Society is defined as a population of people which
shares the same geographic territory and culture. In
sociology this typically refers to an entire country or community.
Average people tend to use the word society differently than do
sociologists. You might be thinking about the difference in the
American Human Society (The Humane Society of the United States at
http://www.hsus.org/ ); the
American Cancer Society (at http://www.cancer.org/docroot/home/index.asp
); or the Society of Plastics Engineers (at www.4spe.org/ ) and US
main stream society.
For sociologists a society is defined in terms of its functions.
There are five:
reproduction;
sustenance;
shelter;
management of its membership;
defense.
In the sociological definition of society, these three
organizations listed above with their URL’s are not societies. They
are Voluntary Organizations - formalized groups of
individuals who work toward a common organizational (and often
personal) set of goals. These voluntary organizations
typically only concern themselves with 1 of the 5
functions—management of its membership.
There are three other types of organizations:
Normative Organizations are organizations that
people join because they perceive their goals as being socially or
morally worthwhile (IE: Greenpeace);
Coercive Organizations are organizations that
people typically are forced into against their will
(prison);
Utilitarian Organizations are organizations that
people typically join because of some tangible benefit which they
expect to receive (Girl Scouts, PTA, or a political
party).
All organizations exist in the structures of broader
society.
Societies have been around for many thousands of years.
Technological availability greatly influenced the size and
durability of these societies. Rocks, sticks, spears, axes, bows
and arrows, darts, plows, hand tools, dowels and nails, steam
engines, electricity, factories, watches, computer chips, and other
technological advances have greatly changed the nature of societies
over these many years.
Early on, Hunting and Gathering Societies, those whose
economies which are based on hunting animals and gathering
vegetation, were very common throughout the history of the
world. Eventually, Horticultural and Pastoral
Societies, those characterized by domestication of animals and the
use of hand tools to cultivate plants, developed and have also
endured for centuries. In the last few centuries the
Agricultural Society developed. Agricultural Societies
utilize advanced technologies to support crops and livestock (plow)
and in Western societies became the mainstay which enabled the
Industrial Revolution to transpire by feeding society’s
members.
Industrial Societies utilize machinery and energy
sources (steam engine) rather than humans and animals for
production. There was a time in the US when almost all the
jobs were factory, production, or otherwise labor intensive jobs.
Then came the computer chip which initiated
Postindustrial Societies, where societal production is
based on creating, processing, and storing information.
This is the modern society we live in today in the United
States.
Why Do Societies Change or Remain Stable?
As far back in Sociology’s history as its founder, Auguste
Comte, Sociologists wanted to understand why societies changed or
remained the same (Comte’s full name was Isidore Marie Auguste
François Xavier Compte 17 January 1798-5 September 1857). Comte
referred to Social Statics, or the study of social
structure and how it influences social stability; and
Social Dynamics, or the study of social structure and how
it influences social change. A modern example of social
statics might be the official governmental intervention of US
economic recovery efforts; while social dynamics might be the new
“government bailout” manipulation of the economy to establish
economic security in volatile markets.
Emile Durkheim’s concept of Anomie focused on how daily norms (or
the relative lack thereof) influenced the daily expectations and
obligations of society’s members. In the village with an
agricultural society, most people knew what everyone else did for a
living and most shared in common similar daily life patterns.
Mechanical Solidarity is a shared conscious among
society's members who each has a similar form of
livelihood. As industrialization emerged and transformed
the rural communities while enlarging the urban-factory based,
highly populated cities, norms became much more ambiguous. Durkheim
called this Organic Solidarity, which is a sense of
interdependence on the specializations of occupations in modern
society. Those in larger cities had less daily regulated
and organized patterns and could no longer provide the majority of
their own needs—they became much more dependent on each other’s
specializations. As Durkheim witnessed rapid social change that
accompanied the Industrial Revolution, he attributed much of the
personal challenge that came with it to Anomie and the difficult
and often fuzzy normative regulation.
This brings us to an important and related issue—how a society
functions and dysfunctions impacts the individual. Karl Marx argued
the concept of Alienation, which is the resulting
influence of industrialization on society’s members where they feel
disconnected and powerless in the final direction of their
destinies. To Marx, the social systems people created in turn
controlled the pattern of their social life.
