Understanding Social Groups

Social Groups

• Social groups consist of two or more people who interact frequently, share a sense of belonging, and have interdependence.
• An aggregate is a collection of people in the same place at the same time who share little else in common.
• A category includes people who may never have met, but share a similar characteristic like education level, age, race, or gender.
• Primary groups are small, less specialized groups engaging in face-to-face, emotion-based interactions over time.
• Secondary groups are larger, specialized groups engaging in impersonal, goal-oriented relationships for a limited time.
• Ingroups are groups to which a person belongs and feels a sense of identity.
• Outgroups are groups to which a person doesn't belong and toward which they may feel competitiveness or hostility.
• Reference groups strongly influence a person's behavior and attitudes, regardless of membership.
• A network is a web of social relationships linking individuals with others they know.

Group Characteristics and Dynamics

• Small groups are collectively small enough for members to know each other and interact simultaneously.
• A dyad is a group of two members.
• A triad is a group of three members.
• Leadership is the ability to influence a group or social system.
• Instrumental leadership is goal or task-oriented.
• Expressive leadership provides emotional support for members.
• Authoritarian leaders make all major group decisions and assign tasks.
• Democratic leaders encourage group discussion and decision-making through consensus.
• Laissez-faire leaders are minimally involved in decision-making, encouraging members to make their own decisions.
• Conformity is maintaining or changing behavior to align with group norms.
• A series of experiments by Solomon Asch in 1955 and 1956 showed participants would contradict their best judgment to conform with the group.
• Groupthink occurs when members of a cohesive group make decisions that many privately believe are unwise.

Formal Organizations in Global Perspective

• A bureaucracy is an organizational model with a hierarchy of authority, clear division of labor, explicit rules, and impersonality.
• Rationality involves the gradual replacement of informal social organization with formal rules and procedures.
• An ideal type of bureaucracy is an abstract model describing recurring characteristics of a phenomenon.
• Ideal characteristics of bureaucracy include:
  • Division of labor
  • Hierarchy of authority
  • Rules and regulations
  • Qualification-based employment (meritocracy)
  • Impersonality

Characteristics and Effects of Bureaucracy

• Division of labor, hierarchy of authority, rules and regulations, qualification-based employment, and impersonality
• Bureaucracies can be inefficient, rigid, resistant to change, and can perpetuate race, class, and gender inequalities.
• McDonaldization involves efficiency, predictability, emphasis on quantity over quality, replacement of human technology with non-human technology, and greater control.
• The informal side of a bureaucracy includes day-to-day activities and interactions that bypass or ignore official rules.
• Goal displacement occurs when rules become more important than achieving goals.
• Bureaucratic personality describes workers overly concerned with following procedures over getting the job done.
• The iron law of oligarchy is the tendency for bureaucracies to be ruled by a few (Robert Michels).