Social interactions Flashcards
Harmful action against a certain group
Discrimination
Discrimination by an individual person
Example: Science professor not allowing women in his class
Individual discrimination
Discrimination at an institutional level
Example: Sending African-Americans to the back of the bus
Institutional discrimination
Discrimination in one sector can negatively affect other sectors
Example: An individual is unfairly convicted of a crime due to judicial prejudice. Now they are unable to find a job due to employers looking at their criminal record
Side-effect discrimination
Persistent effect due to previous discrimination even if it may be illegal today. Example: Untouchable caste in India
Past-in-present discrimination
Primary group versus secondary group
Primary group: relatively small, intimate interactions, emotional depth. Example: family
Secondary group: relatively large, infrequent interaction, superficial relationships. Example: graduating students
institutions that are designed for a specific purpose and try to maximize efficiency
Example: McDonald’s
organizations
Members are rewarded for efforts
Example: A company (pays members)
Utilitarian organizations
Members have a shared purpose or goal
Example: Religious organization
Normative organizations
Members are forced into the organization
Example: Prison
Coercive organizations
A person’s social position in society
status
A person has multiple statuses, for example one can be a son, friend, and husband
The status that dominates in social situations
Can be either ascribed or achieved
Dominates in most social situations and influences most aspects of one’s life
Master status
Status given by birth, cannot be changed
Example: Prince
Ascribed status
Status earned by oneself
Example: Medical school graduate
Achieved status
Tension (difficulty meeting all obligations) within one role
Example: Difficulty studying all MCAT material as a premed
Role strain
Tension between two or more roles.
Example: Balancing a full-time job with studying for the MCAT
Role conflict
Individual disengages from a social role, often replacing it with a new social role
Example: Forget studying for the MCAT or medical school (old role = premed), I’m prioritizing balanced life (new role = party enthusiast)
Role exit
The process of planning one’s conduct in public versus in private. Studied by Erving Goffman
Divided into front stage and back stage
Dramaturgy
Dramaturgy
The public setting – when people are in a social situation with others
front stage
Dramaturgy
The private setting – when act is over
back stage
The maintenance of how we are perceived in the front stage, in other words maintenance of a public image
The actual work happens in the back stage, for example putting on makeup
Impression management
The concept that impression management happens in all human interactions
Dramaturgical approach
a rational system of administration and control with six characteristics
Weber’s ideal bureaucracy
People are trained for specific tasks
Con: may lose sight of overall picture
Division of labor
Each person has a supervisor
Con: may decrease autonomy
Authority hierarchy
Supervisors are career professionals and not owners
Con: decreased investment of managers
Career orientation
Hiring and promotion is performed in an unbiased manner
Con: decreased loyalty
Impersonality
Hiring is based on technical qualifications and not favoritism
Con: can result in the Peter principle where every employee gets promoted until they reach a position they’re incompetent in
Formal selection
Written rules providing clear expectations and equal treatment
Con: decreased creativity
Formal rules and regulations
Process by which organizations increasingly become governed by rules, laws and policy
Example: The DMV creating rules and processes around renewing a license
Bureaucratization
Describes the tendency of organizations to become ruled by a select few
This is due to those individuals having valuable skills and reluctance to give up power
Iron law of oligarchy
Describes the dominance of the principles of efficiency, uniformity/predictability, and control
Optimizes efficiency, predictability at the expense of individuality, quality, uniqueness
Example: Movie theaters all operate in the same way and show the same movies
Mcdonaldization
