, Weber, and Durkheim) were disturbed by the social processes they believed to be driving the change, such as the quest for solidarity, the attainment of social goals, and the rise and fall of classes, to name a few examples. While details of the theories that these individuals developed are discussed later in this book, it is important to note at this point that the founders of sociology were some of the earliest individuals to employ what C. Wright Mills (1959) labeled the sociological imagination: the ability to situate personal troubles within an informed framework of social issues.
Mills proposed that "[w]hat the [people] need... is a quality of mind that will help them to use information and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within themselves. The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals" (Mills 1959). As Mills saw it, the sociological imagination could help individuals cope with the social world by helping them to step outside of their personal worldview and thus seeing the events and social structure that influence their behavior, attitudes, and culture.
The sociological imagination goes beyond armchair sociology or common sense. Most people believe they understand the world and the events taking place within it. Humans like to attribute causes to events and attempt to understand what is taking place around them. This is why individuals have been using religious ceremonies for centuries to invoke the will of the gods - because they believed the gods controlled certain elements of the natural world (e.g., the weather). Just as the rain dance is an attempt to understand how the weather works without using empirical analysis, armchair sociology is an attempt to understand how the social world works without employing scientific methods.
It would be dishonest to say sociologists never sit around (even sometimes in comfy armchairs)
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trying to figure out how the world works. But in order to test their theories, sociologists get up from their armchairs and enter the social world. They gather data and evaluate their theories in light of the data they collect. Sociologists do not just propose theories about how the social world works. Sociologists test their theories about how the world works using the scientific method. ##Who are some famous sociologists who use statistical methods to test theories?##
Sociologists, like all humans, have values, beliefs, and even pre-conceived notions of what they might find in doing their research. But, as Peter Berger (1963) argued, what distinguishes the sociologist from non-scientific researchers is that "[the] sociologist tries to see what is there. He may have hopes or fears concerning what he may find. But he will try to see, regardless of his hopes or fears. It is thus an act of pure perception..." (Berger 1963).
Sociology, then, is an attempt to understand the social world by situating social events in their corresponding environment (i.e., social structure, culture, history) and trying to understand social phenomena by collecting and analyzing empirical data.
History
Sociology is a relatively new academic discipline. It emerged in the early 19th century in response to the challenges of modernity. Increasing mobility and technological advances resulted in the increasing exposure of people to cultures and societies different from their own.
The impact of this exposure was varied, but for some people included the breakdown of traditional norms and customs and warranted a revised understanding of how the world works.
Sociologists responded to these changes by trying to understand what holds social groups together and also explore possible solutions to the breakdown of social solidarity.
Auguste Comte and Other Founders
Auguste Comte, who coined the term sociology
The term sociology was coined by Auguste Comte (1798-1857) in 1838 from the Latin term
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socius (companion, associate) and the Greek term logia (study of, speech). Comte hoped to unify all the sciences under sociology; he believed sociology held the potential to improve society and direct human activity, including the other sciences.
While it is no longer a theory employed in Sociology, Comte argued for an understanding of society he labeled The Law of Three Stages. Comte, not unlike other enlightenment thinkers, believed society developed in stages.
· The first was the theological stage where people took a religious view of society.
· The second was the metaphysical stage where people understood society as natural (not supernatural). Comte 's final stage was the scientific or positivist stage, which he believed to be the pinnacle of social development. In the scientific stage, society would be governed by reliable knowledge and would be understood in light of the knowledge produced by science, primarily sociology.
While vague connections between Comte 's Law and human history can be seen, it is generally understood in Sociology today that Comte 's approach is a highly simplified and ill-founded approach to understand social development (see instead demographic transition theory and
Ecological-Evolutionary Theory).
Other classical theorists of sociology from the late 19th and early 20th centuries include Karl
Marx, Ferdinand Toennies, Emile Durkheim, Vilfredo Pareto, and Max Weber. As pioneers in
Sociology, most of the early sociological thinkers were trained in other academic disciplines, including history, philosophy, and economics. The diversity of their trainings is reflected in the topics they researched, including religion, education, economics, psychology, ethics, philosophy, and theology. Perhaps with the exception of Marx, their most enduring influence has been on sociology, and it is in this field that their theories are still considered most applicable. 10
The Development of the Discipline
Max Weber
The first book with the term sociology in its title was written in the mid-19th century by the
English philosopher Herbert Spencer. In the United States, the first Sociology course was taught at the University of Kansas, Lawrence in 1890 under the title Elements of Sociology (the oldest continuing sociology course in America). The first full fledged university department of sociology in the United States was established in 1892 at the University of Chicago by Albion
W. Small, who in 1895 founded the American Journal of Sociology. The first European department of sociology was founded in 1895 at the University of Bordeaux by Emile
Durkheim, founder of L 'AnnÃ(c)e Sociologique (1896). In 1919 a sociology department was established in Germany at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich by Max Weber and in 1920 in Poland by Florian Znaniecki. The first sociology departments in the United
Kingdom were founded after the Second World War.
International cooperation in sociology began in 1893 when Rene Worms founded the small
Institut International de Sociologie that was eclipsed by the much larger International
Sociologist Association starting in 1949. In 1905 the American Sociological Association, the world 's largest association of professional sociologists, was founded.
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Karl Marx
Early Sociological Studies
Early sociological studies considered the field to be similar to the natural sciences like physics or biology. As a result, many researchers argued that the methodology used in the natural sciences were perfectly suited for use in the social sciences, including Sociology. The effect of employing the scientific method and stressing empiricism was the distinction of sociology from theology, philosophy, and metaphysics. This also resulted in sociology being recognized as an empirical science. This early sociological approach, supported by August Comte, led to positivism, a methodological approach based on sociological naturalism.
However, as early as the 19th century, positivist and naturalist approaches to studying social life were questioned by scientists like Wilhelm Dilthey and Heinrich Rickert, who argued that the natural world differs from the social world, as human society has culture, unlike the societies of other animals (e.g., ants, dolphins, etc. operate from nature or ecology as opposed to that of civilisation). This view was further developed by Max Weber, who introduced the concept of verstehen. Verstehen is a research approach in which outside observers of a culture relate to an indigenous people on the observer 's own terms.
The positivist and verstehen approaches have modern counterparts in sociological methodologies: quantitative and qualitative sociology. Quantitative sociology focuses on measuring social phenomena using numbers and quantities while qualitative sociology focuses on understanding social phenomena. It is disingenuous to claim these two approaches must be or are generally distinct; many sociologists employ both methods in trying to understand the social world.
Sociology and Other Social Sciences
The social sciences comprise the application of scientific methods to the study of the human aspects of the world. Psychology studies the human mind and micro-level (or individual) behavior; sociology examines human society; political science studies the governing of groups and countries; communication studies the flow of discourse via various media; economics concerns itself with the production and allocation of wealth in society; and social work is the
12
application of social scientific knowledge in society. Social sciences diverge from the humanities in that many in the social sciences emphasize the scientific method or other rigorous standards of evidence in the study of humanity.
The Development of Social Science
In ancient philosophy, there was no difference between the liberal arts of mathematics and the study of history, poetry or politics - only with the development of mathematical proof did there gradually arise a perceived difference between scientific disciplines and the humanities or liberal arts. Thus, Aristotle studied planetary motion and poetry with the same methods, and
Plato mixed geometrical proofs with his demonstration on the state of intrinsic knowledge.
This unity of science as descriptive remained, for example, in the time of Thomas Hobbes who argued that deductive reasoning from axioms created a scientific framework; his book,
Leviathan, was a scientific description of a political commonwealth. Within decades of Hobbes ' work a revolution took place in what constituted science, particularly with the work of Isaac
Newton in physics. Newton, by revolutionizing what was then called natural philosophy, changed the basic framework by which individuals understood what was scientific.
While Newton was merely the archetype of an accelerating trend, the important distinction is that for Newton the mathematical flowed from a presumed reality independent of the observer and it worked by its own rules. For philosophers of the same period, mathematical expression of philosophical ideals were taken to be symbolic of natural human relationships as well: the same laws moved physical and spiritual reality. For examples see Blaise Pascal, Gottfried
Leibniz and Johannes Kepler, each of whom took mathematical examples as models for human behavior directly. In Pascal 's case, the famous wager; for Leibniz, the invention of binary computation; and for Kepler, the intervention of angels to guide the planets.
In the realm of other disciplines, this created a pressure to express ideas in the form of mathematical relationships. Such relationships, called Laws after the usage of the time (see philosophy of science) became the model that other disciplines would emulate. In the late 19th century, attempts to apply equations to statements about human behavior became increasingly common. Among the first were the Laws of philology, which attempted to map the change overtime of sounds in a language. In the early 20th century, a wave of change came to science that saw statistical study sufficiently mathematical to be science.
The first thinkers to attempt to combine scientific inquiry with the exploration of human relationships were Sigmund Freud in Austria and William James in the United States. Freud 's theory of the functioning of the mind and James ' work on experimental psychology had an enormous impact on those who followed.
One of the most persuasive advocates for the view of scientific treatment of philosophy is John
Dewey (1859-1952). He began, as Marx did, in an attempt to weld Hegelian idealism and logic to experimental science, for example in his Psychology of 1887. However, it is when he abandoned Hegelian constructs and joined the movement in America called Pragmatism that he began to formulate his basic doctrine on the three phases of the process of inquiry:
13
1. problematic Situation, where the typical response is inadequate
2. isolation of Data or subject matter
3. reflective, which is tested empirically
With the rise of the idea of quantitative measurement in the physical sciences (see, for example
Lord Rutherford 's famous maxim that any knowledge that one cannot measure numerically "is a poor sort of knowledge"), the stage was set for the conception of the humanities as being precursors to social science.
Sociology Today
Although sociology emerged in Comte 's vision of sociology eventually subsuming all other areas of scientific inquiry, sociology did not replace the other sciences. Instead, sociology has developed a particular niche in the study of social life.
In the past, sociological research focused on the organization of complex, industrial societies and their influence on individuals. Today, sociologists study a broad range of topics. For instance, some sociologists research macro-structures that organize society, such as race or ethnicity, social class, gender roles, and institutions such as the family. Other sociologists study social processes that represent the breakdown of macro-structures, including deviance, crime, and divorce. Additionally, some sociologists study micro-processes such as interpersonal interactions and the socialization of individuals. It should also be noted that recent sociologists, taking cues from anthropologists, have realized the Western emphasis of the discipline. In response, many sociology departments around the world are now encouraging multi-cultural research. The next two chapters in this book will introduce the reader to more extensive discussions of the methods and theory employed in sociology. The remaining chapters are examinations of current areas of research in the discipline
Technology and the Social Sciences
The Social Sciences are also known pejoratively as the soft sciences (in contrast to the hard sciences like physics, chemistry, and biology). However, there is a recent move to integrate and include considerations from the social sciences to the development of technology derived from the hard sciences. On the other hand, a sub-topic of organisational behaviour, business process, may now be patented in some countries.
References
· John J. Macionis, Sociology (10th Edition), Prentice Hall, 2004, ISBN 0131849182
· C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination, Oxford University Press, 1961, ISBN
0195133730
14
· Peter L. Berger, Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective, Anchor, 1963, ISBN
0385065299
This page also draws heavily upon the following wikipedia resources:
· sociology
· social science
External links
· American Sociological Association
· Analysing and Overcoming the Sociological Fragmentation in Europe: European Virtual
Library of Sociology
· A Century of Sociology at University of Kansas, by Alan Sica (Adobe Acrobat PDF file)
· International Sociological Association
· The Sociolog. Comprehensive Guide to Sociology
· Social Science Virtual Library
15
Sociological methods
Introduction
The goal of this chapter is to introduce the methods employed by sociologists in their study of social life. This is not a chapter on statistics nor does it detail specific methods in sociological investigation. The primary aim is to illustrate how sociologists go beyond common sense understandings in trying to explain or understand social phenomena.
Sociology vs. Common Sense
Common sense, in everyday language, is understood as "the unreflective opinions of ordinary people" or "sound and prudent but often unsophisticated judgment" (Merriam-Webster).
Sociology and other social sciences have been accused of being nothing more than the sciences of common sense. While there is certainly some basis for the accusation - some of the findings of sociology do confirm common sense understandings of how society seems to work - sociology goes well beyond common sense in its pursuit of knowledge. Sociology does this by applying scientific methodology and empiricism to social phenomena. It is also interesting to note that common sense understandings can develop from sociological investigations. Past findings in sociological studies can make their way into everyday culture, resulting in a common sense understanding that is actually the result of sociological investigation. Examples of sociological investigation refuting and serving as the foundation for common sense are provided below.
The workings behind common sense is that people usually do not have a word for their thoughts about society that can be summed into one word. Sociology helps provide the words to alter multiple thoughts into a defined word.
In the 1970s and early 1980s a New Religious Movement was gaining notoriety for its rapid expansion. This movement, The Unification Church or The Moonies, was heavily criticized because it encouraged members to give up all of their ties to non-members of the religion and to move in to movement centers to realize the movement 's vision of a better world. Accusations of brainwashing were common; it was believed The Moonies were forcing people to join the movement and give up their previous lives against their will. In order to determine if the common sense accusations were accurate, Eileen Barker (1984) undertook a lengthy sociological investigation to explore how people came to affiliate with The Moonies. She found that converts to The Unification Church were not being forced into the religion against their will but instead were making a reasoned decision to join the movement. While there was pressure for people to join the movement, the pressure was not such that it attracted more than a small fraction of the people who were introduced to the movement. In other words, the movement did not brainwash its followers; it provided a new and alternative worldview, but did not force anyone to adopt it. Of course, the social ties people developed once they joined the movement made it difficult for members to leave. But this isn 't anything particularly new: members of many religions and denominations that have been around much longer than The
16
Moonies find it difficult to leave because of their social attachments. What Barker 's research uncovers is that The Moonies were only being accused of brainwashing because (1) they were a New Religious Movement and (2) they encouraged a distinct separation from the outside world. This is a common accusation leveled at New Religious Movements, especially those that demand significant commitments from their members. This example illustrates how sociology can test common sense understandings of social processes.
An example of sociology providing a basis for common sense is the research of William
Chambliss (1973) on social status and deviance. Chambliss observed two groups of young men to see how their presented selves matched their actual behaviors. The two groups were dubbed
The Saints and The Roughnecks. The Saints came from the middle-class and, in the eyes of their parents, teachers, and even law enforcement, were like saints - they could do no wrong.
The Roughnecks, on the other hand, came from lower-class families and were consistently accused of wrong-doing. What Chambliss found in observing the two groups was that The
Saints were actually far more deviant than The Roughnecks, but they got away with it because they were able to commit their deviant acts outside of their home town and compellingly portray themselves as upstanding young citizens. The Roughnecks, because of their lack of mobility and funds, were more likely to commit their deviant acts in public and in their hometown, leading local people to see them as extreme deviants. Chambliss 's findings, while not pervasively seen as common sense, are increasingly so. People are coming to realize that the public portrayal of one 's self may not actually represent one 's private activities. This is often the case with serial killers and was even portrayed in the movie Murder by Numbers.
The Development of Social Science
In ancient philosophy, there was no difference between the liberal arts of mathematics and the study of history, poetry or politics - only with the development of mathematical proof did there gradually arise a perceived difference between scientific disciplines and the humanities or liberal arts. Thus, Aristotle studied planetary motion and poetry with the same methods, and
Plato mixed geometrical proofs with his demonstration on the state of intrinsic knowledge.
This unity of science as descriptive remained, for example, in the time of Thomas Hobbes who argued that deductive reasoning from axioms created a scientific framework; his book,
Leviathan, was a scientific description of a political commonwealth. Within decades of Hobbes ' work a revolution took place in what constituted science, particularly with the work of Isaac
Newton in physics. Newton, by revolutionizing what was then called natural philosophy, changed the basic framework by which individuals understood what was scientific.
While Newton was merely the archetype of an accelerating trend, the important distinction is that for Newton the mathematical flowed from a presumed reality independent of the observer and it worked by its own rules. For philosophers of the same period, mathematical expression of philosophical ideals were taken to be symbolic of natural human relationships as well: the same laws moved physical and spiritual reality. For examples see Blaise Pascal, Gottfried
Leibniz and Johannes Kepler, each of whom took mathematical examples as models for human behavior directly. In Pascal 's case, the famous wager; for Leibniz, the invention of binary computation; and for Kepler, the intervention of angels to guide the planets.
