Ch 5 - Group and Networks

Multifocal

pertaining to or arising from many locations - Going back to the example of your sociology study group, if two people begin to talk about Margaret Mead's theory of the self while the rest of you discuss the differences between role conflict and role strain, then it is bifocal; if another subgroup splits off to deliberate on reference groups, then it has become multifocal.

a lack of formal arrangements or roles.

- Classes usually don't qualify as small groups because a third characteristic of small groups is a lack of formal arrangements or roles. - A study group, though, might qualify if you decide shortly before an exam to meet with some of your classmates. - You need to agree on a place and time to meet, but otherwise there is no formal arrangement. - In the classroom, however, a professor is in attendance, as are teaching assistants and students—all of whom play official roles in the group.

Dense Social Capital

- Dense social capital means that people are linked to one another through a thick web of connections. - As a result of these connections, they will feel inclined—perhaps even impelled—to help each other, to return favors, to keep an eye on one another's property. - The more connections there are, the more norms of reciprocity, values, and trust are shared. - After all, there is no such thing as total anonymity: Even if you don't know someone directly, chances are that you are only one or two degrees removed from him or her.

What's a public health officer to do with the rise of teenage sexual intercourse?

- During the administration of George W. Bush, the religious right and conservative policy makers suggested the "virginity pledge" and other abstinence policies as a solution. - As it turns out, the pledge does delay the onset of sexual activity on average, but when the teenagers who take it eventually do have sex, they are much more likely to practice unsafe sex. - Among the many problems in designing safe-sex or other programs to reduce the rate of STIs among teenagers is the fact that we knew very little about the sexual networks of American adolescents until quite recently.

Soloman Asch

- In the late 1940s the social psychologist Solomon Asch carried out a now-famous series of experiments to demonstrate the power of norms of group conformity. - He gathered subjects in a room under the pretense that they were participating in a vision test, showed them two images of lines, and asked which ones were longer than the others and which were the same length

Triad

A group of three

Group comformity

Although we tend to put a high value on individuality in American culture, our lives are marked by high levels of conformity. - That is, groups have strong influences over individual behavior.

face-to-face interaction

all the members of the group at any given time are present and interact with one another. - They are not spread out geographically.

George Simmel

discovered the group size effect he observed how group size influences the behavior of the participants - Dyad and Triad

informal organization

do not have a set of governing structures and rules for their internal arrangements (the local Meetup.com group for ambidextrous tennis players [an actual group!]).

Secondary Groups

groups marked by impersonal, instrumental relationships (those existing as a means to an end).

formal organization

have a set of governing structures and rules for their internal arrangements (the US Army, with its ranks and rules)

How does mobility and flexibility affect people's lives?

mobility and flexibility take a toll on people's lives. - More than in previous eras, people report feeling rushed, disconnected, and harried, so it's no surprise that civic responsibilities are pushed aside. - It's not that Americans don't care. In fact, they join more organizations and donate more money than ever before. - They just don't give their time or engage in face-to-face activities.

Tie

the connection between two people in a relationship that varies in strength from one relationship to the next; a story that explains our relationship with another member of our network.

Unifocal

there's one center of attention at any given time. - Turn-taking among speakers occurs. - A classroom, unless it's divided and engaged in group work, should be unifocal.

Example of a Dyad

we might consider a couple the most intimate social arrangement in our society. - Both people must remain committed to being in the dyad for it to exist, and if one partner leaves, the couple no longer exists. - There can be no secrets—if the last piece of chocolate cake disappears and you didn't eat it, you know who did. - You could withhold a secret from your dyadic partner, but in terms of the actions of the group itself, no mystery lingers about who performs which role or who did what. - Either you did it, or the other person did.

Tertius Gaudens

- A second possible role for the incoming third member of a triad is that of tertius gaudens (Latin for "the third that rejoices"). - This individual profits from the disagreement of the other two, essentially playing the opposite role from the mediator. - Someone in this position might have multiple roles. In the previous example, the marriage counselor plays the part of the mediator, but she is also earning her wages from the conflict between the couple. - Maybe she encourages continued therapy even after the couple appear to have resolved all their issues, or perhaps she promotes their staying together even though they've already decided to get a divorce.

Lisa Wade (2017) and Kathleen Bogle on Teenage Sex

- According to sociologists Lisa Wade (2017) and Kathleen Bogle (2008), "hooking up" has replaced going steady on campus; "friends with benefits" are preferred over girlfriends and boyfriends, with all their attendant demands and the corresponding commitment. - On the other hand, Wade also reports that about one-third of college students do not (or cannot) participate in this romantic culture on campus. - In fact, the proportion of teens and young adults who are not having sex at all has risen across the globe in recent years

Example of Romantic Leftovers

- At time 1, Matt and Jennifer are dating, as are Jareem and Maya. At time 2, Jennifer and Jareem date. The rule suggests that Matt and Maya will never date. Why is that? Once Jennifer and Jareem start dating, if Matt and Maya decide to date each other, they are relegating themselves to secondary social status, as if they were "leftovers." - The practical, take-home lesson in all of this is that if you want to date the ex of your ex's new crush, act before your ex does. - If you're Jennifer and you wish to prevent your old boyfriend Matt from going out with Maya, quickly start dating Jareem, because then Maya and Matt will never date. - But extend the "no seconds" rule to thirds or more, and the taboo erodes. - The fact that no students in the high school studied were aware of the rule is what makes this kind of social norm possible: It's not conscious. This is a good example of how social structures govern individual-level behavior, and it speaks to some of the limitations of interpretive sociology. - If the researchers had taken a more Weberian approach and asked students how they choose partners and, more important, why they don't date certain people, they probably wouldn't have discovered this rule. - The researchers could see it only by taking a bird's-eye view and analyzing this structure with mathematical tools.

