soci pharagraph
SOCI201-012
Thursday, October 3, 2019
Organizations and Social Institutions
Leadership
Leadership styles
Authoritarian- leads by giving orders
group members become dependent on and hostile towards leader
Democratic- leads by trying to reach a consensus amongst the group members
groups continue to function without direct contact with the leader
Laissez-faire- leads by letting the group do what it wants
often does not result in an efficient group
Groupthink
When the thoughts of a group’s members narrow into one collective thought, and any variation from that thought is considered disloyalty to the group
The degree to which a group suffers from groupthink depends on the leadership style and the susceptibility of the group members
Mean Girls
How did Regina George become the leader of the Plastics?
Which leadership style does Regina use to control the Plastics/the school?
What are some examples of groupthink from the movie?
Stanley Milgram - The Effect of Authority
Conducted an obedience experiment in the 1960s
Recruited 40 men aged 20-50 to participate in an experiment about learning and the effect that punishment has on learning
The participants were assigned to be the “teachers,” and his colleagues pose as “students” in the experiment
The “teachers” were instructed to deliver an electric shock when the “student” got an answer wrong on the memory recall test; the shock got increasingly worse for every mistake
Stanley Milgram - The Effect of Authority
None of the participants stopped before 300V
When the learner did not give verbal feedback; 65% pushed the levers all the way to 450V
When the teachers could see the learners, 40% pushed it all the way to 450V
When a second “teacher” was planted, who refused to continue with the experiment, only 5% of the participants administered the 450V
What effect did “responsibility” have on the process?
What effect did “authority” have on the experiment?
Bureaucracies
A formal organization whose members have highly specialized tasks arranged in a hierarchy of authority
The defining structure of the modern organization
The most efficient type of formal organization
Bureaucracies
Five Characteristics of bureaucracies (according to Weber)
Separate levels; task assignments flow down the levels, accountability flows up the levels
A division of labor
Formalized rules
Written communication and records
Impersonality and replaceability
Bureaucracies
Dysfunctions of Bureaucracies
Red tape: formalized rules within organizations that often seem unnecessary and can prohibit decision-making
Alienation: repetitive tasks, being disconnected from the work, office workers filling out endless forms
How do we resist alienation?
The McDonaldization of Society (George Ritzer)
Standardization of everyday life
Uses the metaphor of the assembly-line production of the fast food industry
Efficiency, calculability, predictability/standardization, and control
Originally referred to shopping malls, travel agencies, mass produced news (1993)
Now, much of our standardization comes from Amazon (shopping), Social Media (information), big Tech companies (entertainment)