17
In the realm of other disciplines, this created a pressure to express ideas in the form of mathematical relationships. Such relationships, called Laws after the usage of the time (see philosophy of science) became the model that other disciplines would emulate. In the late 19th century, attempts to apply equations to statements about human behavior became increasingly common. Among the first were the Laws of philology, which attempted to map the change over time of sounds in a language. In the early 20th century, a wave of change came to science that saw statistical study sufficiently mathematical to be science.
The first thinkers to attempt to combine scientific inquiry with the exploration of human relationships were Sigmund Freud in Austria and William James in the United States. Freud 's theory of the functioning of the mind and James ' work on experimental psychology had an enormous impact on those who followed.
With the rise of the idea of quantitative measurement in the physical sciences (see, for example
Lord Rutherford 's famous maxim that any knowledge that one cannot measure numerically "is a poor sort of knowledge"), the stage was set for the conception of the humanities as being precursors to social science.
The Scientific Method
A scientific method or process is considered fundamental to the scientific investigation and acquisition of new knowledge based upon verifiable evidence. In addition to employing the scientific method in their research, sociologists explore the social world with several different purposes in mind. Like the physical sciences (i.e., chemistry, physics, etc.), sociologists can be and often are interested in predicting outcomes given knowledge of the variables and relationships involved. This approach to doing science is often termed positivism. The positivist approach to social science seeks to explain and predict social phenomena, often employing a quantitative approach. But unlike the physical sciences, sociology (and other social sciences, specifically anthropology) also often seek for understanding social phenomena. Max Weber labeled this approach Verstehen, which is German for understanding. In this approach, which is similar to ethnography, the goal is to understand a culture or phenemon on its own terms rather than trying to predict it. Both approaches employ a scientific method as they make observations and gather data, propose hypotheses, and test their hypotheses in the formulation of theories.
These steps are outlined in more detail below.
Sociologists use observations, hypotheses and deductions to propose explanations for social phenomena in the form of theories. Predictions from these theories are tested. If a prediction turns out to be correct, the theory survives. The method is commonly taken as the underlying logic of scientific practice. A scientific method is essentially an extremely cautious means of building a supportable, evidenced understanding of our natural world.
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The essential elements of a scientific method are iterations and recursions of the following four steps: 1. Characterization (operationalization or quantification, observation and measurement)
2. Hypothesis (a theoretical, hypothetical explanation of the observations and measurements) 3. Prediction (logical deduction from the hypothesis)
4. Experiment (test of all of the above; in the social sciences, true experiments are often replaced with a different form of data analysis that will be discussed in more detail below)
Characterization
A scientific method depends upon a careful characterization of the subject of the investigation.
While seeking the pertinent properties of the subject, this careful thought may also entail some definitions and observations; the observation often demands careful measurement and/or counting. The systematic, careful collection of measurements or counts of relevant quantities is often the critical difference between pseudo-sciences, such as alchemy, and a science, such as chemistry.
Scientific measurements taken are usually tabulated, graphed, or mapped, and statistical manipulations, such as correlation and regression, performed on them. The measurements might be made in a controlled setting, such as a laboratory, or made on more or less inaccessible or unmanipulatable objects such as human populations. The measurements often require specialized scientific instruments such as thermometers, spectroscopes, or voltmeters, and the progress of a scientific field is usually intimately tied to their invention and development. Measurements demand the use of operational definitions of relevant quantities (a.k.a. operationalization). That is, a scientific quantity is described or defined by how it is measured, as opposed to some more vague, inexact or idealized definition. The operational definition of a thing often relies on comparisons with standards: the operational definition of mass ultimately relies on the use of an artifact, such as a certain kilogram of platinum kept in a laboratory in
France.
The scientific definition of a term sometimes differs substantially from its natural language usage. For example, sex and gender are often used interchangeably in common discourse, but have distinct meanings in sociology. Scientific quantities are often characterized by their units of measure which can later be described in terms of conventional physical units when communicating the work.
Measurements in scientific work are also usually accompanied by estimates of their uncertainty. The uncertainty is often estimated by making repeated measurements of the desired quantity. Uncertainties may also be calculated by consideration of the uncertainties of the individual underlying quantities that are used. Counts of things, such as the number of
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people in a nation at a particular time, may also have an uncertainty due to limitations of the method used. Counts may only represent a sample of desired quantities, with an uncertainty that depends upon the sampling method used and the number of samples taken.
Hypothesis Development
A hypothesis includes a suggested explanation of the subject. It will generally provide a causal explanation or propose some correlation between two variables. If the hypothesis is a causal explanation, it will involve at least one dependent variable and one independent variable.
Variables are measurable phenomena whose values can change (e.g., class status can range from lower- to upper-class). A dependent variable is a variable whose values are presumed to change as a result of the independent variable. In other words, the value of a dependent variable depends on the value of the independent variable. Of course, this assumes that there is an actual relationship between the two variables. If there is no relationship, then the value of the dependent variable does not depend on the value of the independent variable. An independent variable is a variable whose value is manipulated by the experimenter (or, in the case of nonexperimental analysis, changes in the society and is measured). Perhaps an example will help clarify. In a study of the influence of gender on promotion, the independent variable would be gender/sex. Promotion would be the dependent variable. Change in promotion is hypothesized to be dependent on gender.
Scientists use whatever they can â€" their own creativity, ideas from other fields, induction, systematic guessing, etc. â€" to imagine possible explanations for a phenomenon under study.
There are no definitive guidelines for the production of new hypotheses. The history of science is filled with stories of scientists claiming a flash of inspiration, or a hunch, which then motivated them to look for evidence to support or refute their idea.
Prediction
A useful hypothesis will enable predictions, by deductive reasoning, that can be experimentally assessed. If results contradict the predictions, then the hypothesis under examination is incorrect or incomplete and requires either revision or abandonment. If results confirm the predictions, then the hypothesis might be correct but is still subject to further testing.
Predictions refer to experimental designs with a currently unknown outcome. A prediction (of an unknown) differs from a consequence (which can already be known).
Experiment
Once a prediction is made, an experiment is designed to test it. The experiment may seek either confirmation or falsification of the hypothesis.
Scientists assume an attitude of openness and accountability on the part of those conducting an experiment. Detailed record keeping is essential, to aid in recording and reporting on the experimental results, and providing evidence of the effectiveness and integrity of the procedure.
They will also assist in reproducing the experimental results.
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The experiment 's integrity should be ascertained by the introduction of a control. Two virtually identical experiments are run, in only one of which the factor being tested is varied. This serves to further isolate any causal phenomena. For example in testing a drug it is important to carefully test that the supposed effect of the drug is produced only by the drug. Doctors may do this with a double-blind study: two virtually identical groups of patients are compared, one of which receives the drug and one of which receives a placebo. Neither the patients nor the doctor know who is getting the real drug, isolating its effects. This type of experiment is often referred to as a true experiment because of its design. It is contrasted with alternative forms below. Once an experiment is complete, a researcher determines whether the results (or data) gathered are what was predicted. If the experimental conclusions fail to match the predictions/hypothesis, then one returns to the failed hypothesis and re-iterates the process. If the experiment appears successful - i.e. fits the hypothesis - the experimenter often will attempt to publish the results so that others (in theory) may reproduce the same experimental results, verifying the findings in the process.
An experiment is not an absolute requirement. In observation based fields of science actual experiments must be designed differently than for the classical laboratory based sciences. Due to ethical concerns and the sheer cost of manipulating large segments of society, sociologists often turn to other methods for testing hypotheses. In lieu of holding variables constant in laboratory settings, sociologists employ statistical techniques (e.g., regression) that allow them to control the variables in the analysis rather than in the data collection. For instance, in examining the effects of gender on promotions, sociologists may control for the effects of social class as this variable will likely influence the relationship. Unlike a true experiment where these variables are held constant in a laboratory setting, sociologists use statistical methods to hold constant social class (or, better stated, partial out the variance accounted for by social class) so they can see the relationship between gender and promotions without the interference of social class. Thus, while the true experiment is ideally suited for the performance of science, especially because it is the best method for deriving causal relationships, other methods of hypothesis testing are commonly employed in the social sciences. Evaluation and Iteration
The scientific process is iterative. At any stage it is possible that some consideration will lead the scientist to repeat an earlier part of the process. For instance, failure of a hypothesis to produce interesting and testable predictions may lead to reconsideration of the hypothesis or of the definition of the subject.
It is also important to note that science is a social enterprise, and scientific work will become accepted by the community only if it can be verified. Crucially, experimental and theoretical results must be reproduced by others within the scientific community. All scientific knowledge is in a state of flux, for at any time new evidence could be presented that contradicts a longheld hypothesis. For this reason, scientific journals use a process of peer review, in which scientists ' manuscripts are submitted by editors of scientific journals to (usually one to three)
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fellow (usually anonymous) scientists familiar with the field for evaluation. The referees may or may not recommend publication, publication with suggested modifications, or, sometimes, publication in another journal. This serves to keep the scientific literature free of unscientific work, helps to cut down on obvious errors, and generally otherwise improves the quality of the scientific literature. Work announced in the popular press before going through this process is generally frowned upon. Sometimes peer review inhibits the circulation of unorthodox work, and at other times may be too permissive. The peer review process is not always successful, but has been very widely adopted by the scientific community.
The reproducibility or replication of scientific observations, while usually described as being very important in a scientific method, is actually seldom reported, and is in reality often not done. Referees and editors often reject papers purporting only to reproduce some observations as being unoriginal and not containing anything new. Occasionally reports of a failure to reproduce results are published - mostly in cases where controversy exists or a suspicion of fraud develops. The threat of failure to replicate by others, however, serves as a very effective deterrent for most scientists, who will usually replicate their own data several times before attempting to publish.
Sometimes useful observations or phenomena themselves cannot be reproduced. They may be rare, or even unique events. Reproducibility of observations and replication of experiments is not a guarantee that they are correct or properly understood. Errors can all too often creep into more than one laboratory.
Correlation and Causation
In the scientific pursuit of prediction and explanation, two relationships between variables are often confused: correlation and causation. Correlation refers to a relationship between two (or more) variables in which they change together. A correlation can be positive/direct or negative/inverse. A positive correlation means that as one variable increases (e.g., ice cream consumption) the other variable also increases (e.g., crime). A negative correlation is just the opposite; as one variable increases (e.g., socioeconomic status), the other variable decreases
(e.g., infant mortality rates).
Causation refers to a relationship between two (or more) variables where one variable causes the other. In order for a variable to cause another, it must meet the following three criteria:
· the variables must be correlated
· one variable must precede the other variable in time
· it must be shown that a different (third) variable is not causing the change in the two variables of interest (a.k.a., spurious correlation)
An example may help explain the difference. Ice cream consumption (ICC) is positively correlated with incidents of crime.
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Employing the scientific method outlined above, the reader should immediately question this relationship and attempt to discover an explanation. It is at this point that a simple yet noteworthy phrase should be introduced: correlation is not causation. If you look back at the three criteria of causation above, you will notice that the relationship between ice cream consumption (ICC) and crime meets only one of the three criteria. The real explanation of this relationship is the introduction of a third variable: temperature. ICC and crime increase during the summer months. Thus, while these two variables are correlated, ICC does not cause crime or vice versa. Both variables increase due to the increasing temperatures during the summer months. 23
It is important to not confound a correlation with a cause/effect relationship. It is often the case that correlations between variables are found but the relationship turns out to be spurious.
Clearly understanding the relationship between variables is an important element of the scientific process.
Quantitative and Qualitative
Like the distinction drawn between positivist sociology and Verstehen sociology, there is often a distinction drawn between two types of sociological investigation: quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative methods of sociological research approach social phenomena from the perspective that they can be measured and/or quantified. For instance, social class, following the quantitative approach, can be divided into different groups - upper-, middle-, and lower-class - and can be measured using any of a number of variables or a combination thereof: income, educational attainment, prestige, power, etc. Quantitative sociologists tend to use specific methods of data collection and hypothesis testing, including: experimental designs, surveys, secondary data analysis, and statistical analysis.
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Qualitative methods of sociological research tend to approach social phenomena from the
Verstehen perspective. They are used to develop a deeper understanding of a particular phenomenon. They also often deliberately give up on quantity - necessary for statistical analysis - in order to reach a depth in analysis of the phenomenon studied. Even so, qualitative methods can be used to propose relationships between variables. Qualitatively oriented sociologists tend to employ different methods of data collection and hypothesis testing, including: participant observation, interviews, focus groups, content analysis and historical comparison. While there are sociologists who employ and encourage the use of only one or the other method, many sociologists see benefits in combining the approaches. They view quantitative and qualitative approaches as complementary. Results from one approach can fill gaps in the other approach. For example, quantitative methods could describe large or general patterns in society while qualitative approaches could help to understand how individuals understand those patterns. Objective vs. Critical
Sociologists, like all humans, have values, beliefs, and even pre-conceived notions of what they might find in doing their research. Because sociologists are not immune to the desire to change the world, two approaches to sociological investigation have emerged. By far the most common is the objective approach advocated by Max Weber. Weber recognized that social scientists have opinions, but argued against the expression of non-professional or non-scientific opinions in the classroom (1946:129-156). Weber took this position for several reasons, but the primary one outlined in his discussion of Science as Vocation is that he believed it is not right for a person in a position of authority (a professor) to force his/her students to accept his/her opinions in order for them to pass the class. Weber did argue that it was okay for social scientists to express their opinions outside of the classroom and advocated for social scientists to be involved in politics and other social activism. The objective approach to social science remains popular in sociological research and refereed journals because it refuses to engage social issues at the level of opinions and instead focuses intently on data and theories.
The objective approach is contrasted with the critical approach, which has its roots in Karl
Marx 's work on economic structures. Anyone familiar with Marxist theory will recognize that
Marx went beyond describing society to advocating for change. Marx disliked capitalism and his analysis of that economic system included the call for change. This approach to sociology is often referred to today as critical sociology (see also action research). Some sociological journals focus on critical sociology and some sociological approaches are inherently critical
(e.g., feminism, black feminist thought).
Ethics
Ethical considerations are of particular importance to sociologists because of the subject of investigation - people. Because ethical considerations are of so much importance, sociologists adhere to a rigorous set of ethical guidelines. A comprehensive explanation of sociological
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guidelines is provided on the website of the American Sociological Association. Some of the more common and important ethical guidelines of sociological investigation will be touched upon below.
The most important ethical consideration of sociological research is that participants in sociological investigation are not harmed. While exactly what this entails can vary from study to study, there are several universally recognized considerations. For instance, research on children and youth always requires parental consent. Research on adults also requires informed consent and participants are never forced to participate. Confidentiality and anonymity are two additional practices that ensure the safety of participants when sensitive information is provided
(e.g., sexuality, income, etc.). To ensure the safety of participants, most universities maintain an institutional review board (IRB) that reviews studies that include human participants and ensures ethical rigor.
As regards professional ethics, several issues are noteworthy. Obviously honesty in research, analysis, and publication is important. Sociologists who manipulate their data are ostracized and will have their memberships in professional organizations revoked. Conflicts of interest are also frowned upon. A conflict of interest can occur when a sociologist is given funding to conduct research on an issue that relates to the source of the funds. For example, if Microsoft were to fund a sociologist to investigate whether users of Microsoft 's products are happier than users of open source software, the sociologist would need to disclose the source of the funding as it presents a significant conflict of interest.
What Can Sociology Tell Us?
Having discussed the sociological approach to understanding society, it is worth noting the limitations of sociology. Because of the subject of investigation (society), sociology runs into a number of problems that have significant implications for this field of inquiry:
· human behavior is complex, making prediction - especially at the individual level - difficult or even impossible
· the presence of researchers can affect the phenomenon being studied (Hawthorne Effect)
· society is constantly changing, making it difficult for sociologists to maintain current understandings; in fact, society might even change as a result of sociological investigation (for instance, sociologists testified in the Brown v. Board of Education decision to integrate schools) · it is difficult for sociologists to remain objective when the phenomena they study is also part of their social life
While it is important to recognize the limitations of sociology, sociology 's contributions to our understanding of society have been significant and continue to provide useful theories and tools for understanding humans as social beings.
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Notes
References
· Barker, Eileen. 1984. The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing. Blackwell Publishers.
ISBN 0631132465
· Chambliss, William. 1973. The Saints and the Roughnecks. Society; 2(1).
· Weber, Max. 1946. Science As Vocation. Gerth, H. H. and Mills, C. Wright, Editors and
Translators. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press; pp.
129-156.
