Humans as Social Beings PDF

LESSON 1 HUMANS AS SOCIAL BEINGS A small world phenomenon (also known as the small world effect) is the hypothesis that the chain of social acquaintances required to connect one arbitrary person to another arbitrary person anywhere in the world is genera...

LESSON 1 HUMANS AS SOCIAL BEINGS A small world phenomenon (also known as the small world effect) is the hypothesis that the chain of social acquaintances required to connect one arbitrary person to another arbitrary person anywhere in the world is generally short. → This concept gave rise to the famous phrase, six degrees of separation. Six degrees of separation is the theory that any person on the planet can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances that has no more than five intermediaries. → It was first proposed by Frigyes Karinthy, but Stanley Milgram was the one who popularized it when he devised a new way to test the theory. ▪ It was conducted in 1967, and it arrived to the conclusion that two random US citizen were connected by an average of six acquaintances. ▪ It states that you are always connected to a person you don’t know. There are well-defined limits to the number of friends and acquaintances the average person can retain. → According to Robin Dunbar, the magic number is 150. He became convinced that there was a ratio between brain sizes and group sizes through his studies of non-human primates. ▪ He, then, concluded that the size, relative to the body, of the neocortex – part of the brain associated with cognition and language – is linked to the size of a cohesive social group. This ratio limits how much complexity a social system can handle. → According to the theory, the tightest circle has just five people – loved ones. That’s followed by successive layers of 15 (good friends), 50 (friends), 150 (meaningful contacts), 500 (acquaintances) and 1500 (people you can recognize). → Moreover, there are generally 150 genuine relationships especially anthropology of a maximum size of a village. → But, although you only have 150 genuine people in your life, all people in the world are still connected to you in one way of another and it does not necessarily have to be genuine (as stated in the six degrees of separation theory). ▪ This is a strong manifestation of the concrete and fundamental claim that human beings are social beings. Institutions are a part of the social construction of a community, and define the way we interact with each other within society. 1  → They are determined by the cultures and values of that society, and provide order and stability within society. They also help in the development of a person. ▪ A social institution consists of a group of people who have come together for a common purpose. ▪ Family is the basic unit in society traditionally consisting of two parents rearing their children. ✔ Family orientation is the family that we are born into. ✔ Family procreation refers to the family you create through marriage and by having or adopting children. Degree Consanguinity Affinity 1st o Parent o Spouse o Child 2nd o Grandparent o Parent-in-Law o Brother/Sister o Daughter/Son- o Grandchild in-Law 3rd o Great o Grandparent-in- Grandparent Law o Aunt/Uncle o Brother/Sister- o Niece/Nephew in-Law o Great o Grandchild-in- Grandchild Law 4th o Great Great o Great Grandparent Grandparent-in- o Great Law Aunt/Uncle o Aunt/Uncle-in- o First Cousin Law o Grand o First Cousin-in- Nephew/Niece Law o Niece/Nephew- in-Law o Great Grandchild-in- Law Practices in tracing family lineage: → The lineage of consanguinity is scientifically-based because a lot of deformities or genetic malfunctions are happening in a single bloodline relationships (inbreeding). a. Unilineal system refers to a system of determining descent groups in which one belongs to one’s father’s or mother’s line, whereby traces either (one only) exclusively through male ancestors (patriline), female (matriline). Establishment of relationship maybe from the mother or the father; it does not matter in the unilineal. b. Patrilineal refers to the relationship to the father or descent through the male line. c. Matrilineal refers to familial relationship that can be traced through the female line. 2  d. Bilateral system refers to both the female and male lineage; so long as people on both lineage get to speak. ✔ The family tree is the bilateral lineage relationship. Marriage: → Different societies have their own rules of marriage. ▪ For the societies that practice marriage, there are rules about whom one can marry and cannot marry. ✔ All societies have some form of an incest taboo that forbids sexual relationships with certain people – this varies from culture to culture. ✰ Incest is a sexual activity between family members or close relatives. This typically includes sexual activity between people in a consanguineous relationship (blood relations), and sometimes those related by affinity, stepfamily, those related by adoption or marriage, or members of the same clan or lineage. ▪ Legally, cousins cannot marry each other as stated in Section 1, Article 38 of the Family Code, which