Chapter 4:assign
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Ch.4SocietyandSocialInteraction_SP21.pptxINTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY
Chapter 4 SOCIETY AND SOCIAL INTERACTION
College Physics
Chapter # Chapter Title
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Types of Societies
Pre-Industrial societies:
Hunter-Gatherer: demonstrates the strongest dependence on the environment of the various types of pre-industrial societies.
Hunted wild game and foraged uncultivated plants for food.
Pastoral: rely on the domestication of animals as a resource for survival.
Breed livestock for food, clothing and transportation.
Horticultural: formed in areas where rainfall and other conditions allowed them to grow stable crops.
Agricultural: relied on permanent tools for survival which lead to Agricultural revolution that made farming possible.
Social classes became more pronounced.
Types of Societies:
We have come to classify societies on their dependence of technology. This distinction is so important that sociologist generally classify societies along a spectrum of their level of industrialization. Societies are usually categorized into preindustrial, industrial and post-industrial societies. These types of societies are defined by the sophistication of technology. Technologies make it so that we may have more control over our environment.
Hunter-gatherer: not much control over our environment, these societies were more nomadic in nature, they had to move to where the animals and edible food was. Their basic structure of human society was based around kinship or tribes.
Pastoral: Unlike the hunter-gatherers who depended entirely on existing resources to stay alive, these groups were able to breed livestock for food, clothing and transportation, often creating a surplus of goods. They remained nomadic because they were forced to follow their animals to fresh feeding grounds. Some of these societies still exist today, but they have become affected by modernization, in terms of technologies, politics, and governmental restrictions. As you would imagine, these communities are plagued with high poverty and unemployment rates, lower education and health care.
Horticultural: Formed in areas where rainfall and other conditions allowed them to grow stable crops. As such, they had more control over their environment, were able to feed their livestock and start permanent settlements.
Agricultural: Characterized by the Agricultural Revolution which made farming larger crops possible and profitable. Farmers learned to rotate and grow certain types of crops and reuse products to create larger surplus. Human settlements grew into towns and cities, which gave way to centers of trade and commerce. The fact that they weren’t nomadic, they were able to engage in more thoughtful activities, such as music, poetry and philosophy; which lead to the establishment of craftspeople, who were able to support themselves through the production of creative aesthetic art. As resources became plentiful, social classes developed, which created inequalities.
Feudal: These societies contained a strict hierarchical system of power based around land ownership and protection. Nobility would place vassals in charge of land, who in return for the resources that the land provided, promised to fight for the lords. The pieces of land, called fiefdoms, were cultivated by the lower classes, who were guaranteed a place a live and protection from enemies. Power was handed down family lines, but was eventually replaced by capitalism.
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Industrial Societies
Before the Industrial Revolution, work was largely person- or animal-based, relying on human workers or horses to power mills and drive pumps.
Urban centers began to appear; workers rushed to fill factory jobs and the populations of cities became increasingly diverse.
Industrial Society: During the 18th century, there was a dramatic rise in technological invention and advancement, known as the Industrial Revolution. This allowed individuals to work faster, more precisely and more productively. This lead to a rise in the number of cities and allowed for social mobility, readily available products, accessibility to education and healthcare. While the populations of the cities grew, due to the need for factory workers , so did the diversity. Urbanization and industrialization lead to social mobility, but also caused unintentional consequences such as unsanitary conditions, overcrowding and poverty. Where in the Feudal system you were born into a social position, industrial societies, with capitalism individuals were able to move their way up in society. So it was those who were business savvy who became major influences in government, economy and civil life.
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Post-industrial Society
Information Societies: Unlike industrial societies that are rooted in the production of material goods, information societies are based on the production of information and services.
Social classes are divided by access to education, since without technical skills, people in an information society lack the means for success
Post-Industrial Society: where it’s not so much physical goods, but we are now a more digital society where we trade information and services. Education and technical skills are more important than manual labor/skill. Since the economy of information societies is driven by knowledge and not material goods, power lies with those in charge of creating, storing and distributing information.
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Functionalism
Emile Durkheim and Functionalism:
Society as a process of interconnected parts that work together to maintain stability.
Durkheim called the communal beliefs, morals, and attitudes of a society the collective conscience.
Social integration: the strength of ties that people have to their social group.
Transition from Mechanical Solidarity to Organic Solidarity
As this transition occurs it can create chaos and ‘normlessness’ or anomie within society, individuals and groups.
Times of economic depression, war, and social uncertainty.
***Mechanical Solidarity: things are done because they have been done that way historically. mechanical solidarity, a type of social order maintained by the collective consciousness of a culture. Societies with mechanical solidarity act in a mechanical fashion; things are done mostly because they have always been done that way. This type of thinking was common in preindustrial societies where strong bonds of kinship and a low division of labor created shared morals and values among people
***Organic Solidarity: an acknowledgment of differences, people learn to co-exist, laws based on restitution rather than revenge.
Anomie: condition in which society provides little moral guidance to individuals" It is the breakdown of social bonds between an individual and the community e.g. if under unruly scenarios resulting in fragmentation of social identity and rejection of self-regulatory values; For Durkheim, anomie arises more generally from a mismatch between personal or group standards and wider social standards, or from the lack of a social ethic, which produces moral deregulation and an absence of legitimate aspirations.
Suicide: was essentially a case study of suicide that demonstrated the sociological aspects of this phenomenon. He explored the differing suicide rates among Protestants and Catholics, arguing that stronger social control among Catholics results in lower suicide rates. Durkheim concluded that:
Suicide rates are higher in men than women (although married women who remained childless for a number of years ended up with a high suicide rate).
Suicide rates are higher for those who are single than those who are married.