This chapter also draws heavily on the following Wikipedia articles:
· common sense
· scientific method
· Induction (philosophy)
· Deductive reasoning
· qualitative method
· hypothesis
· independent variable
· dependent variable
· Philosophy of science
External Links
· Resources for methods in social research
· Science as Vocation
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General sociological theory
Introduction
Sociologists develop theories to explain social phenomena. A theory is a proposed relationship between two or more concepts. To use the example from the previous chapter, one might propose the following theory:
Ice cream consumption and crime rates are correlated, increasing and decreasing together (the data). As a result, a theorist could propose that the consumption of ice cream results in angered individuals who then commit crimes (the theory).
Of course, this theory is not an accurate representation of reality. But, it illustrates the use of theory - to elucidate the relationship between two concepts; in this case, ice cream consumption and crime.
Sociological theory is developed at multiple levels, ranging from grand theory to highly contextualized and specific micro-range theories. There are literally thousands of middle-range and micro-range theories in sociology. Because such theories are dependent on context and specific to certain situations, it is beyond the scope of this text to explore each of those theories.
The purpose of this chapter is to introduce some of the more well-known and most commonly used grand and middle-range theories in sociology. For a brief explanation of the different levels of sociological theorizing, see Sociological Abstraction.
Importance of Theory
In the theory proposed above, the astute reader will notice that the theory includes two components. The data, the correlation between ice cream consumption and crime rates, and the proposed relationship. Data alone are not particularly informative. In fact, it is often said that 'data without theory is not sociology '. In order to understand the social world around us, it is necessary to employ theory to draw the connections between seemingly disparate concepts.
Take, for instance, Emile Durkheim 's class work Suicide. Durkheim was interested in explaining a social phenomenon, suicide, and employed both data and theory to offer an explanation. By aggregating data for large groups of people in Europe, Durkheim was able to discern patterns in suicide rates and connect those patterns with another concept (or variable): religious affiliation. Durkheim found that Protestants were more likely to commit suicide than were Catholics. At this point, Durkheim 's analysis was still in the data stage; he had not proposed an explanation of the relationship between religious affiliation and suicide rates. It was when Durkheim introduced the ideas of anomie (or chaos) and social solidarity that he began to formulate a theory. Durkheim argued that the looser social ties found in Protestant religions lead to weaker social cohesion and social solidarity and result in increased social anomie. The higher suicide rates were the result of weakening social bonds among Protestants, according to Durkheim.
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While Durkheim 's findings have since been criticized, his study is a classic example of the use of theory to explain the relationship between two concepts. Durkheim 's work also illustrates the importance of theory: without theories to explain the relationship between concepts, we would not be able to understand cause and effect relationships in social life or otherwise gain better understandings of social activity (i.e., Verstehen).
The Multiplicity of Theories
As the dominant theories in sociology are discussed below, the reader might be inclined to ask,
"Which of these theories is the best?" Rather than think of one theory being better than another, it is more useful and informative to view these theories as complementary. One theory may explain one element of a phenomenon (e.g., the role of religion in society - structuralfunctionalism) while another might offer a different insight on the same phenomenon (e.g., the decline of religion in society - conflict theory).
It may be difficult, initially at least, to take this perspective on sociological theory, but as you read some of the later chapters you will see that each of these theories is particularly useful at explaining some phenomena yet less useful in explaining other phenomena. If you approach the theories objectively from the beginning, you will find that there really are many ways to understand social phenomena.
Structural-Functionalism
Structural-Functionalism is a sociological theory that originally attempted to explain social institutions as collective means to meet individual biological needs (originally just functionalism). Later it came to focus on the ways social institutions meet social needs
(structural-functionalism).
Structural-functionalism draws its inspiration primarily from the ideas of Emile Durkheim.
Durkheim was concerned with the question of how societies maintain internal stability and survive over time. He sought to explain social cohesion and stability through the concept of solidarity. In more "primitive" societies it was mechanical solidarity, everyone performing similar tasks, that held society together. Durkheim proposed that such societies tend to be segmentary, being composed of equivalent parts that are held together by shared values, common symbols, or systems of exchanges. In modern, complex societies members perform very different tasks, resulting in a strong interdependence between individuals. Based on the metaphor of an organism in which many parts function together to sustain the whole, Durkheim argued that modern complex societies are held together by organic solidarity (think interdependent organs).
The central concern of structural-functionalism is a continuation of the Durkheimian task of explaining the apparent stability and internal cohesion of societies that are necessary to ensure their continued existence over time. Many functionalists argue that social institutions are functionally integrated to form a stable system and that a change in one institution will precipitate a change in other institutions. Societies are seen as coherent, bounded and fundamentally relational constructs that function like organisms, with their various parts (social
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institutions) working together to maintain and reproduce them. The various parts of society are assumed to work in an unconscious, quasi-automatic fashion towards the maintenance of the overall social equilibrium. All social and cultural phenomena are therefore seen as being functional in the sense of working together to achieve this state and are effectively deemed to have a life of their own. These components are then primarily analysed in terms of the function they play. In other words, to understand a component of society, one can ask the question,
"What is the function of this institution?" A function, in this sense, is the contribution made by a phenomenon to a larger system of which the phenomenon is a part (Hoult 1969:139).
Durkheim 's strongly sociological perspective of society was continued by Radcliffe-Brown.
Following Auguste Comte, Radcliffe-Brown believed that the social constituted a separate level of reality distinct from both the biological and the inorganic (here non-living). Explanations of social phenomena therefore had to be constructed within this social level, with individuals merely being transient occupants of comparatively stable social roles. Thus, in structuralfunctionalist thought, individuals are not significant in and of themselves but only in terms of their social status: their position in patterns of social relations. The social structure is therefore a network of statuses connected by associated roles (Layton 1997:37-38).
Structural-functionalism was the dominant perspective of sociology between World War II and the Vietnam War.
Limitations
Structural-functionalism has been criticized for being unable to account for social change because it focuses so intently on social order and equilibrium in society. Another criticism of the structural-functionalism perspective involves the epistemological argument that functionalism attempts to describe social institutions solely through their effects and, as a result, does not explain the cause of those effects. Another philosophical problem with the structural-functional approach is the ontological argument that society does not have needs as a human being does; and even if society does have needs they need not be met.
Another criticism often leveled at structural-functionalist theory is that it supports the status quo. According to some opponents, structural-functionalism paints conflict and challenge to the status quo as harmful to society, and therefore tends to be the prominent view among conservative thinkers.
Manifest and Latent Functions
Merton (1957) proposed a distinction between manifest and latent functions. Manifest functions are the intended functions of a phenomenon in a social system. Latent functions are the unintended functions of a phenomenon in a social system. An example of manifest and latent functions is public education. The manifest purpose of public education is to increase the knowledge and abilities of the citizenry. The latent function of the public education system is the development of a hierarchy of the learned. The latent function has a significant impact on society as it often translates into social class distinctions: people with higher educational attainment tend to make more money than those with lower educational attainment
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Conflict Theory
Conflict theory argues that society is not about solidarity or social consensus but rather about competition. Society is made up of individuals competing for limited resources (e.g., money, leisure, sexual partners, etc.). Broader social structures and organizations (e.g., religions, government, etc.) reflect the competition for resources in their inherent inequalities; some people and organizations have more resources (i.e., power and influence) and use those resources to maintain their positions of power in society.
An example of the application of conflict theory is in understanding the gender make-up of the legislative branch of the U.S. government. Prior to the passage of the 19th Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States of America in 1920, women did not have the right to vote.
Given women 's inability to vote, it is not surprising men held all of the positions of power in the U.S. government. The men who held the positions of power in the U.S. government were also in a position to maintain their power because they controlled the legislative process that could enfranchise women. This scenario illustrates how conflict and inequality can be integrated in social structures - men were in a position of power and many of them were motivated to maintain that power by continuing to refuse the right to vote to women. The passage of the 19th Amendment can also be explained using conflict theory in that powerful forces joined together (Women 's Suffrage) to effectuate change.
Conflict theory was developed in part to illustrate the limitations of structural-functionalism.
The structural-functional approach argued that society tends toward equilibrium. The structural-functional approach focuses on stability at the expense of social change. This is contrasted with the conflict approach, which argues that society is constantly in conflict over resources. One of the primary contributions conflict theory presents over the structuralfunctional approach is that it is ideally suited for explaining social change, a significant problem in the structural-functional approach.
The following are three primary assumptions of modern conflict theory:
· Competition over scarce resources is at the heart of all social relationships. Competition rather than consensus is characteristic of human relationships.
· Inequalities in power and reward are built into all social structures. Individuals and groups that benefit from any particular structure strive to see it maintained.
· Change occurs as a result of conflict between competing interests rather than through adaptation. Change is often abrupt and revolutionary rather than evolutionary.
Conflict theory was elaborated in the United Kingdom by Max Gluckman and John Rex, in the
United States by Lewis A. Coser and Randall Collins, and in Germany by Ralf Dahrendorf, all of whom were influenced by Karl Marx, Ludwig Gumplovicz, Vilfredo Pareto, Georg Simmel, and other founding fathers of European sociology.
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Limitations
Somewhat ironically, the primary limitation of the social-conflict perspective is that it overlooks the stability of societies. While societies are in a constant state of change, much of the change is minor. Many of the broader elements of societies remain remarkably stable over time, indicating the structural-functional perspective has a great deal of merit.
Harking back to the introduction, the reader might remember the advanced notice given that sociological theory is often complementary. This is particularly true of structuralfuncationalism and social-conflict theories. Structural-functionalism focuses on equilibrium and solidarity; conflict-theory focuses on change and conflict. Keep in mind that neither is better than the other; when combined, the two approaches offer a broader and more comprehensive view of society.
Symbolic Interactionism
Symbolic Interactionism is a theoretical approach to understanding the relationship between humans and society. The basic notion of symbolic interactionism is that human action and interaction are understandable only through the exchange of meaningful communication or symbols. In this approach, humans are portrayed as acting as opposed to being acted upon
(Herman and Reynolds 1994).
The main principles of symbolic interactionism as outlined by Blumer (1986) are:
1. human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings that things have for them
2. these meanings arise of out of social interaction
3. social action results from a fitting together of individual lines of action
This approach stands in contrast to the strict behaviorism of psychological theories prevalent at the time it was first formulated (in the 1920s and 1930s), behaviorism and ethology, and also contrasts with structural-functionalism. According to Symbolic Interactionism, humans are distinct from infrahumans (lower animals) because infrahumans simply respond to their environment (i.e., a stimulus evokes a response or stimulus -> response) whereas humans have the ability to interrupt that process (i.e., stimulus -> cognition -> response). Additionally, infrahumans are unable to conceive of alternative responses to gestures. Humans, however, can.
This understanding should not be taken to indicate that humans never behave in a strict stimulus -> response fashion, but rather that humans have the capability of not responding in that fashion (and do so much of the time).
This perspective is also rooted in phenomenological thought (see social constructionism and phenomonology). According to symbolic interactionism, the objective world has no reality for humans, only subjectively-defined objects have meaning. Meanings are not entities that are bestowed on humans and learned by habituation. Instead, meanings can be altered through the creative capabilities of humans, and individuals may influence the many meanings that form their society (Herman and Reynolds 1994). Human society, therefore, is a social product.
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It should also be noted that symbolic interactionists advocate a particular methodology.
Because they see meaning as the fundamental component of human/society interaction, studying human/society interaction requires getting at that meaning. Thus, symbolic interactionists tend to employ more qualitative rather than quantitative methods in their research. Additional information on Symbolic Interactionism can be found here
Limitations
The most significant limitation of the symbolic-interactionist perspective relates to its primary contribution: it overlooks macro social structures (e.g., norms, culture) as a result of focusing on micro-level interactions. Some symbolic interactionists, however, would counter that if role theory (see below) is incorporated into symbolic interactionism - which is now commonplace - this criticism is addressed.
Role Theory
Role Theory posits that human behavior is guided by expectations held both by the individual and by other people. The expectations correspond to different roles individuals perform or enact in their daily lives, such as secretary, father, or friend. For instance, most people hold pre-conceived notions of the role expectations of a secretary, which might include: answering phones, making and managing appointments, filing paperwork, and typing memos. These role expectations would not be expected of a professional soccer player.
Individuals generally have and manage many roles. Roles consist of a set of rules or norms that function as plans or blueprints to guide behavior. Roles specify what goals should be pursued, what tasks must be accomplished, and what performances are required in a given scenario or situation. Role theory holds that a substantial proportion of observable, day-to-day social behavior is simply persons carrying out their roles, much as actors carry out their roles on the stage or ballplayers theirs on the field. Role theory is, in fact, predictive. It implies that if we have information about the role expectations for a specified position (e.g., sister, fireman, prostitute), a significant portion of the behavior of the persons occupying that position can be predicted. What 's more, role theory also argues that in order to change behavior it is necessary to change roles; roles correspond to behaviors and vice versa. In addition to heavily influencing behavior, roles influence beliefs and attitudes; individuals will change their beliefs and attitudes to correspond with their roles. For instance, someone over-looked for a promotion to a managerial position in a company may change their beliefs about the benefits of management by convincing him/herself that they didn 't want the additional responsibility that would have accompanied the position.
Many role theorists see Role Theory as one of the most compelling theories bridging individual behavior and social structure. Roles, which are in part dictated by social structure and in part by social interactions, guide the behavior of the individual. The individual, in turn, influences the
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norms, expectations, and behaviors associated with roles. The understanding is reciprocal.
Role Theory includes the following propositions:
1. people spend much of their lives participating as members of groups and organizations
2. within these groups, people occupy distinct positions
3. each of these positions entails a role, which is a set of functions performed by the person for the group
4. groups often formalize role expectations as norms or even codified rules, which include what rewards will result when roles are successfully performed and what punishments will result when roles are not successfully performed
5. individuals usually carry out their roles and perform in accordance with prevailing norms; in other words, role theory assumes that people are primarily conformists who try to live up to the norms that accompany their roles
6. group members check each individual 's performance to determine whether it conforms with the norms; the anticipation that others will apply sanctions ensures role performance
For additional information on Role Theory see here.
Limitations
Role theory has a hard time explaining social deviance when it does not correspond to a prespecified role. For instance, the behavior of someone who adopts the role of bank robber can be predicted - she will rob banks. But if a bank teller simply begins handing out cash to random people, role theory would be unable to explain why (though role conflict could be one possible answer; the secretary may also be a Marxist-Communist who believes the means of production should belong to the masses and not the bourgeoisie).
Another limitation of role theory is that it does not and cannot explain how role expectations came to be what they are. Role theory has no explanation for why it is expected of male soldiers to cut their hair short, but it could predict with a high degree of accuracy that if someone is a male soldier they will have short hair. Additionally, role theory does not explain when and how role expectations change.
Impression Management
An extension of role theory, impression management is both a theory and process. The theory argues that people are constantly engaged in controlling how others perceive them. The process refers to the goal-directed conscious or unconscious effort to influence the perceptions other people form of an individual, object, or event by regulating and controlling information in social interaction. If a person tries to influence the perception of her or his own image, this activity is called self-presentation.
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Erving Goffman (1959), the person most often credited with formally developing the impression management theory, cast the idea in a dramaturgical framework. The basic idea is that individuals in face-to-face situations are like actors on a stage performing roles (see role theory above). Aware of how they are being perceived by their audience, actors manage their behavior so as to create specific impressions in the minds of the audience. Strategic interpersonal behavior to shape or influence impressions formed by an audience is not a new idea. Plato spoke of the "great stage of human life" and Shakespeare noted that "All the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players".
Social Constructionism
Social constructionism is a school of thought introduced into sociology by Peter L. Berger and
Thomas Luckmann with their 1966 book The Social Construction of Reality. Social constructionism aims to discover the ways that individuals and groups create their perceived reality. Social constructionism focuses on the description of institutions and actions and not on analyzing cause and effect. Socially constructed reality is seen as an on-going dynamic process; reality is re-produced by people acting on their interpretations of what they perceive to be the world external to them. Berger and Luckmann argue that social construction describes both subjective and objective reality - that is that no reality exists outside what is produced and reproduced in social interactions.
A clear example of social constructionist thought is, following Sigmund Freud and Émile
Durkheim, religion. Religion is seen as a socially constructed concept, the basis for which is rooted in either our psyche (Freud) or man 's need to see some purpose in life or worship a higher presence. One of the key theorists of social constructionism, Peter Berger, explored this concept extensively in his book, The Sacred Canopy.
Social constructionism is often seen as a source of the postmodern movement, and has been influential in the field of cultural studies.
Integration Theory
Recently, some sociologists have been taking a different approach to sociological theory by employing an integrationist approach - combining micro- and macro-level theories to provide a comprehensive understanding of human social behavior. Numerous models could be presented in this vein; I have chosen one that does a good job of combining the multiple levels into one model: Ritzer 's Integration Model.
