Social Structure and Social Interaction Leve Levell of Socio Sociological logical Ana Analysis lysis Macrosociology: Focused on the broad features of society. Microsociology: Focused on everyday social interactions. • Sociologists use both macro and micro levels of analysis to study social life. ○ Those who use macrosociology to analyze the homeless (or any human behavior) focus on broad aspects of society, such as the economy and social classes. ○ Sociologists who use the microsociological approach analyze how people interact with one another. The Soci Sociological ological Significance of Socia Sociall Structure • Social structure surrounds us and guides our behavior. Social Structure: The relationship of people and groups to one another. • It also refers to group relationships that exist over time. • It is a relatively bound network of social relationships. • Social structure is what provides regularity and predictability to a society and gives us the feeling that life is characterized by organization and stability. • Social structure consists of the recurrent and orderly relationships that prevail among members of a social system. Examples: Social Structure at Marshall ○ Every semester, you start new classes and have little trouble adapting to unfamiliar classmates and professors. ○ A new class enters each year and another class graduates each May. ○ Deans prepare new budgets and allocate funds, professors teach classes, the registrar handles add/drop and grades, etc. ○ All the time, new students, professors, coaches, athletes pass through the system and then leave it. ○ BUT, even though the actual people who make up Marshall change over time, the university continues to exist, much as before. ○ Families, businesses, religious groups and nations are other examples of social structures. Team Positions: oci ocial al Structure Comp Components onents of SSoci • Culture • Social Class • Social Status • Roles • Groups Comp Components onents of SSoci oci ocial al Structure: Culture • Our shared culture… ○ Makes us similar to one another. ○ Makes other people seem "different" Comp Components onents of SSoci oci ocial al Structure: Social Class • Based on income, education, and occupational prestige. ○ Those of the same social class share similar interests. • Social class and social status are significant factors in social life. ○ Fundamental to what we become, they affect our orientations to life. Comp Components onents of SSoci oci ocial al Structure: Social Status Social Status: Position in a social structure. • It is a label that identifies some socially-defines differentiation in age, sex, occupation, group, condition, etc. • It is through statuses that we locate each other in various social structures. Examples: ○ Child, woman, friend, priest, mechanic, customer, professor, republican, student, French-Canadian, driver, etc. ○ One occupies a status. • There are two types of status: 1. An ascribed status: Social status assigned to a person arbitrarily by the group or society. ○ The person has little or nothing to do with having attained it. ○ How do we vary by ascribed statuses here in the classroom?  Age, race, sex, national origin, and ethnicity are obviously ascribed statuses.  Religion: If you have unthinkingly accepted that of your parents.  Economic status: If you have not established your own means of economic subsistence.  Political affiliation: If you have uncritically adopted that of your parents. 2. An achieved status: Social status assigned to a person the basis of his/her own efforts and performance. ○ It is the result of individual choice and competition. ○ These statuses are allocated on the basis of individual achievement. ○ How do we vary by achieved statuses?  Marital status, college student, minister, police officer, rapist, coach, President, quarterback, etc. Master status: A key or core status that is predominant in a person's interaction and relationship with others. • Sex, race, and occupation are critical statuses in American society. • In most societies, the mos mostt impo important rtant statuses are ascribed ones. reall empha emphasis sis on ascrip ascription. tion. American rican society, we emphasize achievement, but there is sti stillll a rea • In Ame ○ For example, women and blacks have a more difficult time getting good, well-paying jobs because this is often their master status in the view of others. • Master statuses are those that overshadow our other statuses. Example: ○ Stephen Hawking, who is severely disabled by Lou Gehrig's disease. ○ For some, his master status is that of a person with disabilities. ○ Because Hawking is one of the greatest physicists who has ever lived, however, his outstanding achievements have given him another master status, that of a world-class physicist in the ranking of Einstein. Status Inconsistency: Contradiction or mismatch between statuses such as ranking high on some dimensions of social status and low on others. • For example, a 15 year old university student or an 83 year old university student. Comp Components onents of SSoci oci ocial al Structure: Role Role: An expectation or norm that specifies what is appropriate and inappropriate behavior for the occupant of a status. Role Set: Consists of all the role relationships in which an individual is involved by occupying a particular status. Example: ○ A teacher (status) relates in different ways to a principal, parents, other teachers, students (role relationships). • One occupies a status and plays a role. • The idea of role is taken from the theatre- this insight can be seen in Shakespeare's As You Like It (Act II, scene 7): "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts." • Roles allow us to formulate our behavior mentally so that we can act in appropriate ways. • Role performance refers to the actual behavior of the person occupying a status is not always in accordance with the role expectation. • What are some of the role expectations for students and