prohibits marriage of relatives up to the fourth civil degree (first cousins)." ▪ Traditionally, in the Philippines, you cannot marry or have a relationship with someone in your family lineage. → Legal separation is a legal process by which a married couple may formalize a de facto separation while remaining legally married. A legal separation is granted in the form of a court order. ▪ Annulment is a legal procedure within secular and religious legal systems for declaring a marriage null and void. ✔ This process is tedious (expensive and can even take up to a decade to conclude); someone isn’t allowed to get married to another person right away because it has a lot of process to undergo before being granted. Moreover, an annulled person (if they already won the case after 2 years) may marry again, but in a church, and has no legal basis. But if they wait until the court say that they’re allowed to remarry, they can marry under the law. ▪ Divorce is known as dissolution of marriage, is the termination of a marriage or marital union, the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving. a. Endogamy is the marriage within one’s own tribe or group as required by custom or law. b. Exogamy is the marriage to a person belonging to a tribe or group other than your own as required by custom or law. c. Polygamy is being married to multiple people. Polygany is having more than one wife at a time, while polyandry is having more than one husband at a time. ▪ This is legal, since it has a contract. 3  ▪ This can’t be practiced by everyone – authorities need to verify first if you are qualified, financially. It is controlled and justified by the constitution, specifically the moral and social status. ▪ The wife has a say in this, since she gets to decide whether or not another woman is worthy, by weighing what the other woman is capable of doing. d. Monogamy is when you are married to, or in sexual relationship with, one person at a time. Types of residence / Post-Marital Residency: → Residence is the location of the domicile, particularly after marriage. ▪ Residence is used to indicate a place of abode, whether permanent or temporary. ▪ Domicile denotes a fixed permanent residence to which, when absent, one has the intention of returning. ▪ A man may have a residence in one place and a domicile in another. a. Patrilocal residence is structured by a rule that a man remains in his father’s house after reaching maturity, and brings his wife to live with his family after marriage. Daughters, conversely, move out of their natal household when they marry. b. Matrilocal residence is instituted by a rule that a woman remains in her mother’s household after reaching maturity and brings her husband to live with her family after marriage. Sons, conversely, move out of their natal household after marriage to join their wife’s household. ▪ This can take on a number of forms, some, but not all of which occur within matrilineal societies. ✔ Non-standard cases include societies with bride service, in which a man moves in with his wife’s family but sets up his own household after his obligations are met. c. Ambilocal residence or bilocal residence is the societal post marital residence in which couples, upon marriage, choose to live with or either spouse’s parents. d. Neolocal residence is when a newly married couple resides separately from both the husband’s and the wife’s natal household. → Fictive kinship is a term used by anthropologists and ethnographers to describe forms of kinship or social ties that are based on neither consanguineal nor affinal ties, in contrast to true kinship ties. → Compradazgo is the reciprocal relationship or the social institution of such relationship existing between a godparent or godparents and the godchild and its parents in the Spanish-speaking world (as in South America). Types of family in the contemporary world: a. A transitional family is a residential service for young women and children. The goal is to assist these young women in developing the educational, vocational and social skills necessary for a successful transition to self-sufficiency. 4  b. A single parent is a parent who parents alone. It means there is an absence of the other parent as opposed to a co-parent, meaning that the parent is not the only parent regardless of whether or not they are a couple. c. A reconstituted family is the simple definition of a blended family, also called a step family, reconstituted family, or a complex family, is a family unit where one or both parents have children from a previous relationship, but they have combined to form a new family. The parents may or may not then have children with each other. Politics among family members: a. Patriarchal social system is when males hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property. b. Matriarchal social system is when females hold the primary power positions in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property at the specific exclusion of males – at least to a large degree. c. Egalitarian relates to or believes in the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities. 5