Ritzer (Ritzer & Goodman 2004:357) proposes four highly interdependent elements in his sociological model: a macro-objective component (e.g., society, law, bureaucracy), a microobjective component (e.g., patterns of behavior and human interaction), a macro-subjective component (e.g., culture, norms, and values), and a micro-subjective component (e.g., perceptions, beliefs). This model is of particular use in understanding society because it uses two axes: one ranging from objective (society) to subjective (culture and cultural interpretation); the other ranging from the macro-level (norms) to the micro-level (individual level beliefs).
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George Ritzer 's macro/micro integration theory of social analysis.
The integration approach is particularly useful for explaining social phenomenon because it shows how the different components of social life work together to influence society and behavior. If used for understanding a specific cultural phenomenon, like the displaying of abstract art in one 's home (Halle 1993), the integration model depicts the different influences on the decision.
For instance, the model depicts that cultural norms can influence individual behavior. The model also shows that individual level values, beliefs, and behaviors influence macro-level culture. This is, in fact, part of what David Halle finds: while there are art consumption differences based on class, they are not predicted solely by class. Displayers of abstract art tend not only to belong to the upper-class, but also are employed in art-production occupations. This would indicate that there are multiple levels of influence involved in art tastes â€" both broad cultural norms and smaller level occupational norms in addition to personal preferences.
The use of integration theories in sociology is just beginning to develop, but has great potential.
Notes
References
· Biddle, Bruce J. 1986. Recent Development in Role Theory. Annual Review of Sociology. pp.
1267-1292.
· Blumer, H. 1986. Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. University of California
Press. ISBN 0520056760
· Davis, K (1959). "The Myth of Functional Analysis as a Special Method in Sociology and
Anthropology", American Sociological Review, 24(6), 757-772.
· Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Anchor Books. ISBN
0385094027
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· Goffman, Erving. 1961. Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction. MacMillan
Publishing Co. ISBN 0023445602
· Herman, Nancy J. and Reynolds, Larry T. 1994. Symbolic Interaction: An Introduction to
Social Psychology. Altamira Press. ISBN 1882289226
· Homans, George Casper (1962). Sentiments and Activities. New York: The Free Press of
Glencoe.
· Hoult, Thomas Ford (1969). Dictionary of Modern Sociology.
· Layton, R. 1997. An Introduction to Theory in Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. ISBN 0521629829
· Marshall, Gordon (1994). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. ISBN 019285237.
· Mead, George Herbert. 1967. Mind, Self, & Society: From the Standpoint of a Social
Behaviorist. Morris, Charles W. Editor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN
0226516687
· Meltzer, Bernard N. 1978. The Social Psychology of George Herbert Mead. In Symbolic
Interaction: A Reader in Social Psychology. Manis, Jerome and Meltzer, Bernard N. Editors.
Allyn & Bacon. ISBN 0205060625
· Merton, Robert (1957). Social Theory and Social Structure, revised and enlarged. London: The
Free Press of Glencoe.
· Michener, H. Andrew and John D. DeLamater. 1999. Social Psychology. Harcourt Brace
College Publishers. ISBN 0534583210
This chapter draws heavily on the following Wikipedia articles:
· structural-functionalism
· conflict theory
· solidarity
· self
· role
External Links
· Dramaturgy
· Social Psychology
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· social constructionism
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Society
Introduction
Society refers to a group of people who share a defined territory and a culture. Society is often understood as the basic structure and interactions of a group of people or the network of relationships between entities. A distinction is made between society and culture in sociology.
Culture refers to the meanings given to symbols or the process of meaning-making that takes place in a society. Culture is distinct from society in that it adds meanings to relationships (i.e., 'father ' means more than 'other '). All human societies have a culture and culture can only exist where there is a society. Distinguishing between these two components of human social life is primarily for analytical purposes - for example, so sociologists can study the transmission of cultural elements or artifacts within a society.
This chapter will present a brief overview of some of the types of human societies that have existed and continue to exist. It will then present some classic approaches to understanding society and what changing social structure can mean for individuals.
Societal Development
The sociological understanding of societal development relies heavily upon the work of
Gerhard Lenski (Lenski, Nolan, and Lenski 1995). Lenski outlined some of the more commonly seen organizational structures in human societies. Classifications of human societies can be based on two factors: (1) the primary means of subsistence and (2) the political structure. This chapter focuses on the subsistence systems of societies rather than their political structures. While it is a bit far-reaching to argue that all societies will develop through the stages outlined below, it does appear that most societies follow such a route. Human groups begin as huntergatherers, move toward pastoralism and/or horticulturalism, develop toward an agrarian society, and ultimately end up undergoing a period of industrialization (with the potential for developing a service industry following industrialization). The reason this is presented as a model is because not all societies pass through every stage. Some societies have stopped at the pastoral or horticultural stage, though these may be temporary pauses due to economic niches that will likely disappear in time. Some societies may also jump stages as a result of the introduction of technology from alien societies and culture. Another reason for hesitancy in presenting these categories as distinct groups is that there is often overlap in the subsistence systems used in a society. Some pastoralist societies also engage in some measure of horticultural food production. Industrial societies have agrarian components.
Hunter-Gatherer
The hunter-gatherer way of life is based on the exploitation of wild plants and animals.
Consequently, hunter-gatherers are relatively mobile, and groups of hunter-gatherers have fluid
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boundaries and composition. Typically in hunter-gatherer societies men hunt larger wild animals and women gather and hunt smaller animals. Hunter-gatherers use materials available in the wild to construct shelters or rely on naturally occurring shelters like overhangs. Their shelters give them protection from predators and the elements.
Ancient hunter.
The majority of hunter-gatherer societies are nomadic. It is difficult to be settled under such a subsistence system as the resources of one region can quickly become exhausted. Huntergatherer societies also tend to have very low population densities as a result of their subsistence system. Agricultural subsistence systems can support population densities 60 to 100 times greater than land left uncultivated, resulting in denser populations.
Hunter-gatherer societies also tend to have non-hierarchical social structures, though this is not always the case. Because hunter-gatherers tend to be nomadic, they generally do not have the possibility to store surplus food. As a result, full-time leaders, bureaucrats, or artisans are rarely supported by hunter-gatherer societies. The hierarchical egalitarianism in hunter-gatherer societies tends to extend to gender-based egalitarianism as well. Although disputed, many anthropologists believe gender egalitarianism in hunter-gatherer societies stems from the lack of control over food production, lack of food surplus - which can be used for control, and an equal gender contribution to kin and cultural survival.
Archeological evidence to date suggests that prior to twelve thousand years ago, all human beings were hunter-gatherers (see the Neolithic revolution for more information on this transition). While declining in number, there are still some hunter-gatherer groups in existence today. Such groups are found in the Arctic, tropical rainforests, and deserts where other forms of subsistence production are impossible or too costly. In most cases these groups do not have a continuous history of hunting and gathering; in many cases their ancestors were agriculturalists
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who were pushed into marginal areas as a result of migrations and wars. Examples of huntergatherer groups still in existence include:
· the Haida of British Columbia
· Bushmen of South Africa
The line between agricultural and hunter-gatherer societies is not clear cut. Many huntergatherers consciously manipulate the landscape through cutting or burning unuseful plants to encourage the growth and success of those they consume. Most agricultural people also tend to do some hunting and gathering. Some agricultural groups farm during the temperate months and then hunt during the winter.
Pastoralist
A pastoralist society is a society in which the primary means of subsistence is domesticated livestock. It is often the case that, like hunter-gatherers, pastoralists are nomadic, moving seasonally in search of fresh pastures and water for their animals. Employment of a pastoralist subsistence system often results in greater population densities and the development of both social hierarchies and divisions in labor as it is more likely there will be a surplus of food.
A Turkmen with a camel.
Pastoralist societies still exist. For instance, in Australia, the vast semi-arid areas in the interior of the country contain pastoral runs called sheep stations. These areas may be thousands of square kilometers in size. The number of livestock allowed in these areas is regulated in order to reliably sustain them, providing enough feed and water for the stock. Other examples of pastoralists societies still in existence include:
· the Maasai of Kenya
· the Boran
· the Turkana of Kenya
· the Bedouin of Northern Africa
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Horticulturalist
Horticulturalist societies are societies in which the primary means of subsistence is the cultivation of crops using hand tools. Like pastoral societies, the cultivation of crops increases population densities and, as a result of food surpluses, allows for a division of labor in society.
Horticulture differs from agriculture in that agriculture employs animals, machinery, or some other non-human means to facilitate the cultivation of crops while horticulture relies solely on humans for crop cultivation.
Agrarian
Agrarian societies are societies in which the primary means of subsistence is the cultivation of crops using a mixture of human and non-human means (i.e., animals and/or machinery).
Agriculture is the process of producing food, feed, fiber, and other desired products by the cultivation of plants and the raising of domesticated animals (livestock). Agriculture can refer to subsistence agriculture or industrial agriculture.
A tractor ploughing an alfalfa field
Subsistence agriculture is agriculture carried out for the production of enough food to meet just the needs of the agriculturalist and his/her family. Subsistence agriculture is a simple, often organic, system using saved seed native to the ecoregion combined with crop rotation or other relatively simple techniques to maximize yield. Historically most farmers were engaged in subsistence agriculture and this is still the case in many developing nations.
In developed nations a person using such simple techniques on small patches of land would generally be referred to as a gardener; activity of this type would be seen more as a hobby than a profession. Some people in developed nations are driven into such primitive methods by poverty. It is also worth noting that large scale organic farming is on the rise as a result of a renewed interest in non-genetically modified and pesticide free foods.
In developed nations, a farmer or industrial agriculturalist is usually defined as someone with an ownership interest in crops or livestock, and who provides labor or management in their production. Farmers obtain their financial income from the cultivation of land to yield crops or the commercial raising of animals (animal husbandry), or both. Those who provide only labor but not management and do not have ownership are often called farmhands, or, if they supervise a leased strip of land growing only one crop, as sharecroppers.
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A pineapple farmer in Ghana.
Agriculture allows a much greater density of population than can be supported by hunting and gathering and allows for the accumulation of excess product to keep for winter use or to sell for profit. The ability of farmers to feed large numbers of people whose activities have nothing to do with material production was the crucial factor in the rise of standing armies. The agriculturalism of the Sumerians allowed them to embark on an unprecedented territorial expansion, making them the first empire builders. Not long after, the Egyptians, powered by effective farming of the Nile valley, achieved a population density from which enough warriors could be drawn for a territorial expansion more than tripling the Sumerian empire in area.
Development of Horticulture and Agriculture
Horticulture and agriculture as types of subsistence developed among humans somewhere between 10,000 and 80,000 B.C.E. in the Fertile Crescent region of the Middle East (for more information see agriculture and Price 2000 and Harris 1996). The reasons for the development of horticulture and agriculture are debated but may have included climate change and the accumulation of food surplus for competitive gift-giving. Most certainly there was a gradual transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural economies after a lengthy period when some crops were deliberately planted and other foods were gathered from the wild. In addition to the emergence of farming in the Fertile Crescent, agriculture appeared by at least 6,800 B.C.E. in
East Asia (rice) and, later, in Central and South America (maize and squash). Small scale agriculture also likely arose independently in early Neolithic contexts in India (rice) and
Southeast Asia (taro).
Full dependency on domestic crops and animals (i.e. when wild resources contributed a nutritionally insignificant component to the diet) was not until the Bronze Age. If the operative definition of agriculture includes large scale intensive cultivation of land, mono-cropping, organised irrigation, and use of a specialized labor force, the title "inventors of agriculture" would fall to the Sumerians, starting ca. 5,500 B.C.E.
By the early 1800s agricultural practices, particularly careful selection of hardy strains and cultivars, had so improved that yield per land unit was many times that seen in the Middle Ages and before, especially in the largely virgin lands of North and South America.
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Agriculture Today
In the Western world, the use of gene manipulation, better management of soil nutrients, and improved weed control have greatly increased yields per unit area. At the same time, the use of mechanization has decreased labor requirements. The developing world generally produces lower yields, having less of the latest science, capital, and technology base. More people in the world are involved in agriculture as their primary economic activity than in any other, yet it only accounts for four percent of the world 's GDP. The rapid rise of mechanization in the 20th century, especially in the form of the tractor, reduced the necessity of humans performing the demanding tasks of sowing, harvesting, and threshing. With mechanization, these tasks could be performed with a speed and on a scale barely imaginable before. These advances have led to efficiencies enabling certain modern farms in the United States, Argentina, Israel, Germany and a few other nations to output volumes of high quality produce per land unit at what may be the practical limit.
An example of the influence of technology can be seen in terms of output per farmer. In the early 1900s, one American farmer produced food for 2.5 people; today, a single farmer can feed over 130 people (source).
Industrial
An industrial society is a society in which the primary means of subsistence is industry.
Industry is a system of production focused on mechanized manufacturing of goods. Like agrarian societies, industrial societies increase food surpluses, resulting in more developed hierarchies and significantly more division of labor.
The division of labor in industrial societies is often one of the most notable elements of the society and can even function to re-organize the development of relationships. Whereas relationships in pre-industrial societies were more likely to develop through contact at one 's place of worship or through proximity of housing, industrial society brings people with similar occupations together, often leading to the formation of friendships through one 's work.
When capitalised, Industrial Revolution refers to the first known industrial revolution, which took place in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. What is some times referred to as The
Second Industrial Revolution describes later, somewhat less dramatic changes resulting from the widespread availability of electric power and the internal-combustion engine. Many developing nations began industrialisation under the influence of either the United States or the
USSR during the Cold War.
Post-Industrial
A post-industrial society is a society in which the primary means of subsistence is derived from service-oriented work, as opposed to agriculture or industry. It is important to note here that the term post-industrial is still debated in part because it is the current state of society; it is difficult to name a phenomenon while it is occurring.
Post-industrial societies are often marked by:
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· an increase in the size of the service sector or jobs that perform services rather than creating goods (industry)
· either the outsourcing of or extensive use of mechanization in manufacturing
· an increase in the amount of information technology, often leading to an Information Age
· information, knowledge, and creativity are seen as the new raw materials of the economy
Post-industrial society is occasionally used critically by individuals seeking to restore or return to industrial development. Increasingly, however, individuals and communities are viewing abandoned factories as sites for new housing and shopping. Capitalists are also realizing the recreational and commercial development opportunities such locations offer. For more information on post-industrial society see the work of Daniel Bell.
Classical Views on Social Change
As Western societies transitioned from pre-industrial economies based primarily on agriculture to industrialized societies in the 19th century, some people worried about the impacts such changes would have on society and individuals. Three early sociologists, Weber, Marx, and
Durkheim, perceived different impacts of the Industrial Revolution on the individual and society and described those impacts in their work.
Weber and Rationalization
Max Weber was particularly concerned about the rationalization and bureaucritization of society stemming from the Industrial Revolution and how these two changes would affect humanity 's agency and happiness. As Weber understood society, particularly during the industrial revolution of the late 19th century in which he lived, he believed society was being driven by the passage of rational ideas into culture which, in turn, transformed society into an increasingly bureaucratic entity. Bureaucracy is a type of organizational or institutional management that is, as Weber understood it, rooted legal-rational authority. Weber did believe bureaucracy was the most rational form of societal management, but because Weber viewed rationalization as the driving force of society, he believed bureaucracy would increase until it ruled society. Society, for Weber, would become almost synonymous with bureaucracy.
As Weber did not see any alternative to bureaucracy, he believed it would ultimately lead to an iron cage; society would bureaucratize and there would be no way to get out of it. Weber viewed this as a bleak outcome that would affect individuals ' happiness as they would be forced to function in a highly rational society with rigid rules and norms without the possibility to change it. Because Weber could not envision other forces influencing the ultimate direction of society - the exception being temporary lapses into non-bureaucracy spurred by charismatic leaders - he saw no cure for the iron cage of rationality. Society would become a large bureaucracy that would govern people 's lives. Weber was unable to envision a solution to his iron cage of bureaucracy dilemma; since a completely rational society was inevitable and bureaucracy was the most rational form of societal management, the iron cage, according to
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Weber, does not have a solution.