STIs in teens

- Figure 5.6 illustrates the four different possible models of contact and spread for STIs. - Panel A represents a core infection model, where the dark, filled-in circles representing infected people are all connected to this core group. - Therefore, the infection circulates through everyone in the group, but they're also connected outward to other partners. - If you mapped out a sexual network like this, with the objective of stopping diseases from being sexually transmitted, you would try to isolate that core network and either cut them off from sexual relations with others or at least ensure that when they came into contact with uninfected partners, they practiced safe sex. - Panel B shows a possible structural hole. - Imagine an infected group and an uninfected group, but one person bridges them. - Theoretically, such a circumstance is fairly easy to address, in that all you have to do is cut the tie or persuade that one person to engage in safe sex, and you've thus protected the uninfected population. - Panel C depicts an inverse core model, representing the way much of AIDS transmission occurs in populations where men routinely spend long periods of time away from their families, such as long-haul truckers and some men from African villages. - The traveling men visit prostitutes in the city or at truck stops, acquire the virus from one, transmit it to another, and then bring the virus back home. - The infected members are not connected directly with one another (i.e., the prostitutes are not having sex with each other); rather, the individuals at the periphery of the core (the men who solicit the prostitutes) connect the core members to each other and possibly beyond the group to other populations. - The last network model, illustrated in panel D, is the spanning tree model, in linear rather than circular form. This is essentially how power grids are laid out: There's a main line, and branches develop off of that line. - It is difficult to completely stop transmission along a spanning tree model. - That's why we design electrical grids to be a series of spanning trees so that if one circuit fails the power can continue to flow around it, although as anyone who has experienced a blackout knows, specific sections can be left without power if they are severed from the rest of the tree. - In terms of STI transmission, you could initiate some breaks that would split the tree into two groups, but that's not going to completely isolate the infection. - If you attack something on a branch, you're not doing anything to the rest of the network. There's no key focal point that allows you to stop the spread.

Statistics in Regards To Teenage Sex

- Here are some nationally representative numbers for the United States: About 50 percent of American teenagers over the age of 15, when interviewed by researchers, have admitted to engaging in sexual intercourse. (Boys probably tend to exaggerate their sexual experience, and girls probably downplay it.) - A good number of those who have not yet had intercourse are still sexually active in other ways: Approximately one-third have "had genital contact with a partner resulting in an orgasm in the past year." - Bluntly put, what this means is that a good two-thirds of American teens are having sex or participating in some form of sexual activity. - Teenagers' romantic relationships tend to be short term compared with adults', averaging about 15 months, so there is a fair amount of partner trading. - Survey research among students in college, where hook-up culture is prevalent, found that 70 percent use condoms when they engage in vaginal/penile intercourse. - That 70 percent is "a lot less than a hundred, but a lot more than zero," notes principal investigator Paula England - To top that off, most adolescents with a sexually transmitted infection "have no idea that they are infected." - All of these factors combine to make American teenagers a breeding ground for sexually transmitted infections, which have increased dramatically in this age group in the last decade.

Example Showing Why Size Matters In A Group

- In a diagram with four people (A, B, C, and D), we can cross out the diagonals and the group will still exist. - Everyone may have only two relationships as opposed to three (the number of possible relationships). - A and D might never have spoken to each other, but the group will continue to function. - The tendency, however, is for these possible relationships to become actual relationships. - You and your roommate are in separate chemistry classes, but your lab partners happen to be roommates. - If you both become friendly with your lab partners outside of class, chances are that you will meet your roommate's lab partner and vice versa. - Such social ties between friends of the same friend tend to form. - This can be good or bad. You may form a study group and, if your roommate's lab partner's boyfriend is a chemist, you (and everyone else) may benefit from his help. - On the other hand, if the two break up and you start dating the chemist, it might make future labs a little uncomfortable for your roommate.

Dyad symmetry

- In a dyad, symmetry must be maintained. - There might be unequal power relations within a group of two to a certain extent, but Simmel would argue that in a group of two an inherent symmetry exists because of the earlier stipulation of mutual dependence: The group survives only if both members remain. - Even in relationships where the power seems so clearly unequal—think of a master and a servant or a prisoner and his captor—Simmel argues that there's an inherent symmetry. - Yes, the servant may be completely dependent on the master for his or her wages, sustenance, food, and shelter, but what happens to the master who becomes dependent on the labor that the servant performs? - Of course, forcible relationships might develop in which one of two parties is forced to stay in the dyad, but to be considered a pure dyad, the relationship has to be voluntary. - Because a dyad could fall apart at any moment, the underlying social relation is heightened.

Bowling Alone and Other Acts of Civil Disengagement

- Indeed, more and more people are bowling alone. Actual bowling activity was on the rise at the end of the twentieth century, when Putnam and Wuthnow were writing— the total number of bowlers in America increased by 10 percent from 1988 to 1993—but league bowling dropped a whopping 40 percent in the same time frame. - This is no good for bowling-lane owners, but it's also bad news for democracy in America. - Bowling alone is part of a more general trend of civic disengagement and a decline in social capital. - It's happening in PTAs, the Red Cross, local elections, community cleanups, and labor unions. - Even membership in the Boy Scouts has decreased by 26 percent since the 1970s. - More people live alone. - Some go so far as to say that friendships have become shallower, and the phenomenon of deep, enduring friendships is an increasing rarity. - As civic participation withers, activities once performed by communities have moved toward private markets.

Example of Isomorphism

- Let's consider a hypothetical case: A new organization enters into a fairly established industry but wants to approach it differently, perhaps a bank that wants to distinguish itself from other banks by being more casual or more community oriented. - The theory of isomorphism suggests that such a bank, when all is said and done, will wind up operating as most other banks do. - It's locked into a network of other organizations and therefore will be heavily influenced by the environment of that network. - The same is true for new networks of organizations. - A group of not-for-profits might spring up in a specific area. - Because all will face the same environmental conditions, they will likely be, in the final analysis, more similar than different, no matter how diverse their origins. - DiMaggio and Powell are part of a school of social theory referred to as the new institutionalism, which essentially tries to develop a sociological view of institutions (as opposed to, say, an economic view). - In this vein, networks of connections among institutions are key to understanding how the institutions look and behave. - These theorists would argue that all airlines raise and lower their fares at the same time, for example, not because they are independently reacting to pure market forces but because symmetry, peer pressure, social signaling, and network laws all govern the organizational behavior of these Fortune 500 companies to the same extent that these forces affect the sex lives of seniors at Jefferson High School. Pretty scary, huh?

What does the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health reveal about the teenage sexual network?

- One component of the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, conducted by J. Richard Udry, Peter Bearman, and others from 1994 to 1996, investigated the complete sexual network at 12 high schools across the nation, including the pseudonymous Jefferson High School, whose 1,000-person student body is depicted in Figure 5.5. - They focused their analysis on Jefferson, because its demographic makeup, although almost all white, is fairly representative of most American public high schools and, more important, it is in a fairly isolated town, so less chance exists of the sexual networks spilling over to other schools. - The pink dots represent girls and the green ones boys. - The dyad in the lower right-hand corner tells us that there are 63 couples in which the partners have only had sex with each other. - There are small, comparatively isolated networks consisting of 10 or fewer people, and then one large ring that encompasses hundreds of students. - Preventing the transmission of infection in the small networks is much simpler than preventing the spread in the large ring. - One young man in the ring has had nine partners, but even if you persuaded him to use condoms or practice abstinence, you still wouldn't address most of the network. - Your action might positively impact the people immediately around him. - But to the extent other origin points of infection exist within the network, it is going to be very difficult to stop transmission. - One practice that would slow the spread of STIs is lengthening the gap between partners: Sleeping with more than one person at a time increases the rate of transmission. - The fuzzy ring structure represents a type of network called a circular spanning tree—a spanning tree being one of four ideal types of sex networks hypothesized by Bearman and other epidemiologists (scientists who study the spread of diseases).

The Effects Caused by the Size of the Group

- One key insight is that as the number of people (nodes) in the group increases geometrically (2 + 1 = 3; 3 + 1 = 4; 4 + 1 = 5), the complexity of analyzing that group's ties (edges) increases exponentially (2 × 2 = 4; 4 × 4 = 16; 5 × 5 = 25). - A two-person group has only one possible and necessary relationship; a tie must exist between the two people for there to be a group. - In a triad, a sum of three relationships exists, with each person within the group having two ties. - And again, for it to be a group of three, we're not talking about possible connections but actual ones. - Each person in the triad has to have two ties—breaking a single tie turns the triad into two dyads. - Even if one of the ties between two members is weaker, it is so well reinforced by the remaining two ties that it is unlikely to fade away, a feature known as the "iron law" of the triad, or more technically, "triadic closure." - When you move beyond triads to groups of four or more, something different happens. - To create a group of four, there must be at least four relationships, but you can have as many as six.

Why don't people engage in more face-to-face activities?

- One possible explanation for this trend is the rise of online associations. - We may be showing up less because the internet makes it easy to form new groups whenever we feel the need. - It also allows for social connection (of some form) without requiring face-to-face contact. - The explosion of websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is an important example of this phenomenon. - Political activism has moved online as well, with the Barack Obama, Howard Dean, and Bernie Sanders campaigns leading successful Web-based fund-raising efforts that brought new donors into the political process. - What's more, activist fund-raisers intent on rapidly providing aid and relief to Haitians following the January 2010 earthquake invited donations via text messaging. - The American Red Cross was able to raise more than $22 million through text messaging alone; meanwhile, the website gofundme.com has allowed folks to raise a total of $5 billion. ** Before we blame the internet for a decline in social capital and civic life, we should note that the trend toward giving more but showing up less predates the web. It is probably more a result of increased work hours and other pressures to keep up in an age of rising inequality.

Why are Americans so likely to join groups?

- Our participation in elections and formal political processes is one of the lowest in the world, which makes the question all the more intriguing. - Some, like Tocqueville, suggest that the uniquely egalitarian nature of American democracy has made Americans more likely than Europeans to enlist in voluntary organizations. - Other scholars suggest that America's unique pattern of settlement is responsible for high levels of voluntary organizations. - In particular, the town square culture of early New England, in which people came together in town squares to discuss and debate current civic issues, created a long-lasting culture of voluntary association. - Still others point to America's identity as a land of immigrants who formed voluntary organizations to unite with other immigrants who shared similar cultural or political values ** Today, despite some high-profile exceptions like the record-setting Women's March on Washington the day after Trump was inaugurated, overall, voluntary participation in civic life has taken a turn for the worse, and as a result, the nation's stock of social capital is at risk.

What characteristics make up primary groups?

- Primary groups are limited in the number of members, allowing for face-to-face interaction. - The group is an end unto itself, rather than a means to an end. - This is what makes your family different from a sports team or small business: Sure, you want the family to function well, but you're not trying to compete with other families or manufacture a product. - Meanwhile, primary groups are key agents of socialization. - Most people's first social group is their family, which is a primary group. - Your immediate family (parents and siblings) is probably small enough to sit down at the same dinner table or at least gather in the same room at the same time. - Loyalty is the primary ethic here. - Members of a primary group are noninterchangeable—you can't replace your mother or father. - And while you have strong allegiances to your friends, your primary loyalty is likely to be to your family. - Finally, the relationships within a primary group are enduring. - Your sister will always be your sister. - Another example of a primary group might be the group of your closest friends, especially if you've known each other since your sandbox years.

Loose Connections: Joining Together in America's Fragmented Communities (1998), (Robert Wuthnow)

- Robert Wuthnow finds that people are worried about what they see as a breakdown of families and neighborliness and a concurrent rise in selfishness. - When Wuthnow surveyed a random sample of Americans, fewer than half believed that their fellow citizens genuinely cared about others. - Even worse, some studies suggest that more and more people think their neighbors are inherently untrustworthy - A considerable majority of Americans believe that their communities are weaker than ever before. - Without communal ties of civic and religious participation, Americans have lost trust in their neighbors. - Interpersonal trust matters; it is essential for building the complex social structures necessary for a functioning democracy and economy.

Sociologist Michael Gaddis

- Sociologist Michael Gaddis has been using network structure to look at another challenging aspect of social capital: Even for people with a healthy number of ties to friends, family, and community, not all social capital is equal. - As Gaddis points out, "Everyone knows friends, co-workers, family members, but the important part of social capital.. .is the resources that are linked to you through these networks. - Do I know someone who knows someone who has a job opening and could refer me? Can I access those resources?" - He looked at kids growing up in "low-income families, one-parent families" who applied to the Big Brothers Big Sisters program where they hoped to be assigned an adult mentor with whom to spend time. - Because of high demand, only some students got to participate, making it possible for Gaddis to compare students who got mentors with those who wanted them but were not able to get them. It turned out that "mentors with higher education levels, higher income" were "able to make greater changes" among the little brothers and sisters. ** It is not how many people you know that gives you greater social capital but the resources associated with the people you know and their willingness to share those resources with you that increases your social capital.

Strength of Weak Ties (Mark Ganovetter)

- The counterpart of embeddedness - refers to the notion that relatively weak ties often turn out to be quite valuable because they yield new information.

Characteristics of a Dyad

- The dyad has several unique characteristics. For starters, it is the most intimate form of social life, partly because the two members of the dyad are mutually dependent on each other. - That is, the continued existence of the group is entirely contingent on the willingness of both parties to participate in the group; if either person leaves, the dyad ceases to be. - This intimacy is enhanced by the fact that no third person exists to buffer the situation or mediate between the two. - Meanwhile, the members of a dyad don't need to be concerned about how their relationship will be perceived by a third party.

What makes the dyad so unique?

- The dyad is also unique in other ways. - Because the group exists only as long as the individuals choose to maintain it in a voluntary fashion, the group itself exerts no supra-individual control over the individuals involved. - For example, whereas a child might claim, "She made me do it" and shamelessly tell on her older sister, a member of a dyad is less likely to say, "I was just following orders" or "The whole group decided to go see Mission: Impossible 7, and I really didn't want to, but I went anyway." - The force of a group is much stronger when three or more individuals are part of the group.

Mediator

- The first role is that of mediator, the person who tries to resolve conflict between the other two and is sometimes brought in for that explicit purpose. - A good example would be a marriage counselor. - Rather than go to therapy, couples having marital problems often start a family because they believe a baby will bring them back together. - Unfortunately, as most couples come to realize sooner rather than later, a baby cannot play the role of a mediator. - Rather, the dynamics of the unhappy family may turn into a game of chicken: Which parent is more devoted to the child? Which dyad forms the core of the group, and which person will be left out or can walk away more easily?

How have large multinational corporations affected organizational structure?

- The growth of large multinational corporations over the course of the last 100 years has affected organizational structure. - One example of this impact can be seen in interlocking directorates, the phenomenon whereby the members of corporate boards often sit on the boards of directors for multiple companies. - In 2013, for example, the boards of insurance companies such as AIG, Humana, MetLife, and Travelers frequently had board members who also served on the boards of drug and medical device makers such as Johnson & Johnson, DuPont, Abbott Laboratories, and Dow Chemical. - Does it matter that these people sit together on the same boards? The problem, critics argue, is that we then allow a select group of people—predominantly rich, white men—to control the decisions made in thousands of companies. - Such people also have ties to research institutions and elected officials that may compromise their objectivity and create conflicts of interest. - Capitalism, after all, is based on competition, but if board members on interlocking directorates favor the other companies to which they are connected, suppliers may not be competing on a level playing field when bidding for contracts. - Or worse, take the situation that might develop when a board member of a drug maker asks his friend and fellow board member at a health insurance company to give preferential coverage to his company's drugs over a competitor's drugs. - This can lead to higher prices for consumers who need to purchase the competitor's drugs. - Another situation might arise in which one of these two board members knows a former member of Congress through board service together who they can use as a lobbyist to see that federal health programs like Medicare and Medicaid also give preferential treatment to a particular drug, costing taxpayers more than they would have paid without the pressure arising from these relationships. - This type of situation can lead to what sociologist C. Wright Mills called a "power elite" or aristocracy.

Differences between In-Groups vs. Out-Groups

- The in-group is the powerful group, most often the majority, whereas the out-group is the stigmatized or less powerful group, usually the minority (though the numbers don't have to break down this way). - For example, in the United States, heterosexuals are the in-group in terms of sexuality (both more powerful and numerically greater), whereas homosexuals, bisexuals, and those who have other nonnormative sexual identities fall into the out-group. - However, in South Africa, despite being a minority group, whites are the in-group because of their enormous political and economic power (the legacy of colonialism and apartheid), whereas blacks are the out-group despite their greater numbers. - The significance of in-groups and out-groups lies in their relative power to define what constitutes normal versus abnormal thoughts and behavior.

Who's to blame for America's fading civic life?

- The social entrepreneur who has too many structural holes to maintain? Parents? Our school systems, television, the internet? A combination of all these and other factors works in conjunction with broad social trends, creating an increasingly differentiated, specialized, urbanized, and modern world. - Social institutions must adjust to the flexibility, sometimes called the liquidity, of modernity by becoming more fragmented, less rigid, and more "porous". - It becomes easier to come and go, to pass through multiple social groups such as churches, friends, jobs, and even families. - Gone is the rigid fixity of finding and holding onto a lifelong "calling." - Similarly, a majority of graduating college students (60 percent) attend more than one school before receiving a degree

Organizational Culture

- The term organizational culture refers to the shared beliefs and behaviors within a social group and is often used interchangeably with corporate culture. - The organizational culture at a slaughterhouse—where pay is low, employees must wear protective gear, the environment is dangerous, and animals are continuously being killed—is probably very different from the organizational culture at a small, not-for-profit community law center.

organizational structure

- The term organizational structure refers to how power and authority are distributed within an organization. - The slaughterhouse probably has a hierarchical structure, with a clear ranking of managers and supervisors who oversee the people working the lines. - The law center, however, might be more decentralized and cooperative, with five partners equally co-owning the business and collaborating on decisions. - How an organization is structured often affects the type of culture that results. - If a business grants both parents leave when a new child enters the home, allows for flextime or telecommuting, or has an on-site child-care center, those structural arrangements will be much more conducive to creating a family-friendly organizational culture than those of a company that doesn't offer such benefits.

Divide et Impera

- The third possible role that Simmel identifies for a third party is divide et impera (Latin for "divide and conquer"). - This person intentionally drives a wedge between the other two parties. - This third role is similar to tertius gaudens, the difference between the two being a question of intent and whether the rift preexisted.

What were the results of Soloman Asch's Test?

- The trick was that only one person in each room was really a research subject; the rest of the people had been told ahead of time to give the same wrong answer. - While a majority of subjects answered correctly even after they listened to others give the wrong answer, about one-third expressed serious discomfort—they clearly struggled with what they thought was right in light of what everyone else was saying. - Subjects were the most confused when the entire group offered an incorrect answer. - When the group members gave a range of responses, the research subjects had no trouble answering correctly. - This experiment demonstrates the power of conformity within a group. - More troubling instances of group conformity may be seen in cases of collective violence such as gang rape, which tends to occur among tightly knit groups like sports teams or fraternities

Characteristics of a Triad

- This brings us to the triad, distinguished by characteristics you can probably infer by now. - In a triad, the group holds supra-individual power. - In other words, in a group of three or four, I can say, "I'm really unhappy, I hate this place, I hate you, and I'm leaving," but the group will go on. - The husband may walk out on his wife and children, but the family he's abandoning still exists. - He's ending his participation in the group, but the group will outlast his decision to leave it. - Therefore, the group is not dependent on any one particular member.

example of a triad

- To take an example with which millions of Americans are familiar, let's return to the case of the triad formed when a romantic couple has a child but experiences strife and separates. - What happens when the couple divorces? What role does the child play? - A child could play any of the roles mentioned above. - In the original dyad of the biological parents, the child can be a mediator, forcing his or her parents to work together on certain issues pertaining to his or her care. - A child can be "the third who rejoices" from the disagreement of the two, profiting from the fact that he or she might receive two allowances or extra birthday presents because each parent is trying to prove that he or she loves the child more. - A complicated divide et impera situation could develop if one of the child's parents enters into a second marriage, in which the kid remains the biological child of one parent and becomes the stepchild of the other. - In this case, all sorts of politics arise because of the biological connection between the one parent and the child-versus-the-marital-love relationship between the two adults. - The relationship between the nonbiological parent and the stepchild, who have the weakest bond, may be difficult. - The situation could unfold in any number of ways. - Many domestic comedies (think The Parent Trap) are based on the premise of a young, angst-ridden prankster playing the role of divide et impera between his or her parent and the new stepmother or stepfather.

What are Critics Saying About Putnam's Claims that Social Capital is Declining

- Understandably, Putnam's claims have ignited much controversy. - Some researchers have noted that even if an increase in participation occurred after 9/11, it was short-lived among adults. - Others claim the opposite, insisting that social capital never declined as Putnam declared. Rather, it has simply become more informal. - Wuthnow, for example, argues that modernization brings about new forms of "loose connection" but hardly a disappearance of all connection. - Nor does it necessarily follow that modern Americans are any worse off than when connections were tight. - Things change, but that does not always mean they change for the worse. - Though Putnam laments the loss of face-to-face communal ties, in the past three decades we've witnessed an explosion of non-place-based connections: Think of the rich social life occurring on social media, including Twitter, blogs, and Facebook.

Secrets in Triads

- What's more, in a triad, secrets can exist. - Who left the cap off the toothpaste? If more than two people live under the same roof, you can't be sure. - Politics is another aspect inherent in a group of three or more. - Instead of generating consensus between two individuals, now you have multiple points of view and preferences that need to be balanced. - This allows for power politics among the group's members.

Equality

- Within a small group, as in a dyad, there is a certain level of equality. - Only in a dyad can pure equality exist, because both members hold veto power over the group. - However, in a small group, even if the group will continue to exist beyond the membership of any particular member, no particular member has greater sway than the others. - No one member can dissolve the group. - If someone in your study group gets tired and falls asleep on his book, you and your classmates can continue to study without him.

Dyad

A group of two

What are the 3 roles that can evolve depending on what role the entering third party assumes within a triad?

1.) Mediator 2.) Tertius Gaudens 3.) Divide et Impera

groups larger than a dyad or triad can be classified as one of what three types?

1.) Small Groups 2.) Parties 3.) Large Groups

Narrative

A narrative is the sum of stories contained in a set of ties. - Your university or college is a narrative, for example. - Every person with whom you have a relationship at your university forms part of that network. - For all your college-based relationships—those shared with a professor, your teaching assistant, or classmates—your school is a large part of the story, of the tie. - Without the school, in fact, you probably wouldn't share a tie at all. - When you add up the stories of all the actors involved in the social network of your school—between you and your classmates, between the professors and their colleagues, between the school and the vendors with whom it contracts—the result is a narrative of what your college is. - Of course, you may have other friends, from high school or elsewhere, who have no relationship to your school, so your college is a more minor aspect of those relationships.

Robert Putnam

After years of research in Italy, Putnam determined that different regions of the country varied widely in their levels of participation in voluntary associations. As it turns out, the strength of participation in a region was a fairly good predictor of the quality and efficiency of its regional government (and, in turn, its economic growth).

Embeddedness

Embeddedness refers to the degree to which a social relationship is reinforced through indirect paths - The more embedded a tie is, the stronger it is. - That is, compared to a relationship with someone whom only you yourself know, a tie to someone who also knows your mother, your best friend, and your teacher's daughter is more likely to last. - It may feel less dramatic and intimate, but it's robust and more likely to endure simply by virtue of the fact that it's difficult to escape. - You will always be connected to that person—if not directly, then through your "mutual" friends.

Uniplex Ties vs. Multiplex Ties Examples

For every person in your life, you have a story. - To explain some ties, the story is very simple: "That's the guy I buy my coffee from each morning." This is a uniplex tie. - Other ties have many layers. They are multiplex: "She's my girlfriend. We have a romantic relationship. We also are tennis and bridge partners. And now that you mention it, we are classmates at school and also fiercely competitive opponents in Trivial Pursuit."

How does having a weak tie build social capital?

Having many weak ties is one form of what sociologists call social capital. - Like human capital, the training and skills that make individuals more productive and valuable to employers, social capital is the information, knowledge of people or things, and connections that help individuals enter preexisting networks or gain power in them. - Consider the importance of networking in endeavors such as preventing neighborhood crime or obtaining a good job. - As it turns out, the cliché holds a lot of truth: It's not just what you know but whom you know. Weak ties may be the most advantageous for an individual; however, for a community, many dense, embedded ties are generally a sign of high levels of social capital.

Democracy (Alexis de Tocqueville)

In the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America based on his visit to the United States from France. - Tocqueville was surprised to find that America was, in his words, a "land of joiners." - By this, Tocqueville meant that Americans frequently came together to join voluntary associations. -"Americans of all ages, all conditions, all minds constantly unite," Tocqueville wrote. "Not only do they have commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but they also have a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, grave, futile, very general and very particular, immense and very small." - In democratic societies such as the United States, Tocqueville observed that citizens enjoyed greater equality than citizens in aristocratic societies. - Although Tocqueville praised this equality, he also believed that it made democratic citizens independent and weak, so organizations made citizens politically stronger. After all, what good is one vote? - He wrote that democratic citizens "can do almost nothing by themselves, and none of them can oblige those like themselves to lend them their cooperation. - They therefore all fall into impotence if they do not learn to aid each other freely". - Voluntary associations in Tocqueville's land of joiners were a way for independent citizens to assist one another.

Example of Strength of Weak Ties

Let's say you're on the track team and that's your primary social group. Occasionally you now see an old classmate from high school whom you didn't really know (or run in the same circles with) back then, because he also attends your college, but he's on the volleyball team. If the track team isn't doing anything on Friday night but the volleyball team is having a party, you've got an "in" through this relationship that's much weaker than the ones you've got with the other members of the track team. That in is the strength of the weak tie you maintain with the classmate from home. If you end up taking your friends from the track team to the volleyball party and they become friends with your old friend, the tie between you and your old classmate is no longer weak because it is now reinforced by the ties between your old friend and your new track friends—regardless of whether you are actually more intimate with him or not. This example helps explain why the structure of the network is more complicated than the tie from one individual to another. Even though your friendships did not change at the volleyball party, the fact that people in your social network befriended others in your social network strengthens the ties between you and both of the individuals.

Dyads and Divorces

Let's take a real-life example of how the characteristics of a dyad play out and see why they matter. Think about divorce. - One point in a marriage at which the divorce rate is especially high is when a first child is born (and not just because of the parental sleep deprivation that arrives with a newborn). - The nature of the relationship between the two adults changes. -They have gone from being a dyad to becoming a triad. - Perhaps the parents feel a sudden lack of intimacy, even though the baby is not yet a fully developed social actor. - On the flip side, a husband or wife might begin to feel trapped in a marriage specifically because of a child. - All of a sudden, group power exists—a couple has evolved into a family, and with that comes the power of numbers in a group.

Party

Simmel would say that a party, like a small group, is characterized by face-to-face interaction but differs in that it is multifocal.

Institutional Imorphism

Networks can be very useful. They provide information, a sense of security and community, resources, and opportunities, as we saw illustrated by Granovetter's concept of weak ties. - Networks can also be constraining, however. - Paul DiMaggio and Walter Powell (1983), focusing on businesses, coined the phrase institutional isomorphism to explain why so many businesses that evolve in very different ways still end up with such similar organizational structures. - Isomorphism, then, is a "constraining process that forces one unit in a population to resemble other units that face the same set of environmental conditions" (Hawley, 1968). - In regard to organizations, this means that those facing the same conditions (say, in industry, the law, or politics) tend to end up like one another.

Organization

Organization is an all-purpose term that can describe any social network—from a club to a Little League baseball team to a secret society to your local church to General Motors to the US government—that is defined by a common purpose and that has a boundary between its membership and the rest of the social world. - the study of organizations focuses mainly on the social factors that affect organizational structure and the people in those organizations.

Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000) (Putnam)

Putnam traces the decline of civic engagement in the last third of the twentieth century. - We are more loosely connected today than ever before, he says, experiencing less family togetherness, taking fewer group vacations, and demonstrating little civic engagement.

Charles Horton Cooley

Sociologist who emphasized a distinction between what he called primary and secondary groups.

What characteristics make up secondary groups?

The characteristics of secondary groups, such as a labor union, stand in contrast to those of primary groups. - The group is impersonal; you may or may not know all of the members of your union. - It's also instrumental; the group exists as a means to an end, in this case for organizing workers and lobbying for their interests. - In a secondary group, affiliation is contingent. - You are only a member of your union so long as you hold a certain job and pay your dues. - If you change jobs or join another union, your membership in that earlier group ends. - Because the members of a secondary group change, the roles are more important than the individuals who fill them. - The shop steward, the person chosen to interact with the company's management, may be a different person every year, but that position carries the same responsibilities within the group regardless of who fills it. - A sports team is another example of a secondary group, although if you're also close friends with your teammates and socialize with them when you're not playing sports, the line between a primary and secondary group can become blurred.

The Role of Strength of Weak Ties in Job Searches

The strength of weak ties has been found especially useful in job searches. - In a highly embedded network, all the individuals probably know the same people, hear of the same job openings, maintain the same contacts, and so on. - However, your grandparents' neighbor, whom you see every so often, probably has a completely different set of connections. - The paradox is that this weak tie provides the most opportunities. - When Granovetter (1973) interviewed professionals in Boston, he determined that among the 54 respondents who found their employment through personal network ties, more than half saw their contact person "occasionally" (less than once a week but more than once a year). - Perhaps even more surprising was the fact that the runners-up in this category were not people whom the respondents saw "often" (once a week or more); it was those they saw "rarely" (once a year or less), by a factor of almost two to one. - Additional research finds that weak ties offer the greatest benefits to job seekers who already have high-status jobs, suggesting that social networks combine with credentials to sort job applicants and that strong ties may be more useful in low-status, low-credential job markets

Ronald Burt

When sociologist Ronald Burt (1992) studied managers in a large corporation, he found that those with the most structural holes in their social networks were the ones who rose through the company ranks the fastest and farthest. - This notion can be expanded to explain how a great deal of profit making occurs in today's economy. - At one extreme is the totally free market, in which there are no structural holes; no restriction on information exists, and all buyers and sellers can reach one another—think eBay. - At the other extreme is the monopoly, in which one firm provides necessary information or resources to a multitude of people (i.e., maintains and profits from a gaping structural hole). - And then there is everything in between these extremes: everyone from shipping magnates to spice traders to mortgage brokers to multilevel marketers. - Take real estate agents as an example. They earn their money by contractually maintaining (or creating) a structural hole. - By signing up sellers, the real estate agents prevent the sellers from directly engaging in a transaction with potential buyers. - Recently, the social network possibilities facilitated by the internet have done much to erode the power of brokers—for example, by driving once-powerful travel agents into near extinction (ditto for stockbrokers).

How have fraternal and civic organizations changed today?

With the exit of the old (such as the Elks, Rotary, and other fraternal and civic organizations), in have come new kinds of clubs—large national groups like netroots political groups such as MoveOn.org, which one can join by mail or online, and informal support groups like Weight Watchers and hybrids like Meetup.com, where interest groups form online but then meet face to face. - Furthermore, the trend of declining social capital is falsely linear, as if from the 1970s to today civic society has moved in one simple direction (downhill). - More probable is that civic engagement moves like a pendulum, swinging back and forth between privatism (as in the 1920s) and heightened public consciousness (as in the 1930s). - Right now may feel like the end of social capital, but perhaps we're just at a low point on a constantly shifting trend line. - The calls to save social capital may be a form of projected nostalgia, a misplaced romanticizing of the past.

Structural Hole

a gap between network clusters, or even two individuals, if those individuals (or clusters) have complementary resources. - Look at Figure 5.4 in the book

Large Group

a group characterized by the presence of a formal structure that mediates interaction and, consequently, status differentiation. -

Small Group

a group characterized by: 1.) face-to-face interaction 2.)a unifocal perspective 3.) lack of formal arrangements or roles 4.) a certain level of equality.

Reference Groups

a group that helps us understand or make sense of our position in society relative to other groups.

Social Network

a set of relations— essentially, a set of dyads—held together by ties between individuals.

Corporations and Multilevel Marketing

corporations have leveraged people's existing social networks through multilevel marketing, whereby they enlist one person to hock merchandise to their social network, such as by hosting a Tupperware party or offering Mary Kay cosmetics makeovers to their friends. - Sometimes these sellers even enlist friends to sell the product to their networks in exchange for a cut of the profits—a sort of pyramid scheme. - This strategy relies on (and perhaps strains) the sense of trust and obligation that resides in informal friendship networks. - I buy the newest weight-loss shake from my friend out of loyalty; that loyalty, in turn, partly comes from the fact that our network is somewhat separated by structural holes from the wider economy/society. - But by enlisting me to further sell the products, the corporation closes any structural hole (i.e., nonoverlap) between my friend's network and my own, thereby expanding its market. Sneaky.

Sociologist Eric Klinenberg

set out to study people who live alone, trying to understand the costs and benefits of leaving some of the ties that bind dangling free. - He found that being old and living alone is indeed a lonely reality and a growing problem for women, who have always tended to outlive their husbands but are now aging alone in neighborhoods that their children have left for jobs and lives elsewhere. - But for young and middle-aged people, living alone is a lifestyle frequently filled with friends, dates, co-workers, volunteer work, and plenty of socializing. - People who live alone are more likely to volunteer than people the same age who are living with partners or families. - Maybe civic participation is not dying, after all.

Primary Groups

social groups, such as family or friends, composed of enduring, intimate face-to-face relationships that strongly influence the attitudes and ideals of those involved.

What determines the inherent characteristics of a group?

the inherent characteristics of a group are determined not just by its size but also by other aspects of its form, including its formal, bureaucratic structures (if it has any). - Whether a group stays small, becomes a party, or evolves into a large group may depend on numbers, but it also may depend on the size and configuration of the physical space or technological platform that mediates interactions between and among group members, preexisting social relationships, expectations, and the larger social context in which the group is embedded.

Romantic leftovers "(no cycles of four")

you don't date the ex, of your ex's current boyfriend/ girlfriend. no one is consciously aware of this rule though, it just happens. if the other two ex's start dating, then they're classifying themselves as leftovers.

Examples of Reference Groups

your class might compare itself to another introduction to sociology class, which has a take-home midterm and an optional final. - If your class has a 20-page term paper and a two-hour comprehensive final exam, you might feel as if you face an unfair amount of work. - If your class has no external assignments, however, and your final grades are based on self-assessment, you might feel comparatively lucky. - In either case, the other class serves as a reference group. - The neighboring town's high school or even another socioeconomic class can serve as a reference group. - In the first instance, you might compare access to sporting facilities; in the second, you might compare voting patterns.