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Assignment

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Social science

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Index

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INTRODUCTION

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NEED AND SIGNIFICANCE

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OBJECTIVES

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ANALYZIS AND INTERPRETATION

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ÇONCLUSION

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REFERENCES

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INTRODUCTION

A social group consists of two or more people who interact with one another and who recognize themselves as a distinct social unit. The definition is simple enough, but it has significant implications. Frequent interaction leads people to share values and beliefs. This similarity and the interaction cause them to identify with one another. Identification and attachment, in turn, stimulate more frequent and intense interaction. Each group maintains solidarity with all to other groups and other types of social systems.

Groups are among the most stable and enduring of social units. They are important both to their members and to the society at large. Through encouraging regular and predictable behavior, groups form the foundation upon which society rests. Thus, a family, a village, a political

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party a trade union is all social groups. These, it should be noted are different from social classes, status groups or crowds, which not only lack structure but whose members are less aware or even unaware of the existence of the group. These have been called quasi-groups or groupings. Nevertheless, the distinction between social groups and quasi-groups is fluid and variable since quasi-groups very often give rise to social groups, as for example, social classes give rise to political parties.

NEED AND SIGNIFICANCE

Usually defined as a number of people who identify and interact with one another. This is a very broad definition, as it includes groups of all sizes, fromdyads to whole societies. While an aggregate comprises merely a number of individuals, a group in sociology exhibits cohesiveness to a larger degree. Aspects that members in the group may share include: interests, values, ethnic/linguistic

background, roles and kinship. One way of determining if a collection of people can be considered a group is if individuals who belong to that collection use the self-referent pronoun "we;" using "we" to refer to a collection of people often implies that the collection thinks of itself as a group. Examples of groups include: families, companies, circles of friends, clubs, local chapters of fraternities and sororities, and local religious congregations.

A law enforcement official is a social category, not a group. However, law enforcement officials who all work in the same station and regularly meet to plan their day and work together would be considered part of a group.

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Collections of people that do not use the self-referent pronoun "we" but share certain characteristics (e.g., roles, social functions, etc.) are different from groups in that they usually do not regularly interact with each other nor share similar interests or values. Such collections are referred to as categories of people rather than groups; examples include: police, soldiers, millionaires, women, etc.

Individuals form groups for a variety of reasons. There are some rather obvious ones, like reproduction, protection, trade, protest, and food production. But social categorization of people into groups and categories also facilitates behavior and action.[1] An example may help explain this idea:

Suppose you are driving somewhere in a car when you notice red

lights flashing in your rearview mirror. Because you have been socialized into society, you know that the red lights mean you should pull over, so you do. After waiting for a minute or two, an individual in a uniform walks toward your car door. You roll down your window and the individual asks you for your "license and registration."

Because groups and categories help facilitate social behavior, you

know who this individual is: a member of a law enforcement category like the police or highway patrol. In all likelihood, you do not have to question this individual as to why they are driving a special car with lights on it, why they are wearing a uniform, why they are carrying a gun, or why they pulled you over (you may ask why they pulled you over, but doing so often increases the likelihood they'll give you a ticket). In short, because you recognize that the individual driving the car belongs to a specific social category (or group), you can enter this interaction with a body of knowledge that will help guide your behavior. You do not have to learn how to interact in that situation every single time you encounter it.