Marx and Alienation
Karl Marx took a different perspective on the impact of the Industrial Revolution on society and the individual. In order to understand Marx 's perspective, however, it is necessary to understand how Marx perceived happiness. According to Marx, species being (or happiness) is the pinnacle of human nature. Species being is understood to be a type of self-realization or self-actualization brought about by meaningful work. But in addition to engaging in meaningful work, self-actualized individuals must also own the products of their labors and have the option of doing what they will with those products. In a capitalist society, which was co-developing with industry, rather than owning the fruits of their labors, the proletariat or working class owns only their labor power, not the fruits of their labors (i.e., the results of production). The capitalists or bourgeoisie employ the proletariat for a living wage, but then keep the products of the labor. As a result, the proletariat is alienated from the fruits of its labor â€" they do not own the products they produce, only their labor power. Because Marx believed species being to be the goal and ideal of human nature and that species being could only be realized when individuals owned the results of their labors, Marx saw capitalism as leading toward increasingly unhappy individuals; they would be alienated from the results of their production and therefore would not be self-realized.
But the alienation from the results of their production is just one component of the alienation
Marx proposed. In addition to the alienation from the results of production, the proletariat is also alienated from each other under capitalism. Capitalists alienate the proletariat from each other by forcing them to compete for limited job opportunities. Job opportunities are limited under capitalism in order for capitalists to keep wages down; without a pool of extraneous workers, capitalists would have to meet the wage demands of their workers. Because they are forced to compete with other members of the proletariat, workers are alienated from each other, compounding the unhappiness of the proletariat.
While Marx did have a solution to the problem of alienation, he seldom discussed it in detail.
Marx 's proposed solution was for the proletariat to unite and through protests or revolution (or legislation in democratic nations) overthrow the bourgeoisie and institute a new form of government â€" communism. This form of government would be based on communally owned and highly developed means of production and self-governance. The means of production would be developed â€" through capitalism â€" to the point that everyone in society would have sufficient 'free ' time to allow them to participate in whatever governmental decisions needed to be made for the community as a whole. By re-connecting the individual with the fruits of their labor and empowering them toward true self-governance, species being would be realized and happiness would be returned.
Two additional comments are in order here. First, the communism that developed in The Soviet
Union and China - as well as other parts of the world - was not the communism envisioned by
Marx. These forms of communism still had stratified hierarchies with two groups: a ruling elite and everybody else. Second, Marx believed capitalism, while harmful to species being, was necessary to advance the means of production to a stage where communism (as he envisioned
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it) could be realized. Thus, while Marx was highly critical of capitalism, he also recognized its utility in developing the means of production.
Durkheim and Solidarity
Durkheim 's view of society and the changes it was undergoing as a result of industrialization also led him to believe unhappiness was a possible outcome. Durkheim believed that an important component of social life was social solidarity, which is understood as a sense of community. In his classic study, Suicide, Durkheim argued that one of the root causes of suicide was a decrease in social solidarity â€" termed anomie (French for chaos) by Durkheim.
Durkheim also argued that the increasing emphasis on individualism found in Protestant religions â€" in contrast to Catholicism â€" contributed to an increase in anomie, which resulted in higher suicide rates among Protestants.
In another work, The Division of Labor in Society, Durkheim proposed that pre-industrial societies maintained their social solidarity through a mechanistic sense of community and through their religious affiliations. Most people were generalists in their work â€" they farmed and created their own tools and clothing. Because they were alike in their generality, they were also more likely to share a sense of community, which Durkheim saw as an important component of happiness. In addition to their similarity in occupations, many individuals belonged to the same religious groups, which also fostered a sense of solidarity.
In industrializing societies, Durkheim recognized the inevitability of specialization. By definition, specialization means that individuals are going to have dissimilar occupations. This specialization would also affect religion. In industrial societies, religion would become just one aspect of lives that were increasingly divided into compartments â€" home, family, work, recreation, religion, etc.
Durkheim believed there were two components that would alleviate the decreasing social solidarity in industrializing societies: organic solidarity and conscientious attempts to find camaraderie through one 's place of employ. Whereas social solidarity was maintained in preindustrial societies through a mechanistic sense of similarity and dependence along with communal religious affiliations, in industrialized societies, social solidarity would be maintained by the interdependence of specialists on one another. If one individual specialized in treating the injured or ill, they would not have time to raise crops or otherwise produce food.
Doctors would become dependent on farmers for their food while farmers would become dependent on doctors for their healthcare. This would force a type of organic solidarity â€" organic in the sense that the parts were interdependent like the organs of an animal are interdependent for their survival.
In addition to the inevitable interdependence a specialized society would warrant, Durkheim believed that a conscientious effort to develop and foster friendships would transition from a religious brotherhood to friendships developed at one 's place of employment. Specialized individuals would have a great deal in common with their co-workers and, like members of the same religious congregations in pre-industrial societies, co-workers would be able to develop strong bonds of social solidarity through their occupations. Thus, for Durkheim, the answer to
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the decrease in mechanistic solidarity and the increasing anomie was organic solidarity and solidarity pursued within one 's specialty occupation.
Notes
The origin of the word society comes from the Latin societas, a "friendly association with others." Societas is derived from socius meaning "companion" and thus the meaning of society is closely related to "what is social." Implicit in the meaning of society is that its members share some mutual concern or interest in a common objective.
Society can have different meanings than the predominant meaning employed in this chapter.
For instance, people united by common political and cultural traditions, beliefs, or values are sometimes also said to be a society (e.g., Judeo-Christian, Eastern, Western, etc). When used in this context, the term is being used as a means of contrasting two or more societies whose representative members represent alternative conflicting and competing worldviews.
Another use of society can be in reference to smaller groups like academic learned and scholarly societies or associations, such as the American Society of Mathematics.
It should also be noted that there is an ongoing debate in sociological and anthropological circles if there exists an entity we can call society. Some Marxist theorists, like Louis Althusser,
Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj Zizek, argue that society is nothing more than an effect of the ruling ideology of a certain class system and should not be be understood as a sociological concept.
Societies can also be organized according to their political structure: in order of increasing size and complexity, there are band societies, tribes, chiefdoms, and state societies.
There are some modern variations of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle:
· freeganism is the practice of gathering discarded food in the context of an urban environment
· gleaning is the practice of gathering food traditional farmers leave behind in their fields
· sport hunting and sport fishing are recreational activities practiced by people who get the majority of their food by modern means
· primitivism is a movement striving for the return to a pre-industrial and pre-agricultural society
References
· Bernal, John Desmond. 1970. Science and Industry in the Nineteenth Century. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press.
· Collinson, M. [ed.]. 2000. A History of Farming Systems Research. CABI Publishing. ISBN
0851994059
· Crosby, Alfred W. 2003. The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of
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1492. Praeger Publishers. 30th Anniversary Edition. ISBN 0275980731
· Derry, Thomas Kingston and Williams, Trevor I. 1993. A Short History of Technology : From the Earliest Times to A.D. 1900. New York: Dover Publications.
· Harris, David R. [ed.]. 1996. The Origins and Spread of Agriculture in Eurasia. UCL Press.
ISBN 1560986751
· Hobsbawm, Eric J. 1999. Industry and Empire: From 1750 to the Present Day. New York: New
Press. Distributed by W.W. Norton.
· Kranzberg, Melvin and Pursell, Carroll W., Jr. 1967. Editors. Technology in Western civilization. New York, Oxford University Press.
· Landes, David S. 2003. The Unbound Prometheus: Technical Change and Industrial
Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
· Lenski, Gerhard; Nolan, Patrick; and Lenski, Jean. 1995. Human Societies: An Introduction to
Macrosociology. 7th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 1594510237
· Price, T. Douglas [ed.]. 2000. Europe 's First Farmers. Cambrige University Press. ISBN
0521665728
· Wells, Spencer. 2003. The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey. Princeton University Press.
ISBN 069111532X
This chapter also draws heavily on the following Wikipedia articles:
· society
· hunter-gatherer
· agriculture
· farming
· pastoralist
External Links
· Haferkamp, Hans, and Smelser, Neil J. Editors. 1992. Social Change and Modernity. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
· FAO of the United Nations
· Current World Production, Market and Trade Reports of the U.S. Department of Agriculture 's
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Foreign Agricultural Service
· Winds of Change: Reforms and Unions - The impacts of industrialization in Canada; illustrated with many late 19th century photographs.
· Daniel Bell 's work on post-industrial societies
See also:
· cultural evolution
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Culture
Introduction
Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to the question of what is culture. Culture is a complicated phenomenon to understand because it is both distinct from but clearly associated with society. Also, different definitions of culture reflect different theories or understandings, making it difficult to pin down exact definitions of the concept.
Generally speaking, the following elements of social life are considered to be representative of human culture: "stories, beliefs, media, ideas, works of art, religious practices, fashions, rituals, specialized knowledge, and common sense" (Griswold 2004:xvi).
Yet, examples of culture do not, in themselves, present a clear understanding of the concept of culture; culture is more than the object or behavior. Culture also includes, …norms, values, beliefs, or expressive symbols. Roughly, norms are the way people behave in a given society, values are what they hold dear, beliefs are how they think the universe operates, and expressive symbols are representations, often representations of social norms, values, and beliefs themselves. (Griswold 2004:3)
To summarize, culture encompasses objects and symbols, the meaning given to those objects and symbols, and the norms, values, and beliefs that pervade social life. 'High ' Culture
Many people today use a concept of culture that developed in Europe during the 18th and early
19th centuries. This concept of culture reflected inequalities within European societies and their colonies around the world. It identifies culture with civilization and contrasts both with nature.
According to this thinking, some countries are more civilized than others, and some people are more cultured than others. Thus some cultural theorists have actually tried to eliminate popular or mass culture from the definition of culture. Theorists like Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) believed that culture is simply that which is created by "the best that has been thought and said in the world" (Arnold 1960:6). Anything that doesn 't fit into this category is labeled as chaos or anarchy. On this account, culture is closely tied to cultivation, which is the progressive refinement of human behavior.
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Ballet, traditionally considered high culture.
In practice, culture referred to elite goods and activities such as haute cuisine, high fashion or haute couture, museum-caliber art and classical music, and the word cultured referred to people who knew about, and took part in, these activities. For example, someone who used culture in the sense of cultivation might argue that classical music is more refined than music by working-class people, such as jazz or the indigenous music traditions of aboriginal peoples.
People who use culture in this way tend not to use it in the plural. They believe that there are not distinct cultures, each with their own internal logic and values, but rather only a single standard of refinement to which all groups are held accountable. Thus people who differ from those who believe themselves to be cultured in this sense are not usually understood as having a different culture; they are understood as being uncultured.
The Changing Concept of Culture
Today most social scientists reject the cultured vs. uncultured concept of culture and the opposition of culture to human nature. They recognize that non-elites are as cultured as elites
(and that non-Westerners are just as civilized); they are just cultured in a different way.
During the Romantic Era, scholars in Germany, especially those concerned with nationalism, developed a more inclusive notion of culture as worldview. That is, each ethnic group is characterized by a distinct and incommensurable world view. Although more inclusive, this approach to culture still allowed for distinctions between civilized and primitive or tribal cultures. By the late 19th century, anthropologists had changed the concept of culture to include a wider variety of societies, ultimately resulting in the concept of culture outlined above - objects and symbols, the meaning given to those objects and symbols, and the norms, values, and beliefs that pervade social life.
This new perspective has also removed the evaluative element of the concept of culture and instead proposes distinctions rather than rankings between different cultures. For instance, the high culture of elites is now contrasted with popular or pop culture. In this sense, high culture no longer refers to the idea of being cultured, as all people are cultured. High culture simply refers to the objects, symbols, norms, values, and beliefs of a particular group of people; popular culture does the same.
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The Origins of Culture
Attentive to the theory of evolution, anthropologists assumed that all human beings are equally evolved, and the fact that all humans have cultures must in some way be a result of human evolution. They were also wary of using biological evolution to explain differences between specific cultures - an approach that either was a form of, or legitimized forms of, racism.
Anthropologists believed biological evolution produced an inclusive notion of culture, a concept that anthropologists could apply equally to non-literate and literate societies, or to nomadic and to sedentary societies. They argued that through the course of their evolution, human beings evolved a universal human capacity to classify experiences, and encode and communicate them symbolically. Since these symbolic systems were learned and taught, they began to develop independently of biological evolution (in other words, one human being can learn a belief, value, or way of doing something from another, even if they are not biologically related). That this capacity for symbolic thinking and social learning is a product of human evolution confounds older arguments about nature versus nurture. Thus, Clifford Geertz (1973:
33 ff.) has argued that human physiology and neurology developed in conjunction with the first cultural activities, and Middleton (1990:17 n.27) concluded that human "instincts were culturally formed."
Chinese Opera, a culture quite distinct from that of the
U.S.
This view of culture argues that people living apart from one another develop unique cultures.
However, elements of different cultures can easily spread from one group of people to another.
Culture is dynamic and can be taught and learned, making it a potentially rapid form of adaptation to change in physical conditions. Anthropologists view culture as not only a product of biological evolution but as a supplement to it; it can be seen as the main means of human adaptation to the natural world.
This view of culture as a symbolic system with adaptive functions, which varies from place to place, led anthropologists to conceive of different cultures as defined by distinct patterns (or structures) of enduring, although arbitrary, conventional sets of meaning, which took concrete form in a variety of artifacts such as myths and rituals, tools, the design of housing, and the planning of villages. Anthropologists thus distinguish between material culture and symbolic culture, not only because each reflects different kinds of human activity, but also because they constitute different kinds of data that require different methodologies to study.
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This view of culture, which came to dominate between World War I and World War II, implied that each culture was bounded and had to be understood as a whole, on its own terms. The result is a belief in cultural relativism (see below).
Level of Abstraction
Another element of culture that is important for a clear understanding of the concept is level of abstraction. Culture ranges from the concrete, cultural object (e.g., the understanding of a work of art) to micro-level interpersonal interactions (e.g., the socialization of a child by his/her parents) to a macro-level influence on entire societies (e.g., the Puritanical roots of the U.S. that can be used to justify the exportation of democracy â€" a lá the Iraq War; see Wald 2003). It is important when trying to understand the concept of culture to keep in mind that the concept can have multiple levels of meaning.
The Artificiality of Cultural Categorization
One of the more important points to understand about culture is that it is an artificial categorization of elements of social life. As Griswold (2004) puts it,
There is no such thing as culture or society out there in the real world. There are only people who work, joke, raise children, love, think, worship, fight, and behave in a wide variety of ways. To speak of culture as one thing and society as another is to make an analytical distinction between two different aspects of human experience. One way to think of the distinction is that culture designates the expressive aspect of human existence, whereas society designates the relational (and often practical) aspect. (Griswold 2004:4)
In the above quote, Griswold emphasizes that culture is distinct from society but affirms that this distinction is, like all classifications, artificial. Humans do not experience culture in a separate or distinct way from society. Culture and society are truly two-sides of a coin; a coin that makes up social life. Yet the distinction between the two, while artificial, is useful for a number of reasons. For instance, the distinction between culture and society is of particular use when exploring how norms and values are transmitted from generation to generation and answering the question of cultural conflict between people of different cultural backgrounds
(say, Japanese and United Statesians).
In summary, culture is a complex component of social life, distinct from the interactions of society in particular because it adds meanings to relationships. Culture is also multi-leveled in that it can range from concrete cultural objects to broad social norms.
Subcultures & Countercultures
A subculture is a culture shared and actively participated in by a minority of people within a broader culture.
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Body piercing is an increasingly popular subculture in the U.S.
A culture often contains numerous subcultures. Subcultures incorporate large parts of the broader cultures of which they are part, but in specifics they may differ radically. Some subcultures achieve such a status that they acquire a name of their own. Examples of subcultures could include: bikers, military culture, and Star Trek fans (trekkers or trekkies).
A counterculture is a subculture with the addition that some of its beliefs, values, or norms challenge those of the main culture of which it is part. Examples of countercultures in the U.S. could include: the hippie movement of the 1960s, the green movement, and feminist groups.
Ethnocentrism & Cultural Relativism
Ethnocentrism is the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one 's own culture. Many claim that ethnocentrism occurs in every society; ironically, ethnocentrism may be something that all cultures have in common.
The term was coined by William Graham Sumner, a social evolutionist and professor of
Political and Social Science at Yale University. He defined it as the viewpoint that "oneâ€(tm)s own group is the center of everything," against which all other groups are judged.
Ethnocentrism often entails the belief that one 's own race or ethnic group is the most important and/or that some or all aspects of its culture are superior to those of other groups. Within this ideology, individuals will judge other groups in relation to their own particular ethnic group or culture, especially with concern to language, behaviour, customs, and religion. It also involves an incapacity to acknowledge that cultural differentiation does not imply inferiority of those groups who are ethnically distinct from one 's own.
