Chapter 4 - Social Organization Flashcards
What is social interaction?
The means by which individuals act and react in relation to others in society
What does how we interact and socialize with others depend on?
Where we live regionally, how we interact over meals and drinks, how we engage in religion and social events in the community, how we engage in sports and other recreational activities, the type of social institutions we choose to be part of.
What is the functionalist theory of social interaction?
Focus on the role of social institutions in the organization and reproduction of societies
Social institutions are integrates through norms
What is a status?
Recognized social position that an individual occupies
What is a role?
Behaviour expected of someone holding a particular status
Involves the responsibilities, behaviours and privileges connected to a position
What is a status set?
Consists of all the statuses a person holds at any given time
What is the differences between ascribed status and achieved status?
Ascribed - imposed by nature or chance (first born son, widow)
Achieved - matter of personal choice (Olympic medalist)
What is a master status?
Status that has exceptional importance for social identity, often shaping a person’s entire life
(President, doctor, author)
What is a role set?
The number of roles attached to a single status
What is reciprocity of roles?
Reflects how responsibilities associated with one role are linked to the rights of another
What is role conflict?
Occurs when individuals hold different statuses with competing or conflicting roles
What is role strain?
Refers to tensions arising when individuals have to juggle many competing demands built into a single role
What is the symbolic interactionism theory of social organization?
Individuals interact to create, sustain, and transform social relations (labels we use can be redefined)
Norms serve as guides for behaviour
What is role taking?
Process by which we coordinate or align our actions with those of others
What is role making?
Occurs as we adapt to others perspectives, reactions.
Linked with role-taking
What is Goffman’s idea of Dramaturgical approach?
Interaction is an occasion for actors to perform social roles. Front stage is it carefully managed presentation and backstage is things that we do privately.
What is a central focus of dramaturgy?
The creation of specific impressions in the minds of others
How do you gender differences in socialization present themselves?
In communication styles and interaction on meanings. Men and women perceive staring, smiling, and touching quite differently
What are the six basic emotions?
Sadness, anger, joy, fear, disgust, surprise
What is role distancing?
Occurs when there is a gap between roles we play (social identity) and our sense of self (personal identity)
What is identity work?
Ongoing process by which identities are created, communicated, maintained, and reworked
What is identity?
Refers to the names we give ourselves or use to announce to others who we are
What is a status passage?
Movement of individuals through different statuses, roles and identities
What are the stages of exiting from a role?
1) doubts
2) seeking and weighing alternatives
3) turning point
4) creating an ex-role
What are social forms?
How individuals express personal identities in social settings
What are different ways in which people are connected and organized?
1) Categories
2) networks
3) Communities
4) Groups
5) Organizations
How do individuals fall in categories?
Shared characteristic
What do networks consist of?
Individuals directly or indirectly linked with one another
What do communities include?
Sets of people with common sense of identity
How are groups formed?
Group members are aware of their membership in the group
What is the different between primary and secondary groups?
Primary - small, marked by intense face-to-face interaction, identify with one another
Secondary - large, less strongly integrated, interactions may be less frequent, indirect
What are organizations?
Secondary groups with a collective goal or purpose
What are cliques?
Group of tightly interconnected people
What is a bureaucracy?
Formal organization
- deliberately planned social group that coordinates people, capital, and tools through formalized roles, statues and relationships in order to achieve a specific set of goals
What is the term for communication using body movements, gestures and facial expressions rather than just talking?
Non-verbal communication
What does the case of Harold and Sybil show?
Men and women often have disagreements because they fail to understand their different points of view
What is the process by which people creatively shape reality through social interaction?
Drama