A later German Sociologist named Ferdinand Tönnies (1855-1936)
wrote about two types of community experiences that were polar
opposites. Gemeinschaft (Guh-mine-shoft) means
"intimate community" and Gesellschaft
(Guh-zell-shoft) means" impersonal associations." His observations,
like Durkheim’s and Marx’s were based in the transition form rural
to urban, agricultural to industrial, and small to large
societies.
Gemeinschaft comes with a feeling of community togetherness and
inter-relational mutual bonds where individuals and families are
independent and for the most part self-sufficient. Whereas,
Gesellschaft comes with a feeling of individuality in the context
of large urban populations and a heavy dependence upon the
specialties of others (mutual inter-dependence) to meet all one’s
needs.
For people living in both large and smaller cities, there is a
social connection they have with others called Social
Cohesion - the degree to which members of a group or a
society feel united by shared values and other social bonds. The
study of social cohesion has become much more complex as societies
have grown in number, diversity, and technological sophistry.
Social Structure refers to the recurring patterns
of behavior in society which people create through their
interactions and relationships. Social structure of course can be
literally considered (like the anatomy of a human body specifically
defines parts and how they are related to one another) or
figuratively considered where social institutions, laws, processes,
and cultures shape the actions of we who live in these
societies.
What Are Society’s Component Parts?
What are core parts of our social structure? The first and most
important unit of measure in sociology is the
Group, which is a set of two or more people who
share common identity, interact regularly, and have shared
expectations (roles), and function in their mutually agreed upon
roles. Most people use the word, “group” differently from the
sociological use. Non sociologists also use “group” differently
from sociologists. They say group even if the cluster of people
they are referring to don’t even know each other (like 6 people
standing at the same bus stop). Sociologists use
Aggregates, or the number of people in the same
place at the same time. So people in the same movie theater, people
at the same bus stop, and even people at a university football game
are considered in aggregates, not groups.
The sociologists discuss categories. A Category
is a number of people who share common characteristics. Brown-eyed
people, people who wear hats, and people who vote independent are
categories—they don’t necessarily share the same space, nor do they
have shared expectations.
Figure 1. Photo of the Semi-Annual UVU Behavioral Science Poster
Symposium
In the photo above, the professor on the left, Dr. Bret Breton
posed for this photo with two of our undergraduate students. Twice
a year we hold student research symposia where students present
findings from their research studies. For 6 hours their posters are
displayed and they answer questions and discuss their findings with
any of the 26,000 students who attend Utah Valley University (a
category of student). Throughout the day, clusters of students
stand around tables (aggregates) while research team members
(groups) teach passerby students what they did and what they
learned while doing it.
Figure 2. Photo of the 2007 Winning AACS Student Problem Solving
Competition
The problem solving challenge faced by this group of students
was to create a proposal which improved the employment
opportunities of single mothers who came to SOS for help in finding
jobs. You need to be aware that there were very difficult financial
challenges facing these single mothers: the economy was severely
depressed, the labor-intensive jobs had all but left the region,
there were very few service jobs that fit the skill set of these
mothers; and finally even the busses had stopped running because of
fuel costs and other concerns. It was nearly impossible for a
single mother to find a job! Since there are about 15,000 single
mothers who come for help each year, this proposal took on a life
of its own in terms of how important it would be. It transformed
from a competition to a cause in the mind of my students.
This team met twice with SOS personnel; created inter-state
networks between social service agencies in Utah, Michigan, and
North Carolina; and held a banquet for local community service
directors to brainstorm how they might approach a resolution to
these issues. Many other efforts lead to a 3-pronged proposal which
articulated specific strategies: first, the creation of a shuttle
service where the SOS Community Center obtains a small fleet of
shuttle vans which will be driven by the single mothers,
exclusively for the single mothers who would pay a modest fare to
get back and forth about town; second, the connection of the
Sunshine Ladies Foundations Scholarship Program with the Washtenaw
Community College—also in Ypsilanti (Google Doris Buffet’s
charitable foundation WISP); and Third, the networking of the local
Marriott resort to the SOS Community Services Agency.