Cultural relativism is the belief that the concepts and values of a culture cannot be fully translated into, or fully understood in, other languages; that a specific cultural artifact (e.g. a ritual) has to be understood in terms of the larger symbolic system of which it is a part.
An example of cultural relativism might include slang words from specific languages (and even
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from particular dialects within a language). For instance, the word tranquilo in Spanish translates directly to 'calm ' in English. However, it can be used in many more ways than just as an adjective (e.g., the seas are calm). Tranquilo can be a command or suggestion encouraging another to calm down. It can also be used to ease tensions in an argument (e.g., everyone relax) or to indicate a degree of self-composure (e.g., I 'm calm). There is not a clear English translation of the word, and in order to fully comprehend its many possible uses a cultural relativist would argue that it would be necessary to fully immerse oneself in cultures where the word is used.
Theories of Culture
While there are numerous theoretical approaches employed to understand 'culture ', this chapter uses just one model to illustrate how sociologists understand the concept. The model is an integrationist model advocated by Ritzer (Ritzer & Goodman 2004:357). Ritzer proposes four highly interdependent elements in his sociological model: a macro-objective component (e.g., society, law, bureaucracy), a micro-objective component (e.g., patterns of behavior and human interaction), a macro-subjective component (e.g., culture, norms, and values), and a microsubjective component (e.g., perceptions, beliefs). This model is of particular use in understanding the role of culture in sociological research because it presents two axes for understanding culture: one ranging from objective (society) to subjective (culture and cultural interpretation); the other ranging from the macro-level (norms) to the micro-level (individual level beliefs).
George Ritzer 's macro/micro integration theory of social analysis.
If used for understanding a specific cultural phenomenon, like the displaying of abstract art
(Halle 1993), this model depicts how cultural norms can influence individual behavior. This model also posits that individual level values, beliefs, and behaviors can, in turn, influence the macro-level culture. This is, in fact, part of what David Halle finds: while there are certainly cultural differences based on class, they are not unique to class. Displayers of abstract art tend not only to belong to the upper-class, but also are employed in art-production occupations. This would indicate that there are multiple levels of influence involved in art tastes â€" both broad cultural norms and smaller level occupational norms in addition to personal preferences.
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The Function of Culture
Culture can also be seen to play a specific function in social life. According to Griswold, "The sociological analysis of culture begins at the premise that culture provides orientation, wards off chaos, and directs behavior toward certain lines of action and away from others" (Griswold
2004:24). Griswold reiterates this point by explaining that, "Groups and societies need collective representations of themselves to inspire sentiments of unity and mutual support, and culture fulfills this need" (p. 59). In other words, culture can have a certain utilitarian function â€" the maintenance of order as the result of shared understandings and meanings (this understanding of culture is similar to the Symbolic Interactionist understanding of society).
Cultural Change
The belief that culture is symbolically coded and can thus be taught from one person to another means that cultures, although bounded, can change. Cultures are both predisposed to change and resistant to it. Resistance can come from habit, religion, and the integration and interdependence of cultural traits. For example, men and women have complementary roles in many cultures. One sex might desire changes that affect the other, as happened in the second half of the 20th century in western cultures (see women 's movement), while the other sex may be resistant to that change (possibly in order to maintain a power imbalance in their favor).
Cultural change can have many causes, including: the environment, inventions, and contact with other cultures. For example, the end of the last ice age helped lead to the invention of agriculture. Some inventions that affected Western culture in the 20th century were the birth control pill, television, and the Internet.
Several understandings of how cultures change come from Anthropology. For instance, in diffusion theory, the form of something moves from one culture to another, but not its meaning.
For example, the ankh symbol originated in Egyptian culture but has diffused to numerous cultures. It 's original meaning may have been lost, but it is now used by many practitioners of
New Age Religion as an arcane symbol of power or life forces. A variant of the diffusion theory, stimulus diffusion, refers to an element of one culture leading to an invention in another. Contact between cultures can also result in acculturation. Acculturation has different meanings, but in this context refers to replacement of the traits of one culture with those of another, such as what happened with many Native American Indians. Related processes on an individual level are assimilation and transculturation, both of which refer to adoption of a different culture by an individual.
One sociological approach to cultural change has been outlined by Griswold (2004). Griswold points out that it may seem as though culture comes from individuals â€" which, for certain elements of cultural change, is true â€" but there is also the larger, collective, and long-lasting culture that cannot have been the creation of single individuals as it predates and post-dates individual humans and contributors to culture. The author presents a sociological perspective to address this conflict,
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Sociology suggests an alternative to both the unsatisfying it has always been that way view at one extreme and the unsociological individual genius view at the other. This alternative posits that culture and cultural works are collective, not individual, creations. We can best understand specific cultural objects... by seeing them not as unique to their creators but as the fruits of collective production, fundamentally social in their genesis. (p. 53)
In short, Griswold argues that culture changes through the contextually dependent and socially situated actions of individuals; macro-level culture influences the individual who, in turn, can influence that same culture. The logic is a bit circular, but illustrates how culture can change over time yet remain somewhat constant.
It is, of course, important to recognize here that Griswold is talking about cultural change and not the actual origins of culture (as in, "there was no culture and then, suddenly, there was").
Because Griswold does not explicitly distinguish between the origins of cultural change and the origins of culture, it may appear as though Griswold is arguing here for the origins of culture and situating these origins in society. This is neither accurate nor a clear representation of sociological thought on this issue. Culture, just like society, has existed since the beginning of humanity (humans being social and cultural). Society and culture co-exist because humans have social relations and meanings tied to those relations (e.g. brother, lover, friend; see, for instance, Leakey 1994). Culture as a super-phenomenon has no real beginning except in the sense that humans (homo sapiens) have a beginning. This, then, makes the question of the origins of culture moot â€" it has existed as long as we have, and will likely exist as long as we do. Cultural change, on the other hand, is a matter that can be questioned and researched, as
Griswold does.
Cultural Sociology: Researching Culture
How do sociologists study culture? One approach to studying culture falls under the label 'cultural sociology ', which combines the study of culture with cultural understandings of phenomena. Griswold (2004) explains how cultural sociologists approach their research,
...if one were to try to understand a certain group of people, one would look for the expressive forms through which they represent themselves to themselves... The sociologist can come at this collective representation process from the other direction, from the analysis of a particular cultural object, as well; if we were to try to understand a cultural object, we would look for how it is used by some group as representing that group. (p. 59)
In other words, because of the perspective of cultural sociologists, their approach to studying culture involves looking for how people make meaning in their lives out of the different cultural elements that surround them.
A particularly clear example of cultural sociology is the study of the Village-Northton by Elijah
Anderson (1990). Anderson is interested in a number of things in his book, but two cultural components stand out. First, Anderson is looking at the border of two culturally and socio58 economically distinct neighborhoods. Because these two neighborhoods are distinct yet share a border, this research site provides numerous opportunities for the exploration of culture. Not surprisingly, cultural conflict is an optimal scenario for the exploration of culture and cultural interaction. Additionally, Anderson is interested in how individuals in these neighborhoods negotiate interpersonal interactions, especially when individuals from the Village (middle to upper-middle class and predominantly white) are forced to interact with members of the
Northton area (lower class and poor blacks).
Andersonâ€(tm)s methodology is a combination of participant observation and interviews. But when viewed in light of the quote above by Griswold, it becomes apparent that
Andersonâ€(tm)s focus in these interviews and observations is self-presentation (also see impression management). Anderson regularly describes the individuals he interviews and observes in light of their clothing, behavior, attitudes, beliefs, and opinions. As he interacts with more and more individuals, patterns begin to develop. Specifically, individuals dressed in certain outfits behave in similar ways. For instance, those dressed in business attire (even when walking their dogs) â€" the yuppies â€" have particular perspectives on the future of the
Village: they are interested in increasing property values in order to maximize their investment.
Another example of cultural significance of clothing is older black men who intentionally wear button-up shirts and ties because of the cultural symbolism of that particular outfit: it signifies to the cultural outsider that the wearer is refined and distinct from the athletic-suit-wearing drug dealers who control numerous Northton corners.
Ultimately, Andersonâ€(tm)s goal is to develop a sort of typology of streetwise individuals: people who can manage awkward and uncomfortable interpersonal interactions on the street in such a fashion that they emerge from the interactions unharmed. While he does develop a loose description of these types of individuals, the important part to understand here is how he explores these aspects of culture. First, he found a cultural border that presented cultural conflict. When individuals have to negotiate meaning publicly, it makes it much easier for the sociologist to tease out culture. Additionally, Anderson observed both the transmission of culture from generation to generation (i.e., socialization, but also the self-representation that is provided by cultural expressions (clothing, behavior, etc). Through years of observation,
Anderson gained a familiarity with these elements of culture that allowed him to understand how they interacted.
In summary, cultural sociology (or the study of culture) is performed by examining how individuals express themselves to others and is likely facilitated by finding cultural boundaries where cultural expression is important to successful social functioning.
Notes
The word 'culture ' comes from the Latin root colere (to inhabit, to cultivate, or to honor).
References
· Anderson, Elijah. 1990. Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
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· Arnold, Matthew, Culture and Anarchy, 1882. Macmillan and Co., New York. Online at [1].
· Geertz, Clifford. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York. ISBN
0465097197.
· Griswold, Wendy. 2004. Cultures and Societies in a Changing World. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Pine Forge Press.
· Halle, David. 1993. Inside Culture: Art and Class in the American Home. Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
· Hoult, Thomas Ford, ed. (1969). Dictionary of Modern Sociology. Totowa, New Jersey, United
States: Littlefield, Adams & Co.
· Kroeber, A. L. and C. Kluckhohn, 1952. Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and
Definitions. Peabody Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.
· Leakey, Richard. 1996. The Origin of Humankind. New York: BasicBooks.
· Ritzer, George and Douglas J. Goodman. 2004. Modern Sociological Theory. sixth ed. Boston,
MA: McGraw Hill.
· Wald, Kenneth D. 2003. Religion and Politics in the United States. Fourth ed. New york:
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
This chapter drew heavily on the following Wikipedia articles:
· culture
· ethnocentrism
· cultural relativism
External links
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Socialization
What is Socialization?
Socialization generally refers to the process in which people learn the skills, knowledge, values, motives, and roles (i.e., culture) of the groups to which they belong or the communities in which they live. It should be pointed out from the beginning of this chapter that socialization includes two components (Long and Hadden 1985). The first component of socialization is the process, mentioned above, that leads to the adoption of culture. The second component is the outcome of the process, for example, "Was the socialization successful?" or "He has been socialized to believe God exists." Socialization is seen as society 's principal mechanism for influencing the development of character and behavior. Most sociologists treat socialization "as a cornerstone both for the maintenance of society and for the well-being of the individual"
(Long and Hadden 1985).
Elements of Socialization
As socialization is a fundamental sociological concept, there are a number of components to this concept that are important to understand. While not every sociologist will agree which elements are the most important, or even how to define some of the elements of socialization, the elements outlined below should help clarify what is meant by socialization.
Goals of Socialization
Arnett (1995), in presenting a new theoretical understanding of socialization (see below), outlined what he believes to be the three goals of socialization:
1. impulse control and the development of a conscience
2. role preparation and performance, including occupational roles, gender roles, and roles in institutions such as marriage and parenthood
3. the cultivation of sources of meaning, or what is important, valued, and to be lived for
In short, socialization is the process that prepares humans to function in social life. It should be re-iterated here that socialization is culturally relative - people in different cultures are socialized differently. This distinction does not and should not inherently force an evaluative judgment. Socialization, because it is the adoption of culture, is going to be different in every culture. Socialization, as both process or an outcome, is not better or worse in any particular culture. 61
A kindergarten in Afghanistan.
Primary and Secondary Socialization
Socialization is a life process, but is generally divided into two parts. Primary socialization takes place early in life, as a child and adolescent. Secondary socialization refers to the socialization that takes place throughout one 's life, both as a child and as one encounters new groups that require additional socialization. While there are scholars who argue that only one or the other of these occurs, most social scientists tend to combine the two, arguing that the basic or core identity of the individual develops during primary socialization, with more specific changes occurring later - secondary socialization - in response to the acquisition of new group memberships and roles and differently structured social situations. The need for later life socialization may stem from the increasing complexity of society with its corresponding increase in varied roles and responsibilities (Mortimer and Simmons 1978).
Mortimer and Simmons (1978) outline three specific ways these two parts of socialization differ: 1. content - Socialization in childhood is thought to be concerned with the regulation of biological drives. In adolescence, socialization is concerned with the development of overarching values and the self-image. In adulthood, socialization involves more overt and specific norms and behaviors, such as those related to the work role as well as more superficial personality features.
2. context - In earlier periods, the socializee (the person being socialized) more clearly assumes the status of learner within the context of the family of orientation, the school, or the peer group. Also, relationships in the earlier period are more likely to be affectively charged,
i.e., highly emotional. In adulthood, though the socializee takes the role of student at times, much socialization occurs after the socializee has assumed full incumbency of the adult role.
There is also a greater likelihood of more formal relationships due to situational contexts (e.g., work environment), which moderates down the affective component.
3. response - The child and adolescent may be more easily malleable than the adult. Also, much adult socialization is self-initiated and voluntary; adults can leave or terminate the process at any time.
Socialization is, of course, a social process. As such, it involves interactions between people.
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Socialization, as noted in the distinction between primary and secondary, can take place in multiple contexts and as a result of contact with numerous groups. Some of the more significant contributors to the socialization process are: parents, friends, schools, siblings, and co-workers.
Each of these groups include a culture that must be learned and to some degree appropriated by the socializee in order to gain admittance to the group.
A painting of a prison.
Total Institutions
Not all socialization is voluntary nor is all socialization successful. There are components of society designed specifically to resocialize individuals who were not successfully socialized to begin with. For instance, prisons and mental health institutions are designed to resocialize the people who are deemed to have not been successfully socialized. Depending on the degree of isolation and resocialization that takes place in a given institution, some of these institutions are labeled total institutions. In his classic study of total institutions, Erving Goffman (1961:6) gives the following characteristics of total institutions:
1. all aspects of life are conducted in the same place under the same authority
2. the individual is a member of a large cohort, all treated alike
3. all daily activities (over a 24-hour period) are tightly scheduled
4. there is a sharp split between supervisors and lower participants
5. information about the member 's fate is withheld
The most common examples of total institutions include mental hospitals, prisons, and military boot camps, though there are numerous other institutions that could be considered total institutions as well. The goal of total institutions is to facilitate a complete break with one 's old
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life in order for the institution to resocialize the individual into a new life.
Mortimer and Simmons (1978) note a difference in socialization methodologies in different types of institutions. When the goal of an institution is socialization (primary or secondary), the institution tends to use normative pressures. When the goal of an institution is resocialization of deviants, coercion is frequently involved
Broad and Narrow Socialization
An interesting though seldom used distinction in types of socialization was proposed by Arnett
(1995). Arnett distinguishes between broad and narrow socialization:
· broad socialization is intended to promote independence, individualism, and self-expression; it is dubbed broad because this type of socialization has the potential of resulting in a broad range of outcomes
· narrow socialization is intended to promote obedience and conformity; it is dubbed narrow because there is a narrow range of outcomes
These distinctions correspond to Arnett 's definition of socialization, which is: the whole process by which an individual born with behavioral potentialities of enormously wide range, is led to develop actual behavior which is confined with a much narrower range; the range of what is customary and acceptable for him according to the standards of his group
Arnett explains that his understanding of socialization should not be understood as having just two options, broad or narrow. Instead, the author argues that socialization can be broad or narrow within each of the seven socializing forces he outlines (e.g., family, friends, etc.).
Because each force can be either broad or narrow, there is a wide variety of possible broad/narrow socialization combinations. Finally, Arnett notes two examples where his distinction is relevant. First, Arnett argues that there are often differences in socialization by gender. Where these differences exist, argues Arnett, socialization tends to be narrower for women than for men. Arnett also argues that Japanese socialization is narrow as there is more pressure toward conformity in that culture. Arnett argues that this may account for the lower crime rates in Japan.
The Importance of Socialization
One of the most common methods used to illustrate the importance of socialization is to draw upon the few unfortunate cases of children who were, through neglect, misfortune, or willful abuse, not socialized by adults while they were growing up. Examples of such children can be found here.
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Theoretical Understandings of Socialization
Socialization, as a concept in social scientific research, has evolved over time. While the basic idea outlined above has been a component of most understandings of socialization, there has been quite a variety of definitions and theories of socialization. Some of these approaches are presented here as definitional variety is often informative (see Holland 1970, Mortimer and
Simmons 1978, and Long and Hadden 1985 for more information).
