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Social Interactionand Reality

SOCIOLOGY Richard T. Schaefer

5

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5. Social Interaction and Reality

• Social Interaction and Reality • Elements of Social Structure • Social Structure in Global Perspective • Social Policy and Social Structure

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Social Interaction and Reality

• The ability to define social reality reflects a group’s power within society

• Our response to someone’s behavior is based on meaning we attach to his or her actions

Members of subordinate groups challenge traditional definitions and begin to perceive and experience reality in a new way

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Social Interaction and Reality

Figure 5-1. Social Statuses

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Elements of Social Structure

• Statuses– Status: Refers to any of the socially

defined positions within a large group or society

A person holds more than one status simultaneously

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Elements of Social Structure

•Ascribed Status: status one is born with

•Achieved Status: status one earns– Master Status

• Status that dominates others and determines person’s general position in society

• Statuses– Ascribed and Achieved

Status

Societies deal with inconsistencies by agreeing that certain statuses are more important than others

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– Sets of expectations for people who occupy a given status• Significant component of social structure

– Role Conflict• Occurs when incompatible expectations

arise from two or more social positions held by the same person.

• Social Roles

Elements of Social Structure

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• Social Roles

Elements of Social Structure

– Role Strain• Difficulties that arise when the same

social position imposes conflicting demands and expectations

– Role Exit• Process of disengagement from a role

that is central to one’s identity to establish a new role

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• Groups– Any number of

people with similar norms, values, and expectations who interact with each other on a regular basis.

Elements of Social Structure

Every society composed of many groups in which daily social interaction takes place

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Elements of Social Structure

– Social network: series of social relationships that links person directly to others, and indirectly links him or her to still more people

– Networking: involvement in social network; valuable skill when job-hunting

• Social Networks and Technology

We can now maintain social networks electronically with advances in technology

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Elements of Social Structure

– Organized patterns of beliefs and behavior centered on basic social needs

• Social Institutions

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• Functionalist View– Five major tasks (functional

prerequisites) a society or major group must accomplish

Elements of Social Structure

1. Replacing personnel2. Teaching new recruits3. Producing and distributing goods and services4. Preserving order5. Providing and maintaining a sense of purpose

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– Social institutions have inherently conservative nature

– Social institutions operate in gendered and racist environments

Elements of Social Structure

• Conflict View– Major institutions help maintain

privileges of most powerful individuals and groups within society

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– Social behavior conditioned by roles and statuses

Elements of Social Structure

• Interactionist View– Social institutions affect our everyday

behavior

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Social Structure in Global Perspective

– Mechanical solidarity: refers to collective consciousness that emphasizes group solidarity, implying that all individuals perform the same tasks

– Organic solidarity: refers to collective consciousness that hinges on need a society’s members have for one another

• Durkheim’s Mechanical and Organic Solidarity

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Social Structure in Global Perspective

– Gemeinschaft (guh-MINE-shoft): small community in which people have similar backgrounds and life experiences

– Gesellschaft (guh-ZELL-shoft): large community in which people are strangers and feel little in common with other community residents

• Tönnie’s Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft

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Social Structure in Global Perspective

Table 5-1. Comparison of the Gemeinshaft and Gesellschaft

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Social Structure in Global Perspective

– Views human societies as undergoing change according to a dominant pattern—sociocultural evolution

• Lenski’s Sociocultural Evolution Approach

“Process of change and development in human societies resulting from growth in their stores of cultural information” (Lenski et al. 2004:366)

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Social Structure in Global Perspective

• Lenski’s Sociocultural Evolution Approach– Society’s level of technology critical to

way it is organized

Technology: “Cultural information about how to use the material resources of the environment to satisfy human needs and desires” (Nolan and Lenski 2004:366)

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Social Structure in Global Perspective

•Hunting-and-Gathering Society: people rely on whatever foods and fibers are readily available

– Horticultural Societies– Agrarian Societies: primarily

engaged in production of food

• Lenski’s Sociocultural Evolution Approach– Preindustrial Societies

Use technological innovations like the plow for dramatic increases in food production

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Social Structure in Global Perspective

• Depend on mechanization to produce their goods and services

– Rely on inventions and energy sources

– Change the function of the family as a self-sufficient unit.

• Lenski’s Sociocultural Evolution Approach– Industrial Societies

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Social Structure in Global Perspective

•Postindustrial Society: economic system is engaged primarily in the processing and control of information

•Postmodern Society: technologically sophisticated society preoccupied with consumer goods and media images

Continued...

• Lenski’s Sociocultural Evolution Approach– Postindustrial and Postmodern Societies

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Social Structure in Global Perspective

Table 5-2. Stages of Sociocultural Evolution

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Social Policy and Social Structure

• While there are encouraging new therapies developed to treat AIDS, there is currently no way to eradicate AIDS by medical means.

• What is the role of social institutions in preventing the spread of AIDS?

• The AIDS Crisis– The Issue

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Social Policy and Social Structure

• Estimated 39.4 million people infectedwith AIDS

• Not evenly distributed

• The AIDS Crisis– The Setting

Developing nations of sub-Saharan Africa face greatest challenge

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Social Policy and Social Structure

• AIDS epidemic likely to bring about certain transformations in a society’s social structure

• Functionalist perspective: established social institutions cannot meet a crucial need, new social networks are likely to emerge to fill that function

• The AIDS Crisis– Sociological Insights

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Social Policy and Social Structure

• Conflict Perspective: Policymakers slow to respond to the AIDS crisis because those in high-risk groups—gays and IV drug users—were comparatively powerless.

• Interactionists: forecast AIDS could lead to more conservative sexual climate

• The AIDS Crisis– Sociological Insights

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Social Policy and Social Structure

•AIDS struck all societies– Not all nations can respond in the

same manner– High cost of drug treatment generated

intensive worldwide pressure on major pharmaceutical companies to lower prices

• The AIDS Crisis– Policy Initiatives

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Social Policy and Social Structure

Figure 5-2. People Living with HIV/AIDS, 2004

Source: UNAIDS 2004:5