Suicide rates are higher for people without children than people with children.
Suicide rates are higher among Protestants than Catholics and Jews.
Suicide rates are higher among soldiers than civilians.
Suicide rates are higher in times of peace than in times of war (the suicide rate in France fell after the coup d’etat of Louis-Nopoleon Bonaparte, for example. War also reduced the suicide rate: after war broke out in 1866 between Austria and Italy, the suicide rate fell by 14% in both countries.)
Suicide rates are higher in Scandinavian countries.
The higher the education level, the more likely it was that an individual would choose suicide. However, Durkheim established that there is more correlation between an individual's religion and suicide rate than an individual's education level. Jewish people were generally highly educated but had a low suicide rate.
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Karl Marx and Conflict Theory
Conflict in society is the primary means of change. (Bourgeoisie and Proletariat)
This conflict was true throughout history: industrialization became more and more exploitative of the working class.
Alienation refers to the condition in which the individual is isolated and divorced from his or her society, work, or a sense of self.
False consciousness is a condition in which the beliefs, ideals, or ideology of a person are not in the person’s own best interest.
Class consciousness, the awareness of one’s rank in society.
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC
Types of Alienation:
From the product of one’s labor: you don’t care what’s being made, you just care about making money.
From the process of one’s labor: not controlling the way the job gets done.
From others: engage in competition with other workers. You want to work faster than your co-workers and make more money from what you’re doing
From self: you don’t have much more aspiration; you’re just going through the motions.
Taken as a whole, then, alienation in modern society means that an individual has no control over his life
False Consciousness: Ideas such as the emphasis of competition over cooperation, or of hard work being its own reward, clearly benefit the owners of industry
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Max Weber and Symbolic Interactionism
Weber emphasized the viewpoint of the individual and how the individual relates to society
Weber’s primary focus on the structure of society lay in the elements of class, status, and power.
Rationalization: the belief that modern society is built around logic and efficiency rather than traditions, values and emotions as motivators.
The culmination of industrialization, rationalization, and the like results in the iron cage, in which the individual is trapped by institutions and bureaucracy.
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Roles and Status
Roles are patterns of behavior that we recognize in each other that are representative of a person’s social status.
Status: is used to describe the responsibilities and benefits a person experiences according to their rank and role in society.
Role-set: an array of roles attached to a particular status.
Role strain: stress that occurs when too much is required of a single role.
Role conflict: one or more roles are contradictory or incompatible.
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC
Social Status: The Link to Groups
Social Statuses are positions that individuals hold in the social world
Social statuses define how individuals interact with others
A status set is the combination of statuses held by an individual
Power or deference associated with statuses also shape interaction
Ascribed statuses are statuses that are assigned at birth and do not change during an individual’s lifetime
Achieved statuses are statuses that are chosen or earned by decisions one makes or by personal ability
Master statuses are statuses that are most important and take precedence over others
The Relationship between Status and Roles
Roles are the expected behaviors, rights and obligations associated with a status
Roles define how each individual in an interaction is expected to act
Statuses (positions) and roles (behavioral obligations of the status) form the link with other people in the social world because they must be carried out in relationships with others
Individuals also hold formal and informal statuses
Statuses connect people and make them integral parts of meso and macro-level organizations
Role Strain and Role Conflict
Because every status has role expectations, and because every person has multiple statuses, sometimes it is impossible to carry out all of our obligations
Role strain is tension between roles within one status
Role conflict is conflict between the roles of two or more statuses
Groups in Our Social World: The Micro-Meso Connection
Groups are necessary for protection, to obtain food, to manufacture goods, to get jobs done
Groups meet our social need for belonging and acceptance, support us, and place restrictions on us
Groups are two or more people who interact with each other because of shared/common interests, goals, experiences, and needs
Groups create a sense of belonging among members
Groups share a common goal
Members are in contact with one another
Groups have defined membership and norms for adding new members
Groups provide rules for members’ behaviors
Groups form through a series of steps:
Initial interaction between potential members
Possible members will form groups when membership is rewarding and meets members’ needs
A collective goal emerges
Groups attempt to expand their collective goals by building membership and pursuing new goals
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Social Constructions of Reality
Berger and Luckmann: The Social Construction of Reality argued that society is created by humans and human interaction or habitualization.
Institutionalization: the act of implanting convention or norm into society.
Thomas theorem:
“If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences”
people’s behavior can be determined by their subjective construction of reality rather than by objective reality.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Habitualization: the idea that society is constructed by us and those before us and it is followed like a habit. any action that is repeated frequently becomes a habit; the habit of a teacher or a student. Representations of each other's actions, eventually become habituated into reciprocal roles played by the actors in relation to each other. When these roles are made available to other members of society to enter into and play out, the reciprocal interactions are said to be institutionalized. In the process of this institutionalization, meaning is embedded in society. Knowledge and people's conception (and belief) of what reality is becomes embedded in the institutional fabric of society. Reality is therefore said to be socially constructed. We construct our own society, and we accept what we see as fact. Society is a habit. We treat people a certain way and accept things as they are.
Thomas’ Theorem is a sociological theorem authored by W.I. Thomas and D.S. Thomas in 1928. It states that “if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” In short, this means that humans define and respond to situations as a result of their own experiences and thereby create the consequences that they expect. An example of this might be how a person who firmly believes in the existence of and power of supernatural forces, i.e. voodoo or witchcraft, is much more likely to suffer from illnesses or injuries that they believe could be brought about by practitioners of those arts.
Self-fulfilling Prophecy: Example, you think to yourself, I’m going to fail this class, I just know I’m going to fail this class (that is your prophecy), as a result you act accordingly, you don’t do your work, you tend not to pay attention so then it becomes true.
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