· Symbolic Interactionism - the self develops as a result of social interactions; as a result, socialization is highly dependent on the situations in which the actor finds him/herself; this approach also argues that socialization is a continuous, lifelong process
· Role Theory - socialization is seen as a process of acquisition of appropriate norms, attitudes, self-images, values, and role behaviors that enable acceptance in the group and effective performance of new roles; in this framework, socialization is seen as a conservative force, permitting the perpetuation of the social organization in spite of the turn-over of individual members through time
· Reinforcement Theory - the self develops as a result of cognitive evaluations of costs and benefits; this understanding assumes that the socializee, in approaching new roles, is an independent and active negotiator for advantages in relationships with role partners and membership groups
· Internalization Theory - socialization is a series of stages in which the individual learns to participate in various levels of organization of society; this theory contends that the child internalizes a cognitive frame of reference for interpersonal relations and a common system of expressive symbolism in addition to a moral conscience; this approach was advocated by
Talcott Parsons
Socialization as Joining Groups
The concept of socialization has traditionally addressed the problem of individual adjustment to society. In all of the approaches outlined above, socialization has, in one way or another, referred to the idea that society shapes its members toward compliance and cooperation with societal requirements. In order to reduce confusion, develop a research methodology for measuring socialization, and potentially lead to the comparability of research findings from different studies, Long and Hadden (1985) proposed a revised understanding of socialization.
Rather than referring to a vague adoption or learning of culture, Long and Hadden reframed socialization as "the medium for transforming newcomers into bona fide members of a group."
Before discussing some of the specifics of this approach, it may be useful to outline some of the critiques Long and Hadden present of earlier approaches to socialization.
According to Long and Hadden, many earlier approaches to socialization extended socialization to every part of human social life. As a result, everyone becomes both a socializing agent (socializer) and a novice (socializee) in all encounters with others. This conceptualization leaves socialization without a social home; it is all around but no place in
65
particular. Another criticism of previous approaches is that they allowed socialization to include anything, and anything which is part of the process at one time may be excluded at another. With this conceptualization, any phenomenon may shift its status in the socialization process without changing its own composition or expression. In other words, socialization includes virtually everything, excludes almost nothing, and shifts with circumstance and outcomes. Additionally, previous approaches to socialization lacked specificity about the nature of socialization activity. Defining socialization by its outcomes made it unnecessary to stipulate the nature of the process conceptually. Socialization could be attributed to this or that but in order to truly understand what is taking place it is necessary to go beyond just pointing to socializing agents and specify what it is about those agents that is doing the socializing.
Another serious drawback of earlier approaches is that they disregard the process component of socialization. Doing so limits the socialization concept to employment primarily as a post hoc interpretive category that is used to lend significance to findings defined and developed in other terms. As a result of these criticisms, Long and Hadden (1985) found themselves presented with a two-fold task:
· locate socialization and its social boundaries more precisely
· specify the distinctive properties which distinguish it from related phenomena
To accomplish this, Long and Hadden developed a new understanding of socialization,
"socialization is the process of creating and incorporating new members of a group from a pool of newcomers, carried out by members and their allies". Under this understanding, the principal agents of socialization are certified and practicing members of the group to which novices are being socialized. It should be noted that certified here is only a shortened way of saying "a socially approved member of the group." Thus, Long and Hadden 's revised understanding of socialization sees it as both the process and outcome of joining groups.
Research Examples
Numerous examples of research on socialization could be presented in this section. One important area of socialization research involves differences in gender socialization, but much of that research is summarized in the chapter on gender. The following three research examples are interesting in that they explore both primary and secondary socialization and do so from varying perspectives.
Socialization and Social Class
Ellis, Lee, and Peterson (1978), developing a research agenda begun by Melvin L. Kohn
(1959), explored differences in how parents raise their children relative to their social class.
Kohn (1959) found that lower class parents were more likely to emphasize conformity in their children whereas middle-class parents were more likely to emphasize creativity and selfreliance.
Ellis et. al. proposed and found that parents value conformity over self-reliance in children to the extent that conformity superseded self-reliance as a criterion for success in their
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own endeavors. In other words, Ellis et. al. verified that the reason lower-class parents emphasize conformity in their children is because they experience conformity in their day-today activities. For example, factory work is far more about conforming than innovation.
Another study in this same area explored a slightly different component of this relationship.
Erlanger (1974) was interested in a correlation between social class and physical violence.
While he did not find a strong correlation indicating lower class individuals were more likely to employ physical violence in punishing their children, he did present evidence concerning several outdated propositions. Erlanger 's findings include:
· physical punishment does not lead to working class authoritarianism
· childhood punishment experiences do not explain the greater probability that working class adults, as opposed to middle class adults, will commit homicide
· general use of corporal punishment is not a precursor to child abuse
· use of corporal punishment is not part of a subcultural positive evaluation of violence
It should be noted that this is an older study and that more recent findings may have shed more light on these issues. It should also be noted that Erlanger readily points out when his findings are strongly supported or weakly supported by his data. It behooves the interested party to read his paper directly rather than rely on the summary above for the specific nuances.
Socialization and Death Preparation
Marshall (1975) interviewed a number of retirement home residents to explore how their environment influenced their thinking about death. In essence, Marshall was examining secondary socialization concerning mortality. Marshall found that a combination of relationships, behavioral changes, and retirement home culture contributed to a conception of death that was both accepting and courageous.
Residents of this particular retirement home found themselves with more time on their hands - to think about death - because they no longer had to care for their own homes. Additionally, they found themselves surrounded by people in a situation similar to their own: they were basically moving into the retirement home to prepare for death. The prevalence of elderly people facilitated discussions of death, which also helped socialize the residents into their acceptance of mortality. Finally, the retirement home community encouraged a culture of life and fulfillment in part to counter-act the frequency of death. Some residents calculated there was one death per week in the retirement home. In light of such numbers, it was important to the success of the community to maintain a positive culture that embraced life yet accepted death. In summary, Marshall found that numerous factors contributed to the socialization of residents into a positive lifestyle that was also accepting of and preparatory for their impending deaths. 67
Do College Preparation Classes Make a Difference?
Rosenbaum (1975) was interested in the effects of high school tracks on IQ. High school tracks are the different levels or types of courses students can take; for instance, many high schools now include college preparation tracks and general education tracks. Rosenbaum 's theory was that students who followed the lower tracks (non college-preparation) would score lower on IQ tests over time than would students who followed the higher tracks (college-preparation).
Considering that school is one of the primary contributors to socialization, it makes sense that participation in a given track can also result in the adoption of the norms, values, beliefs, skills, and behaviors that correspond to that track. In other words, tracks can turn into a type of selffulfilling prophecy: you may start out at the same level as someone in a higher track, but by the time you have completed the lower track you will have become like the other students in your track. To reduce confounding variables and ensure notable test effects, Rosenbaum selected a homogeneous, white, working class public school with five different, highly stratified classes.
Rosenbaum then compared IQ scores for individuals in the different tracks at two time points.
As it turns out, tracking does have a significant effect on IQ. People in lower tracks can actually see a decline in IQ compared to a possible increase among those in the upper track. In other words, tracks socialize their students into their corresponding roles.
Notes
Additional Theoretical Approaches
These approaches are occasionally discussed in the literature, but do not seem distinct enough or adopted widely enough to warrant inclusion in the primary content of this chapter:
· identification theory - similar to role theory with three psychological components (a) cathexis of the role, (b) identification with a real or ideal model, (c) introjection of the model 's values as the culmination
· generalization theory - the socialization of attitudes, values, and ways of thinking is abstracted and generalized from the modes of successful adaptation
· expectancy theory - attaches great importance to the actor 's expectations regarding the behavioral outcomes of his efforts and the group 's response to them
· Fromm (1941) - instilling in the child the desire to do what he must do if a given society is to be maintained
References
· Arnett, Jeffrey J. 1995. "Broad and Narrow Socialization: The Family in the Context of a
Cultural Theory." Journal of Marriage and the Family 57( 3):617-28.
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· Ellis, Godfrey J., Gary R. Lee, and Larry R. Petersen. 1978. "Supervision and Conformity: A
Cross-Cultural Analysis of Parental Socialization Values." American Journal of Sociology
84(2):386-403.
· Goffman, Erving. 1961. Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other
Inmates.
· Holland, David. 1970. "Familization, Socialization, and the Universe of Meaning: An
Extension of the Interactional Approach to the Study of the Family." Journal of Marriage and the Family 32(3):415-27.
· Kohn, Melvin L. 1969. Class and Conformity, A Study in Values. Homewood, IL: Dorsey
Press.
· Long, Theodore E. and Jeffrey K. Hadden. 1985. "A Reconception of Socialization."
Sociological Theory 3(1):39-49.
· Marshall, Victor W. 1975. "Socialization for Impending Death in a Retirement Village ."
American Journal of Sociology 80(5):1124-44.
· Mortimer, Jeylan T. and Roberta G. Simmons. 1978. "Adult Socialization." Annual Review of
Sociology 4421-54.
· Rosenbaum, James E. 1975. "The Stratification of Socialization Processes." American
Sociological Review 40(1):48-54.
History
· This page is adapted 9 April 2005 from the Wikipedia article, socialization.
· External Links
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Groups
Introduction
In sociology, a group is usually defined as a number of people who identify and interact with one another. This is a very broad definition, as it includes groups of all sizes, from dyads to whole societies. While an aggregate comprises merely a number of individuals, a group in sociology exhibits cohesiveness to a larger degree. Aspects that members in the group may share include: interests, values, ethnic/linguistic background, roles and kinship. One way of determining if a collection of people can be considered a group is if individuals who belong to that collection use the self-referent pronoun "we;" using "we" to refer to a collection of people often implies that the collection thinks of itself as a group. Examples of groups include: families, companies, cirlces of friends, clubs, local chapters of fraternities and sororities, and local religious congregations.
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Law enforcement officials are members of a social category, not a group.
Collections of people that do not use the self-referent pronoun "we" but share certain characteristics (e.g., roles, social functions, etc.) are different from groups in that they usually do not regularly interact with each other nor share similar interests or values. Such collections are referred to as categories of people rather than groups; examples include: police, soldiers, millionaires, women, etc.
Individuals form groups for a variety of reasons. There are some rather obvious ones, like reproduction, protection, trade, and food production. But social categorization of people into groups and categories also facilitates behavior and action (Hogg 2003). An example may help explain this idea:
Suppose you are driving somewhere in a car when you notice red lights flashing in your rearview mirror. Because you have been socialized into society, you know that the red lights mean you should pull over, so you do. After waiting for a minute or two, an individual in a uniform walks toward your car door. You roll down your window and the individuals asks you for your "license and registration."
Because groups and categories help facilitate social behavior, you know who this individual is: a member of a law enforcement category like the police or highway patrol. In all likelihood, you do not have to question this individual as to why they are driving a special car with lights on it, why they are wearing a uniform, why they are carrying a gun, or why they pulled you over (you may ask why they pulled you over, but doing so often increases the likelihood they 'll give you a ticket). In short, because you recognize that the individual driving the car belongs to a specific social category (or group), you can enter this interaction with a body of knowledge that will help guide your behavior. You do not have to learn how to interact in that situation every single time you encounter it. Social categorization of people into groups and categories is a heuristic device that makes social interaction easier.
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Social Identity Theory
Social identity is a theory formed by Henri Tajfel and John Turner to understand the psychological basis of intergroup discrimination. It is composed of three elements:
· Categorization: We often put others (and ourselves) into categories. Labeling someone as a
Muslim, a Turk, or soccer player are ways of saying other things about these people.
· Identification: We also associate with certain groups (our ingroups), which serves to bolster our self-esteem. · Comparison: We compare our groups with other groups, seeing a favorable bias toward the group to which we belong...
As developed by Tajfel, Social Identity Theory is a diffuse but interrelated group of social psychological theories concerned with when and why individuals identify with, and behave as part of, social groups, adopting shared attitudes to outsiders. It is also concerned with what difference it makes when encounters between individuals are perceived as encounters between group members. Social Identity Theory is thus concerned both with the psychological and sociological aspects of group behaviour.
Reacting against individualistic explanations of group behaviour (e.g. Allport) on one hand, and tendencies to reify the group on the other, Tajfel sought an account of group identity that held together both society and individual. Tajfel first sought to differentiate between those elements of self-identity derived from individual personality traits and interpersonal relationships (personal identity) and those elements derived from belonging to a particular group (social identity). Each individual is seen to have a repertoire of identities open to them
(social and personal), each identity informing the individual of who he is and what this identity entails. Which of these many identities is most salient for an individual at any time will vary according to the social context. Tajfel then postulated that social behaviour exists on a spectrum from the purely interpersonal to the purely intergroup. Where personal identity is salient, the individual will relate to others in an interpersonal manner, dependent on their character traits and any personal relationship existing between the individuals. However, under certain conditions 'social identity is more salient then personal identity in self-conception and that when this is the case behaviour is qualitatively different: it is group behaviour. '
The first element in social identity theory is categorization. We categorize objects in order to understand them, in a very similar way we categorize people (including ourselves) in order to understand the social environment. We use social categories like black, white, Australian,
Christian, Muslim, student, and busdriver because they are useful. If we can assign people to a category then that tells us things about those people, and as we saw with the busdriver example we couldn 't function in a normal manner without using these categories; i.e. in the context of the bus. Similarly, we find out things about ourselves by knowing what categories we belong to. We define appropriate behaviour by reference to the norms of groups we belong to, but you can only do this if you can tell who belongs to your group.
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The second important idea is identification. We identify with groups that we perceive ourselves to belong to. Identification carries two meanings. Part of who we are is made up of our group memberships. That is, sometimes we think of ourselves as "us" vs. "them" or "we ' vs. "they", and at othertimes we think of ourselves as "I" vs. "he or she" or "me" vs. "him or her". That is sometimes we think of ourselves as group members and at other times we think of ourselves as unique individuals. This varies situationally, so that we can be more or less a group member, depending upon the circumstances. What is crucial for our purposes is that thinking of yourselves as a group member and thinking of yourself as a unique individual are both parts of your self-concept. The first is referred to as social identity, the latter is referred to as personal identity. Just to reiterate, in social identity theory the group membership is not something foreign which is tacked onto the person, it is a real, true and vital part of the person. Again, it is crucial to remember ingroups are groups you identify with, and outgroups are ones that we don 't identify with. The other meaning implied by the concept of identity is the idea that we are, in some sense, the same, or identical to the other people. This should not be misinterpreted, when we say that we are the same, we mean that for some purposes we treat members of our groups as being similar to ourselves in some relevant way. To take the most extreme example, in some violent conflict such as a war, the members of the opposite group are treated as identical and completely different to the ingroup, in that the enemy are considered to be deserving of death. This behaviour and these beliefs are not the product of a bizarre personality disorder, but under these circumstances violent behaviour becomes rational, accepted and even expected behaviour.
The third idea that is involved in social identity theory is one that we have already dealt with. It is Festinger 's (1954) notion of social comparison. The basic idea is that a positive self-concept is a part of normal psychological functioning. There is pretty good evidence that to deal effectively with the world we need to feel good about ourselves. The idea of social comparison is that in order to evaluate ourselves we compare ourselves with similar others.
We have already discussed the idea that we can gain self-esteem by comparing ourselves with others in our group, and also that we can see ourselves in a positive light by seeing ourselves as a member of a prestigious group. The question is, how do groups get this prestige? Tajfel and
Turner 's answer is that group members compare their group with others, in order to define their group as positive, and therefore by implication, see themselves in a positive way. That is, people choose to compare their groups with other groups in ways that reflect positively on themselves. Two ideas follow from this. One is positive distinctiveness. The idea is that people are motivated to see their own group as relatively better than similar (but inferior) groups. The other idea is negative distinctiveness, groups tend to mimimize the differences between the groups, so that our own group is seen favourably.
The operation of these processes is subsumed within the concept of social creativity. Groups choose dimensions in order to maximise the positivity of their own group. For example, groups
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which perceive themselves to be of high status on particular dimensions will choose those as the basis of comparison. Groups of low status will minimise differences on those dimensions or choose new dimensions. For example, people from some Middle Eastern Islamic countries might regard their country as inferior to the West in terms of economic and technological advancement but might regard their way of life as being morally superior.
p. 461 "In many respects, this has been the fate of "the group" in social psychology. With its focus on the individual, social psychology has had a difficult time accepting the group as a true member of the flock. Although the group has been a part of social psychology since the field 's beginning (Triplett, 1898), it has occupied a rather tenuous position. Social psychologists have scoffed at the notion of a "group mind" (Le Bon, 1895/1960). Allport (1924) observed that nobody ever tripped over a group, an insult questioning the very existence of the group. The rejection of the group became so complete that Steiner (1974) entitled an article, "What ever happened to the group in social psychology?" For a time, the group was banished to the foreign lands of organizational psychology and sociology. "But the group could not stay a stranger for long. It wormed its way back into the fold, but its rebirth had a unique twist. Early definitions of the group described it as a unit consisting of several individuals who interacted with each other and occupied "real" space (Shaw, 1981). However, the born-again group was accepted into the domain of social psychology only as a cognitive representation, a figment of the mind.