professor at Marshall and what are some of the role performances? • Sometimes we have problems with fulfilling our role expectations? • Role strain refers to the stress experienced when individuals find the expectations of a single status incompatible. ○ For example, the foremen in an industrial plant is expected by his superiors (owners, plant manager, etc.) to make his workers conform to plant standards. ○ But, the foremen is also a worker and his fellow workers have their own rules and production standards that differ from the official norms of the plant. ○ The workers expect the foreman to be loyal to them, the foreman's superiors expect him to enforce the plant's norms. ○ Another example would be a university professor, who is expected to both publish and teach. • Role conflict occurs when the individual is confronted with incompatible role requirements of more than one status. ○ For example, a football coach deciding whether to start his son or a more talented player as quarterback. ○ As a good coach, he will start the more talented player. ○ As a good father, he will give his son a chance. Comp Components onents of SSoci oci ocial al Structure: Group Group: Consists of people who regularly and consciously interact with one another. • A number of people whose statuses and roles are interrelated. ○ Examples would be a family, and English department, basketball team, a dating couple, etc. Inst Institutions itutions Institution: An enduring set of cultural patterns and social relationships organized to accomplish basic social tasks. • Each institution built around a standardized solution to a recurring set of problems. • Every society has to meet its basic needs. • Sociologists have identified several basic institutions: ○ The family is concerned with birth, social legitimation, and care of dependent children.  It is also concerned with sexual regulation and replacing members of society. ○ The economic institution is concerned with production and distribution of scarce resources (producing and distributing goods and services). ○ The political institution is concerned with the use of power and coercion within and between societies (preserving order). ○ The religious institution is concerned with the production and regulation of shared values, providing a sense of social solidarity, and providing a sense of purpose. ○ The educational institution is concerned with the transmission of cultural heritage from one generation to next and the formal teaching new members. aring Func Functionalist tionalist and Con Conflict flict Perspectives Comp Comparing • Functionalist theorists say that society must: ○ Replace members ○ Socialize new members ○ Produce and distribute goods and services ○ Preserve order ○ Provide a sense of purpose. • Conflict theorists say that society has a small, elite group in power that: ○ Holds the majority of society's wealth ○ Want to preserve the status quiver their benefit. Cha Changes nges In Soci Social al Str Structure ucture • What holds society together? ○ As societies grow and modernize, a fundamental shift in relationships occurs. ○ Changes in social structure occur as culture changes because of evolving values, new technologies, innovative ideas, and globalization. • Emile Durkheim found the key to social cohesion, the degree to which members of a society feel united by shared values and other social bonds, in the concept of: ○ Mechanical solidarity: A collective consciousness that people experience as a result of performing the same or similar tasks and sharing the same belief system. ○ Organic solidarity: A collective consciousness based on the interdependence brought about by an increasingly specialized division of labor-that is, how people divide up tasks. • Ferdinand Tonnies analyzed how intimate community (Gemeinschaft) was being replaced by impersonal associations (Gesellschaft). ○ Gemeinschaft: A society in which life is intimate, a community in which everyone knows everyone else and people share a sense of togetherness. ○ Gesellschaft: A society dominated by impersonal relationships, individual accomplishments, and self-interest.  The warm, more intimate relationships of Gemeinschaft society are apparent in the photo taken in Ecuador: ○ Gesellschaft: A society dominated by impersonal relationships, individual accomplishments, and self-interest.  The warm, more intimate relationships of Gemeinschaft society are apparent in the photo taken in Ecuador:  The more impersonal relationships of Gesellschaft society are evident in this internet café in the United States, where customers are ignoring one another. The Sym Symbolic bolic Int Interactionist eractionist P Pers ers erspective pective Social Interaction: Behavior oriented to or Influenced by others. • According to the Symbolic Interactionist perspective, we organize our behavior by the symbolic meanings we attach to our experiences. • A key concept from this perspective is the definition of the situation. • This refers to the interpretation we give to our immediate circumstances. • Culture represents collective definitions of situations of members of a society-agreed-upon, shared cultural meanings. Socia Sociall Con Construction struction of Reali Reality ty • An example of the definition of the situation is the Thomas Theorem, which states, "If people define situations as real, they are real in their consequences." ○ This is an example of what symbolic interactionists call the social construction of reality. ○ This refers to the use of background assumptions and life experiences to define what is real. The Sym Symbolic bolic Int Interactionist eractionist P Pers ers erspective pective • Symbolic interactionists are interested in the symbols that people use to define their worlds, how people look at things, and how that affects their behavior. • Other everyday experiences of interest to symbolic interactionists: ○ Stereotypes in everyday life ○ Personal space ○ Eye contact ○ Smiling ○ Body Language