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In fact, sociologists have long recognized the people experience much of social life by attempting to frame situations in terms they can understand.[2] Specifically, people approach each situation by consciously or unconsciously asking "What is going on here," and seeking to coordinate their activities to the "definition of the situation" they decide upon. To accomplish this, people scan situations for information "given" (e.g., the things people do to signify who they are and what groups they belong to intentionally) and "given off" (e.g., the things people do that inadvertently signify who they are and the groups they belong to) by other people in the situation. Based on this information, people then act in ways they have been socialized to believe is appropriate for the situation. In

the case above, for example, you (as the driver) would note the information given (e.g., the special car, the lights, and the uniform worn) to ascertain what was happening and who the other driver was, and then you could note the information given off (e.g., the apparent mood of the police officer based upon her or his body language, verbal language, and mannerisms) to predict (accurately or otherwise) what was about to happen to you. In so doing, you would be using the knowledge of groups at your disposal to manage the situation. Such interpretive work combined with social categorizations to smooth a wide variety of interactional and interpretive experiences.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

Identification carries two meanings. Part of who we are is made up of

our group memberships. That is, sometimes we think of ourselves as

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"us" vs. "them" or "we" vs. "they", and at other times we think of

ourselves as "I" vs. "he or she" or "me" vs. "him or her". In other words,

sometimes we think of ourselves as group members and at other times

we think of ourselves as unique individuals. This varies situationally, so

that we can be more or less a group member, depending upon the

circumstances. What is crucial for our purposes is that thinking of

yourself as a group member and thinking of yourself as a unique

individual are both parts of your self-concept. The first is referred to as

social identity, the latter is referred to as personal identity. In social

identity theory, group membership is not something foreign which is

tacked onto the person, it is a real, true and vital part of the person.

Our groups make up part of who we are.

The other

meaning implied by the concept of identity is the idea that we are, in

some sense, the same, or identical to other people. This should not be

misinterpreted, when we say that we are the same, we mean that for

some purposes we treat members of our groups as being similar to

ourselves in some relevant way. To take the most extreme example, in

some violent conflict such as a war, the members of the opposite group

- the outgroup - are treated as identical and completely different to the

those people in your group - theingroup - which is made up of distinct

individuals. Thinking about individuals in one's outgroup in such a

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fashion allows the individual to believe that the enemy is deserving of

death by dehumanizing them (more on this below). Treating people this

way allows us to justify otherwise unjustifiable behavior

ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

A social network is a

social structure between actors, either individuals or organizations. It

indicates the ways in which they are connected through various social

familiarities ranging from casual acquaintance to close familial bonds.

The study of social networks is called both social network

analysis and social network theory. Research in a number of academic

fields has demonstrated that social networks operate on many levels,

from families up to the level of nations, and play a critical role in

determining the way problems are solved, organizations are run, and

the degree to which individuals succeed in achieving their goals.

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An example of a social network diagram

Social network theory views social relationships in terms

of nodes and ties. Nodes are the individual actors within the networks,

and ties are the relationships between the actors. There can be many

kinds of ties between the nodes. In its most simple form, a social

network is a map of all of the relevant ties between the nodes being

studied. The network can also be used to determine the social capital of

individual actors. These concepts are often displayed in a social

network diagram, where nodes are the points and ties are the lines.

The shape of the social network helps determine a network's

usefulness to its individuals. Smaller, tighter networks can be less useful

to their members than networks with lots of loose connections (weak

ties) to individuals outside the main network. More "open" networks,

with many weak ties and social connections, are more likely to

introduce new ideas and opportunities to their members than closed

networks with many redundant ties. In other words, a group of friends

who only do things with each other already share the same knowledge

and opportunities. A group of individuals with connections to other

social worlds is likely to have access to a wider range of information. It

is better for individual success to have connections to a variety of

networks rather than many connections within a single network.

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Similarly, individuals can exercise influence or act as brokers within

their social networks by bridging two networks that are not directly

linked (called filling social holes).