Once the proposal was submitted, this group disbanded and
focused their energies in other life pursuits. Their proposal did
win the competition, but the experience in itself is considered
more valuable because they feel liked they made a small difference
for single mothers (and it enhanced their graduate school
applications).
Why Are Groups Crucial to Society?
Groups come in varying sizes—Dyads are a group
of two people and Triads are a group of three
people. The number of people in a group plays an important
structural role in the nature of the group’s functioning. Dyads are
the simplest groups because 2 people have only 1 relationship
between them. Triads have three relationships. A group of 4 has 6
relationships; 5 has 10; 6 has 15; 7 has 21; and one of my students
from Brazil has 10 brothers and sisters and she counts 91
relationships just in her immediate family (not counting the
brothers and sisters in law).
When triads form it looks much like a triangle and these
typically take much more energy than dyads. A newly married couple
experience great freedoms and opportunities to nurture their
marital relationship. A triad forms when their first child is born,
they experience a tremendous incursion upon their marital
relationship from the child and the care demanded by the child—As
Bill Cosby Said in his book “Fatherhood” “Children by their very
nature are designed to ruin your marriage (see 1987, Doubleday
Publisher, NY).”
Two of my Introduction to Sociology students told me a true
story about how they were BFF’s since elementary school and had
similar last names and even been in the same homerooms until they
graduated high school. They then came to college together and
majored in the same major. They told me and the other students in
the class about what stressed their friendship when one fell in
love and dated a young man.
The other felt a great deal of pressure to get along with her
best friend’s boyfriend. She did and they all three were friends
although each explained that the guy put more pressure on their own
friendship. When the boyfriend-girlfriend relationship finally
ended it put the other girl in an awkward position with the guy.
They had established their own friendship, but since her best
friend broke up with the guy she felt like she had to end her
friendship with him too. She did.
You can begin to see how the Functional approach to studying
groups gives you insight into how group structure, function, and
dysfunction affect the everyday lives of group members.
Sociometry is the study of groups and their
structures (Google Jacob L. Moreno for its founder). To simply
study it for the sake of creating more knowledge about it does not
help groups directly. To solve problems you might be hired to come
into an organization, examine the organization’s groups and
functions or dysfunctions , then eventually create strategies for
enhancing the quality of the groups’ interactions or expanding the
groups social network in a beneficial way.
As sociologists further study the nature of the group’s
relationships they realize that there are two broad types of
groups: Primary Groups tend to be smaller, less
formal, and more intimate (family and friends); whereas
Secondary Groups tend to be larger, more formal,
and much less personal (you and your doctor, mechanic, or
accountant). Look at the diagram below. Typically with your primary
groups, say with your roommates, you can be much more spontaneous
and informal. On Friday night you can hang out where ever you want,
change your plans as you want, and experience the fun as much as
you want.
Contrast that to the relationship with your doctor. You have to
call someone else to get an appointment, you have to wait if the
doctor is behind, you typically call her or him “Doctor,” once the
diagnoses and co-pay are made you leave and have to make another
formal appointment if you need another visit. Your Introduction to
Sociology class is most likely large and secondary. Your friends
tend to be few and primary (see Figure 3 below).
With your friends, have you noticed that one or two tend to be
informally in charge of the details? You might be the one who calls
everyone and makes reservations or buys the tickets for the others.
If so, you would have the informal role of “organizer.” Status is
what you do in a role or otherwise stated, Status=is a socially
defined position. There are three types of status considerations:
Ascribed Status is present at birth (race, sex, or
class); Achieved Status is attained through one's
choices and efforts (college student, movie star, teacher, or
athlete); and Master Status is a status which
stands out above our other statuses and which distracts others from
really seeing who we are.
Another consideration about groups and our roles in them is the
fact that one single role can place a rather heavy burden on you
(IE: student). Role Strain is the burden one feels
within any given role. And when one role comes into direct conflict
another or other roles you might experience Role
Conflict, or the conflict and burdens one feels because
the expectations of one role compete with the expectations of
another role.