The Sym Symbolic bolic Int Interactionist eractionist P Pers ers erspective: pective: Stere Stereotypes otypes • Stereotypes are used in everyday life. • First impressions are shaped by the assumptions one person makes about another person's sex, race, age, and physical appearance. • Such assumptions affect one's ideas about the person and how one acts toward that person. • Stereotypes tend to be self-fulfilling-that is, they bring out the very kinds of behavior that fit the stereotype. • They even have an impact on what we accomplish. • People can also resist stereotypes and change outcomes. The Sym Symbolic bolic Int Interactionist eractionist P Pers ers erspective: pective: Pers Personal onal Space • Personal space refers to the physical space that surrounds us and that we claim as our own. • The amount of personal space varies from one culture to another. ○ Anthropologist, Edward Hall, found that Americans use four different distance zones. • We protect our personal space by controlling eye contact. • Conceptions of personal space are culturally specific. ○ Intimate distance (about 18 inches from the body) for lovemaking, wrestling, comforting, and protecting. ○ Personal distance (from 18 inches to 4 feet) for friends, acquaintances, and ordinary conversations. ○ Social distance (from 4 feet to 12 feet) for impersonal or formal relationships such as job interviews. ○ Public distance (beyond 12 feet) for even more formal relationships such as separating dignitaries and public speakers from the general public. The Sym Symbolic bolic Int Interactionist eractionist P Pers ers erspective: pective: Eye Con Contact tact • We use this to be intimate, but it can be misinterpreted otherwise. ○ For example, not making eye contact can be seen as a sign of deception. • Too much eye contact can be seen as aggressive or "creepy." The Sym Symbolic bolic Int Interactionist eractionist P Pers ers erspective: pective: Smil Smiling ing • Misinterpretations of smiling are quite likely. • Smiling and appropriate times to smile vary by culture. ○ For example, Germans view smiling as a form of flirting, whereas in the United States we expect most service workers to smile. The Sym Symbolic bolic Int Interactionist eractionist P Pers ers erspective: pective: Body Langu Language age • With the training of Homeland Security agents, body language has changed from being purely descriptive and theoretical to applied. Dram Dramaturgy aturgy • The presentation of self in everyday life: ○ Stages ○ Role performance ○ Role conflict ○ Role strain ○ Sign-vehicles ○ Teamwork ○ Becoming the roles we play • Dramaturgy is the approach used by Goffman that sees everyday social interaction as a natural theater. • The core of the theory is the concept of impression management. • This refers to the fact that we manage the impression we give to others in order to be viewed by them in the way that we want to be and that fits with our sense of self. • We manipulate the "scenery" and "props" that we will use for our "performance." • We move from the back stage, where we prepare for our performance. • To the front stage, where we perform for others. • We depend on teamwork for our performances to work-that people will accept or at least pretend to accept our performance. • We think of ourselves as a certain type of person (intelligent, fun-loving, goof-natured) and we want others to share this view. • Therefore, we actively work to present ourselves in a certain light. • To some extent, we are all putting on an act all the time. • Individuals may feel very spontaneous in some situations and extremely self-conscious ("on stage") in others. • Three types of sign-vehicles are used to communicate information about the self: ○ Social setting: Where the action unfolds, which includes scenery (furnishings used to communicate messages). ○ Appearance: How a person looks when her or she plays his or her role, and this includes props that decorate the person. ○ Manner: The attitudes demonstrated as an individual plays her or his roles. • Such performances are always gambles. • Members of the "audience" may or may not cooperate with the actor as each of them tries to negotiate their own identities. • Everyone has a stake in an encounter-if one person "loses face" others are embarrassed. • People tend to support each other's efforts at impression management. ○ For example, if someone burps at a cocktail party, others pretend not to notice (studied non-observance). • In dramaturgy, a specialty within sociology, social life is viewed as similar to the theater. • In our everyday lives, we all are actors. Eth Ethnomethodology nomethodology • Ethnomethodology: A technique established by Harold Garfinkel, a way of studying the rules and activities that we use to make sense of social life and society. • It is the study of how we create and sustain the idea that there is external social reality and social order. • It aims at uncovering the background assumptions that guide our everyday behavior and getting at the taken-for-granted ideas about the world that underlie our behavior. • This is done through breaching experiments, asking subjects to pretend that they did not understand the basic rules of social life to uncover others reactions and break background assumptions. • This involves introducing surprise into a situation that is taken for granted in order to understand the hidden expectations that people have. • The normal course of interaction is disrupted and the actors are forced to actively engage in the process of social reconstruction. ○ For example, having students act as guests in their own homes, sitting next to someone on an otherwise empty bus. • All of us have background assumptions, deeply ingrained assumptions of how the world operates. The Need for Bo Both th Lev Levels els of Macrosociology and Microsociology • These represent two complementary levels of analysis. • In order to have a fuller view of social life, we must use both.