The power of social network theory stems from its difference from

traditional sociological studies, which assume that it is the attributes of

individual actors - whether they are friendly or unfriendly, smart or

dumb, etc. - that matter. Social network theory produces an alternate

view, where the attributes of individuals are less important than their

relationships and ties with other actors within the network. This

approach has turned out to be useful for explaining many real-world

phenomena, but leaves less room for individual agency, the ability for

individuals to influence their success, so much of it rests within the

structure of their network. For instance, social networks have been

used to examine how companies interact with each other,

characterizing the many informal connections that link executives

together, as well as associations and connections between individual

employees at different companies. These networks provide ways for

companies to gather information, deter competition, and

even collude in setting prices or policies. Power within organizations

has also been found to be tied to social networks. Powerful people in

organizations often derive their power from their degree of

connectedness within the organization (i.e., the degree to which an

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individual within a network is at the center of many relationships)

rather than from job title or statuses. Social networks also play a key

role in hiring, in business success for firms, and in job performance.

The so-called rule of 150 states that the size of a genuine social

network is limited to about 150 members (sometimes called

the Dunbar Number). The rule arises from cross-cultural studies

in sociology and especially anthropology of the maximum size of

a village (in modern parlance an ecovillage). It is theorized

in evolutionary psychology that the number may be some kind of limit

of average human ability to recognize members and track emotional

facts about all members of a group. However, it may be due

to economicsand the need to track "free riders", as larger groups tend

to be easier for cheats and liars to prosper in.

The "six degrees of separation" model.

The small world phenomenon 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. The concept

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gave rise to the famous phrase six degrees of separation after

a 1967small world experiment by psychologist Stanley Milgram which

found that two random US citizens were connected by an average of six

acquaintances. Current internet experiments continue to explore this

phenomenon, including the Ohio State Electronic Small World

Projectand Columbia's Small World Project. As of 2005, these

experiments confirm that about five to seven degrees of separation are

sufficient for connecting any two people through the internet.

Sociologists are interested in social networks because of their influence

on and importance for the individual. Social networks are the basic

tools used by individuals to meet other people, to recreate, and to find

social support.[32] Recent research suggests that the social networks of

Americans are shrinking and more and more people have no close

confidants or people with whom they can share their most intimate

thoughts.[33] In 1985, the mean network size of individuals in the U.S.

was 2.94 people. Networks declined by almost an entire confidant by

2004, to 2.08 people. Almost half, 46.3% of Americans, say they have

only one or no confidants with whom they can discuss important

matters. The most frequently occurring response to the question of

how many confidants one has was zero in 2004. The decline in

confidants has been most notable among non-kin networks, putting

greater emphasis on kin and spouses as social confidants. Most social

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confidants are similar in demographic characteristics to the person

doing the sharing.[33] The implications of these findings are potentially

disturbing for American society as people have smaller social

support networks, which are important for both social but also health

reasons.[32]

Conclusion

The term group, or social group,

has been used to refer to very divergent kinds of aggregations of

people. Indeed, the term has been used so broadly as to threaten its

fruitfulness as a focal concept. For one thing, the word group has

sometimes been used to designate the members of a social category

based on possession of a common attribute, even when the members

have no meaningful degree of interrelation. Thus, it has been used to

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refer to such collections as persons of a particular age, all persons

having similar incomes or occupations, and all persons with similar

reading habits. These are what might be called statistical groups, as

distinct from actual groups, the latter being characterized by

interrelatedness of the members.

Virtually all efforts to classify social groups result in a certain degree of

artificiality. Because of these and other problems of definition and

classification, sociologists have attempted to distinguish between

various kinds of social aggregates, some to be considered groups and

others to be identified by other terms—audiences, publics, and the like;

there is, however, no generally accepted classification at this time.

REFERENCES

1. ohn J. Macionis, Linda M. Gerber, "Sociology", Seventh Canadian

Edition, Pearson Canada. Missing or empty |title= (help)

2. Jump up^ Hare, A. P. (1962). Handbook of small group research.

New York: Macmillan Publishers.

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3. Jump up^ Sherif, Muzafer and Sherif, Carolyn W., An Outline of

Social Psychology rev.ed. Harper & Brothers: New York pp. 143–

180.

4. Jump up^ Simon, Herbert A. Administrative Behavior 3rd ed. Free

Press 1976 p.123-153

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