Instead of the individual being in the group, the group was now within the individual; Hogg and Abrams (1988) stated that "the group is thus within the individual ..." (p. 19)."
p. 462 "SIT became the springboard for new approaches to understanding stereotyping
(Haslam, Turner, Oakes, McGarry, & Hays, 1992; Ng, 1989; Spears, Oakes, Ellemers, &
Haslam, 1997), prejudice (Bagby & Rector, 1992), ethnic violence (Worchel, 1999) and other forms of intergroup relations. The perspective was applied to a host of traditional social psychological issues such as interpersonal perception (Park & Rothbart, 1982), minority influence (Clark & Maass, 1988), and group productivity and social loafing (Worchel,
Rothgerber, Day, Hart, & Buttemeyer, 1998)." Every article I have read in these books has mentioned SIT and Tajfel; was that a requirement? Has SP nothing else?
p. 463 "Social identity theory presents individual identity as a point along a continuum ranging from personal identity on one end to social identity on the other end. One 's identity at a specific time is represented by a single point on the continuum. A multitude of variables affect whether personal identity or social identity will be most salient, and which of the many group memberships will be most prominent on the social identity side of the equation. The conceptualization of social identity as being composed of group membership leads to the hypothesis that people discriminate in order to enhance the position of their ingroups relative to that of outgroups. The motivation behind this action is to create a positive social identity
(Tajfel, 1978), reduce threats to self-esteem (Hogg & Abrams, 1990; Long & Spears, 1997), or reduce uncertainty (Hogg, 2000; Hogg & Abrams, 1993)."
p. 464 "Our approach gives the group a clear role outside the cognitive structure of the individual. Although we do not deny that individuals hold mental representations of groups and that these representations can and do exert influence, we also argue that groups are entities that exist outside the person and exert real pressure. We suggest that group dynamics has
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interpersonal and intergroup components that cannot be ignored in the study of the relationship between individual and group. Although group activities have an impact on the identity of the individual member, the group must be examined within a true social paradigm."
p. 467 "The disintegration of the group continues into the stage of decay. At this point, members may defect from the group. Scapegoating takes place and leaders are often blamed for group ills. The individual focus is accelerated, and the need for the group is questioned. "In some cases, the decay destroys the group and it ceases to exist. However, in many other cases, the group, albeit with a different set of members, begins the process of rebuilding. A distinct incident or threat may ignite the rebirth, or the rebuilding may be initiated by the collective actions of a subset of the members. Whatever the reason, the group enters again into the group identification stage, and the cycle of group development begins anew." Why do they put everything into either stages or cycles? Why can 't things not progress and just be?
Primary and Secondary Groups
In sociology we distinguish between two types of groups based upon their characteristics. A
Primary group is typically a small social group whose members share close, personal, enduring relationships. These groups are marked by concern for one another, shared activities and culture, and long periods of time spent together. The goal of primary groups is actually the relationships themselves rather than achieving some other purpose. Families and close friends are examples of primary groups
A class of students is generally considered a secondary group.
Secondary groups are large groups whose relationships are impersonal and goal-oriented.
Some secondary groups may last for many years, though most are short term. Such groups also begin and end with very little significance in the lives of the people involved. People in a secondary group interact on a less personal level than in a primary group. Rather than having as the goal the maintenance and development of the relationships themselves, these groups generally come together to accomplish a specific purpose. Since secondary groups are established to perform functions, peopleâ€(tm)s roles are more interchangeable. Examples of secondary groups include: classmates in a college course, athletic teams, and co-workers.
The distinction between primary and secondary groups was originally proposed by Charles
Horton Cooley. He labelled groups as "primary" because people often experience such groups early in their life and such groups play an important role in the development of personal identity. Secondary groups generally develop later in life and are much less likely to be influential on one 's identity.
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Leadership
Conformity
Reference Groups
A group that is used as a standard against which we compare ourselves would be a reference group. Take the case of someone who grew up in a poverty-stricken neighborhood. If all friends and relatives (her reference group) were in the same situation, just scraping by, she may not have considered herself poor at the time. Reference groups can also serve to enforce conformity to certain standards. A college freshman who has his heart set on joining a prestigious fraternity on campus may adopt behaviors and attitudes that are accepted by members of the fraternity.
Ingroups and Outgroups
p. 56 "Groups exist by virtue of there being outgroups. For a collection of people to be a group there must, logically, be other people who are not in the group (a diffuse non-ingroup, e.g., academics vs. non-academics) or people who are in a specific outgroup (e.g., academics vs. politicians). In this sense, social groups are categories of people; and just like other categories, a social category acquires its meaning by contrast with other categories. The social world is patterned by social discontinuities that mark the boundaries of social groups in terms of perceived and/or actual differences in what people think, feel, and do."
p. 407 "Research on the black sheep effect is consistent with this analysis. In one study
(Marques, Yzerbyt, & Leyens, 1988, Exp. 1), Belgian students rated "attractive Belgian students," "attractive North African students," "unattractive Belgian students," and "unattractive
North African students." Attractive ingroup members were judged more favorably than attractive outgroup members. The opposite occurred for unattractive members. Figure 17.1 shows the general pattern of judgments that correspond to the black sheep effect." Basically the whole point of this chapter.
Group Size
Social Facilitation
Social Loafing
In the social psychology of groups, social loafing is the phenomenon that persons make less effort to achieve a goal when they work in a group than when they work alone. This is one of the main reasons that groups sometimes perform less than the combined performance of their members working as individuals.
The main explanation for social loafing is that people feel unmotivated when working in a
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group, because they think that their contributions will not be evaluated. According to the results of a meta-analysis study (Karau & Williams, 1993), social loafing is a pervasive phenomenon, but it does not occur when the group members feel that the task or the group itself is important.
The answer to social loafing is motivation. A competitive environment will not get group members motivated. It takes "the three C 's of motivation" to get a group moving: collaboration, content, and choice (Rothwell, 2004).
1. Collaboration is a way to get everyone involved in the group. It is a way for the group members to share the knowledge and the tasks to be fulfilled unfailingly (CSCW, 2000). For example, giving Sally the note taker duty and Raúl the brainstorming duty will make them feel essential to the group. Sally and Raúl won 't want to let the group down, because they have specific obligations to complete.
2. Content identifies the importance of the individuals ' specific tasks within the group. If group members see their role as a worthy task, then they are more likely to fulfill it. For example,
Raúl enjoys brainstorming, and he knows that he will bring a lot to the group if he fulfills this obligation. He feels that his obligation means something to the group.
3. Choice gives the group members the opportunity to choose the task they want to fulfill.
Assigning roles in a group causes complaints and frustration. Allowing group members the freedom to choose their role rids social loafing and encourages the members to work together as a team.
Deindividuation
Deindividuation refers to the phenomenon of relinquishing one 's sense of identity. This can happen as a result of becoming part of a group, such as an army or mob, but also as a result of meditation. It can have quite destructive effects, sometimes making people more likely to commit a crime, like stealing (Diener, 1976) or even over-enforce the law, such as police in riot situations. It is the motivational cause of most riot participants ' actions for example, the violent
1992 riots that took place in LA 's south central district. Deindividuated individuals ' selfawareness becomes absent and they are oblivious to outside evaluation. This is when evaluation apprehension ceases to exist, ultimately breaking down any inhibitions.
Group Polarization
Group polarization effects have been demonstrated to exaggerate the inclinations of group members after a discussion. A military term for group polarization is "incestuous amplification". Overview
Study of this effect has shown that after participating in a discussion group, members tend to advocate more extreme positions and call for riskier courses of action than individuals who did not participate in any such discussion. This phenomenon was originally coined risky shift but was found to apply to more than risk, so the replacement term choice shift has been suggested.
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In addition, attitudes such as racial and sexual prejudice tend to be reduced (for already lowprejudice individuals) and inflated (for already high-prejudice individuals) after group discussion. Group polarization has been used to explain the decision-making of a jury, particularly when considering punitive damages in a civil trial. Studies have shown that after deliberating together, mock jury members often decided on punitive damage awards that were larger or smaller than the amount any individual juror had favored prior to deliberation. The studies indicated that when the jurors favored a relatively low award, discussion would lead to an even more lenient result, while if the jury was inclined to impose a stiff penalty, discussion would make it even harsher.
Developments in the study of group polarization
The study of group polarization began with an unpublished 1961 Masterâ€(tm)s thesis by MIT student James Stoner, who observed the so-called "risky shift", meaning that a groupâ€(tm)s decisions are riskier than the average of the individual decisions of members before the group met. The discovery of the risky shift was considered surprising and counterintuitive, especially since earlier work in the 1920s and 1930s by Allport and other researchers suggested that individuals made more extreme decisions than did groups, leading to the expectation that groups would make decisions that would conform to the average risk level of its members. The seemingly counterintuitive findings of Stoner led to a flurry of research around the risky shift, which was originally thought to be a special case exception to the standard decision-making practice. By the late 1960s, however, it had become clear that the risky shift was just one type of many attitudes that became more extreme in groups, leading Moscovici and Zavalloni to term the overall phenomenon "group polarization".
Thus began a decade-long period of examination of the applicability of group polarization to a number of fields, ranging from political attitudes to religion, in both lab and field settings.
Basic studies of group polarization tapered off, but research on the topic continued. Group polarization was well-established, but remained non-obvious and puzzling because its mechanisms were not understood.
Mechanisms of polarization
Almost as soon as the phenomenon of group polarization was discovered, a variety of hypotheses were suggested for the mechanisms for its action. These explanations were gradually winnowed down and grouped together until two primary mechanisms remained, social comparison and influence. Social comparison approaches, sometimes called interpersonal comparison, were based on social psychological views of self-perception and the drive of individuals to appear socially desirable . The second major mechanism is informational influence, which is also sometimes referred to as persuasive argument theory, or PAT. PAT holds that individual choices are determined by individuals weighing remembered pro and con arguments. These arguments are then applied to possible choices, and the most positive is selected. As a mechanism for polarization, group discussion shifts the weight of evidence as each individual exposes their pro and con arguments, giving each other new arguments and
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increasing the stock of pro arguments in favor of the group tendency, and con arguments against the group tendency. The persuasiveness of an argument depends on two factors â€" originality and its validity. According to PAT, a valid argument would hold more persuasive weight than a non-valid one. Originality has come to be understood in terms of the novelty of an argument. A more novel argument would increase the likelihood that it is an addition to the other group membersâ€(tm) pool of pro and con arguments, rather than a simple repetition.
In the 1970s, significant arguments occurred over whether persuasive argumentation alone accounted for group polarization. Daniel Isenbergâ€(tm)s 1986 meta-analysis of the data gathered by both the persuasive argument and social comparison camps succeeded, in large part, in answering the questions about predominant mechanisms. Isenberg concluded that there was substantial evidence that both effects were operating simultaneously, and that PAT operated when social comparison did not, and vice-versa. Isenberg did discover that PAT did seem to have a significantly stronger effect, however.
Groupthink
Groupthink is a term coined by psychologist Irving Janis in 1972 to describe a process by which a group can make bad or irrational decisions. In a groupthink situation, each member of the group attempts to conform his or her opinions to what they believe to be the consensus of the group. In a general sense this seems to be a very rationalistic way to approach the situation.
However this results in a situation in which the group ultimately agrees upon an action which each member might individually consider to be unwise (the risky shift).
Janis ' original definition of the term was "a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members ' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action." The word groupthink was intended to be reminiscent of George Orwell 's coinages (such as doublethink and duckspeak) from the fictional language Newspeak, which he portrayed in his novel Nineteen
Eighty-Four.
Groupthink tends to occur on committees and in large organizations. Janis originally studied the Pearl Harbor bombing, the Vietnam War and the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Recently, in 2004, the US Senate Intelligence Committee 's Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community 's Prewar
Intelligence Assessments on Iraq blamed groupthink for failures to correctly interpret intelligence relating to Iraq 's weapons of mass destruction capabilities.[2]
Symptoms of groupthink
Janis cited a number of antecedent conditions that would be likely to encourage groupthink.
These include:
· Insulation of the group
· High group cohesiveness
· Directive leadership
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· Lack of norms requiring methodical procedures
· Homogeneity of members ' social background and ideology
· High stress from external threats with low hope of a better solution than the one offered by the leader(s) Janis listed eight symptoms that he said were indicative of groupthink:
1. Illusion of invulnerability
2. Unquestioned belief in the inherent morality of the group
3. Collective rationalization of group 's decisions
4. Shared stereotypes of outgroup, particularly opponents
5. Self-censorship; members withhold criticisms
6. Illusion of unanimity (see false consensus effect)
7. Direct pressure on dissenters to conform
8. Self-appointed "mindguards" protect the group from negative information
Finally, the seven symptoms of decision affected by groupthink are:
1. Incomplete survey of alternatives
2. Incomplete survey of objectives
3. Failure to examine risks of preferred choice
4. Failure to re-appraise initially rejected alternatives
5. Poor information search
6. Selective bias in processing information at hand (see also confirmation bias)
7. Failure to work out contingency plans
Preventing groupthink
One mechanism which management consultants recommend to avoid groupthink is to place responsibility and authority for a decision in the hands of a single person who can turn to others for advice. Others advise that a pre-selected individual take the role of disagreeing with any suggestion presented, thereby making other individuals more likely to present their own ideas and point out flaws in others ' â€" and reducing the stigma associated with being the first to take negative stances (see Devil 's Advocate).
Anonymous feedback via suggestion box or online chat has been found to be a useful remedy
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for groupthink â€" negative or dissenting views of proposals can be raised without any individual being identifiable by others as having lodged a critique. Thus the social capital of the group is preserved, as all members have plausible deniability that they raised a dissenting point.
Institutional mechanisms such as an inspector general system can also play a role in preventing groupthink as all participants have the option of appealing to an individual outside the decisionmaking group who has the authority to stop non-constructive or harmful trends.
Another possibility is giving each participant in a group a piece of paper, this is done randomly and without anyone but the receiver being able to read it. Two of the pieces of paper have
"dissent" written on them, the others are blank. People have to dissent if the paper says so (like a Devil 's Advocate), no-one is able to know if the other person is expressing dissent because they received a pre-marked "dissent" piece of paper or because it 's an honest dissent. Also, as with every Devil 's Advocate, there exists the possibility that the person adopting this role would think about the problem in a way that they wouldn 't have if not under that role, and so promoting creative and critical thought.
Another way which is of special use in very asymmetric relations (as in a classroom) is to say something which is essentially wrong or false, having given (or being obvious that the persons that may be groupthinking know about that) the needed information to realize its inconsistency previously, if at the start of the class the teacher told the students that he would do so and not tell them when he did until the end of the class, they would be stimulated to criticize and
"process" information instead of merely assimilating it.
An alternative to groupthink is a formal consensus decision-making process, which works best in a group whose aims are cooperative rather than competitive, where trust is able to build up, and where participants are willing to learn and apply facilitation skills.
Notes

References: · Arnett, Jeffrey J. 1995. "Broad and Narrow Socialization: The Family in the Context of a Cultural Theory." Journal of Marriage and the Family 57( 3):617-28. · Goffman, Erving. 1961. Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. · Holland, David. 1970. "Familization, Socialization, and the Universe of Meaning: An Extension of the Interactional Approach to the Study of the Family." Journal of Marriage and · Kohn, Melvin L. 1969. Class and Conformity, A Study in Values. Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press. · Long, Theodore E. and Jeffrey K. Hadden. 1985. "A Reconception of Socialization." Sociological Theory 3(1):39-49. · Marshall, Victor W. 1975. "Socialization for Impending Death in a Retirement Village ." American Journal of Sociology 80(5):1124-44. · Mortimer, Jeylan T. and Roberta G. Simmons. 1978. "Adult Socialization." Annual Review of Sociology 4421-54. · Rosenbaum, James E. 1975. "The Stratification of Socialization Processes." American Sociological Review 40(1):48-54. groups and categories also facilitates behavior and action (Hogg 2003). An example may help explain this idea: