Chapter 4 - Social Organization

Question 1

What is social interaction?

Answer 1

The means by which individuals act and react in relation to others in society

Question 2

What does how we interact and socialize with others depend on?

Answer 2

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.

Question 3

What is the functionalist theory of social interaction?

Answer 3

Focus on the role of social institutions in the organization and reproduction of societies
Social institutions are integrates through norms

Question 4

What is a status?

Answer 4

Recognized social position that an individual occupies

Question 5

What is a role?

Answer 5

Behaviour expected of someone holding a particular status

Involves the responsibilities, behaviours and privileges connected to a position

Question 6

What is a status set?

Answer 6

Consists of all the statuses a person holds at any given time

Question 7

What is the differences between ascribed status and achieved status?

Answer 7

Ascribed - imposed by nature or chance (first born son, widow)
Achieved - matter of personal choice (Olympic medalist)

Question 8

What is a master status?

Answer 8

Status that has exceptional importance for social identity, often shaping a person’s entire life
(President, doctor, author)

Question 9

What is a role set?

Answer 9

The number of roles attached to a single status

Question 10

What is reciprocity of roles?

Answer 10

Reflects how responsibilities associated with one role are linked to the rights of another

Question 11

What is role conflict?

Answer 11

Occurs when individuals hold different statuses with competing or conflicting roles

Question 12

What is role strain?

Answer 12

Refers to tensions arising when individuals have to juggle many competing demands built into a single role

Question 13

What is the symbolic interactionism theory of social organization?

Answer 13

Individuals interact to create, sustain, and transform social relations (labels we use can be redefined)
Norms serve as guides for behaviour

Question 14

What is role taking?

Answer 14

Process by which we coordinate or align our actions with those of others

Question 15

What is role making?

Answer 15

Occurs as we adapt to others perspectives, reactions.

Linked with role-taking

Question 16

What is Goffman’s idea of Dramaturgical approach?

Answer 16

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.

Question 17

What is a central focus of dramaturgy?

Answer 17

The creation of specific impressions in the minds of others

Question 18

How do you gender differences in socialization present themselves?

Answer 18

In communication styles and interaction on meanings. Men and women perceive staring, smiling, and touching quite differently

Question 19

What are the six basic emotions?

Answer 19

Sadness, anger, joy, fear, disgust, surprise

Question 20

What is role distancing?

Answer 20

Occurs when there is a gap between roles we play (social identity) and our sense of self (personal identity)

Question 21

What is identity work?

Answer 21

Ongoing process by which identities are created, communicated, maintained, and reworked

Question 22

What is identity?

Answer 22

Refers to the names we give ourselves or use to announce to others who we are

Question 23

What is a status passage?

Answer 23

Movement of individuals through different statuses, roles and identities

Question 24

What are the stages of exiting from a role?

Answer 24

1) doubts
2) seeking and weighing alternatives
3) turning point
4) creating an ex-role

Question 25

What are social forms?

Answer 25

How individuals express personal identities in social settings

Question 26

What are different ways in which people are connected and organized?

Answer 26

1) Categories
2) networks
3) Communities
4) Groups
5) Organizations

Question 27

How do individuals fall in categories?

Answer 27

Shared characteristic

Question 28

What do networks consist of?

Answer 28

Individuals directly or indirectly linked with one another

Question 29

What do communities include?

Answer 29

Sets of people with common sense of identity

Question 30

How are groups formed?

Answer 30

Group members are aware of their membership in the group

Question 31

What is the different between primary and secondary groups?

Answer 31

Primary - small, marked by intense face-to-face interaction, identify with one another
Secondary - large, less strongly integrated, interactions may be less frequent, indirect

Question 32

What are organizations?

Answer 32

Secondary groups with a collective goal or purpose

Question 33

What are cliques?

Answer 33

Group of tightly interconnected people

Question 34

What is a bureaucracy?

Answer 34

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

Question 35

What is the term for communication using body movements, gestures and facial expressions rather than just talking?

Answer 35

Non-verbal communication

Question 36

What does the case of Harold and Sybil show?

Answer 36

Men and women often have disagreements because they fail to understand their different points of view

Question 37

What is the process by which people creatively shape reality through social interaction?

Answer 37

Drama