Social Groups, Organizations, Deviance, and Stratification

Posted on Sep 15, 2024 in Psychology and Sociology

Groups and Organizations

Social Groups

Social Group: Two or more people who identify with and interact with one another.

  • Primary Group: A small social group whose members share personal and lasting relationships.
  • Secondary Group: A large and impersonal social group whose members pursue a specific goal or activity.

Leadership Roles and Styles

  • Instrumental Leadership: Group leadership that focuses on the completion of tasks (give orders, make plans, get things done).
  • Expressive Leadership: Group leadership that focuses on the group’s well-being.
  • Authoritarian Leadership: A leadership style characterized by individual control over all decisions and little input from group members.
  • Democratic Leadership: A leadership style in which members of the group take a more participative role in the decision-making process.
  • Laissez-faire Leadership: A leadership style in which leaders are hands-off and allow group members to make the decisions.

Group Conformity

Research by Asch, Milgram, and Janis shows that group members often seek agreement and may pressure one another toward conformity.

Individuals use reference groups (which serve as a point of reference in making decisions) – including both in-groups (a group a member feels respect and loyalty towards) and out-groups (a group a member feels a sense of competition towards) – to form attitudes and make evaluations.

Formal Organizations

Types of Formal Organizations

  • Utilitarian Organizations: Pay people for their efforts.
  • Normative Organizations: Have goals people consider worthwhile.
  • Coercive Organizations: Are organizations people are forced to join (e.g., prison, mental hospitals).

Bureaucracy (and Characteristics, according to Max Weber)

Max Weber saw bureaucracy as the dominant type of organization in modern societies, based on: specialization, hierarchy of positions, rules, technical competence, impersonality, and formal, written communications.

Problems of Bureaucracy (Max Weber)

Problems include oligarchy, bureaucratic inertia, inefficiency, and alienation.

McDonaldization (G. Ritzer)

McDonaldization describes the spread of bureaucratic rationalization and the accompanying increases in efficiency and dehumanization.

Deviance

Deviance: Refers to norm violations ranging from minor infractions, such as bad manners, to major infractions, such as serious violence.

Crime: The violation of a society’s formally enacted criminal law.

Social Foundations of Deviance

Deviance through the 3 Sociological Paradigms:

Structural Functionalism

  • Durkheim: Claimed that deviance is a normal element of society that affirms cultural norms and values, clarifies moral boundaries, brings people together, and encourages social change.
  • Merton’s Strain Theory: Explains deviance in terms of society’s cultural goals and the means available to achieve them.

Symbolic Interactionism

  • Labeling Theory: Deviance depends less on what someone does than on how others react to that behavior.
  • Stigma: A powerful negative label that changes a person’s self-concept and social identity.

Social Conflict

  • Deviance results from social inequality.
  • Norms, including laws, reflect the interests of powerful members of society.

Social Stratification

Social Stratification: A system by which a society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy.

  1. A trait of society.
  2. Not simply a reflection of individual differences.
  3. Carries over from one generation to the next.
  4. Supported by a system of cultural beliefs that defines certain kinds of inequality as just.

Caste System

Caste systems are based on birth (ascription); permit little social mobility; and shape a person’s entire life, including marriage and occupation.

Class System

Class systems are based on both birth and meritocracy; permit some social mobility; and are characteristic of modern industrial and postindustrial societies.

Meritocracy: Social stratification based on personal merit.

Social Class in the US

  • Income: Earnings from work or investment.
  • Wealth: The total value of money and other assets, minus outstanding debts.

Social Classes

  • Upper Class: 5% of the population, average income of $205,000 or higher.
    • Upper-Uppers: “Old rich.”
    • Lower-Uppers: “New rich.”
  • Middle Class: 40-50% of the population, average income of $48,500-$205,000.
    • Upper-Middles: Significant wealth.
    • Average-Middles: Less prestige, most attend college, white-collar work.
  • Working Class: 30-35% of the population, average income of $27,000-$48,500.
  • Lower Class: 20% of the population, average income below $27,000.

Poverty

  • Poverty: Affects about 15% of the population.
  • Upward and Downward Mobility: Long-term changes in social class that affect everyone.
  • Relative Poverty: The lack of resources of some people in relation to those who have more.
  • Absolute Poverty: A lack of resources that is life-threatening.

Herbert Gans and the “Functions of Poverty”

Analyze poverty through the Structural Functionalist and Social Conflict perspectives.