G2

• All societies are organized around conflict, unequal division of labor, and important decision-making for the whole group
• Modern societies are expected to provide protection, law and order, economic security, and a sense of belonging to their members
• In Social Sciences, the main goal is to understand and create theories on how society is organized
• Muzafer Sherif defined a social group as a number of individuals interacting with each other with respect to:

  • Common motives and goals
  • An accepted division of labor (roles)
  • Established status (social rank, dominance) relationships
  • Accepted norms and values with reference to matters relevant to the group
  • Development of accepted sanctions if and when norms were respected or violated
• Charles Horton Cooley described a primary group as a small social group whose members share personal and lasting relationships, spending a great deal of time together, engaging in various activities, and showing real concern for one another
• Primary groups within society include:

  • Family: spend significant time together, supporting, comforting, and encouraging each other
  • Friends: share adventures, personal stories, and enjoy each other's company
  • Love relationships: based on mutual physical and emotional attraction
• Secondary groups are large clusters of people with a shared purpose, often aiming to complete tasks, with weaker emotional and interpersonal ties compared to primary groups
• Examples of secondary groups:

  • School/Class: structured for learning, less emotional interaction
  • Workplace or Place of Employment: structured to fulfill predetermined assignments
• An in-group is a group where individuals feel they belong, while an out-group is where individuals do not identify themselves as part of that social group
• Phenomena related to in-groups and out-groups include in-group favoritism, where people prefer and have affinity for their in-group over the out-group
• A reference group is a group individuals compare themselves to, serving as a standard to measure behaviors and attitudes, guiding behavior and attitudes to identify social norms
• Types of reference groups:

  • Informal reference groups: based on shared interests and goals, reacting on a personal level
  • Formal reference groups: have a specific goal or mission, like an Employee Union
  • Membership reference groups: in agreement regarding attitudes, norms, and behaviors
  • Disclaimant reference groups: not in agreement regarding attitudes, norms, and behaviors
  • Aspirational reference groups: groups individuals aspire to belong to in the future
  • Dissociative reference groups: groups individuals do not belong to and disapprove of regarding attitudes, norms, and behaviors
• The social network is a theoretical construct used in the social sciences to study relationships between individuals, groups, organizations, or entire societies, existing between actors (individuals and organizations)
• Social networks are divided into three levels of analysis: Micro, Meso, and Macro

  • Micro: smallest level, starting with an individual, divided into Dyadic, Triadic, Actor, and Subset levels
  • Meso: falls between micro- and macro-levels, examples include Organizations and Scale-Free Networks
  • Macro: traces outcomes of interactions over a large population, such as economic or resource transfer interactions