Sociology Ch. 5

traditional authority

authority based in custom, birthright, or divine right. usually associated w/ monarchies & dynasties. kings & queens inherit the throne through lineage & divine appointment (higher authority). their personal qualities don't matter & they can't be replaced by legal proceedings

legal-rational authority

authority based in laws, rules, and procedures, not in the heredity or personality of any individual leader. modern presidencies & parliaments are built on this kind of authority

charismatic authority

authority based in the perception of remarkable personal qualities in a leader. neither rules not traditions are necessary for establishment of this type of leader. they can be revolutionary, breaking rules & defying traditions. this is the only place we will ever find Jesus Christ & Hitler in the same category, they were both extremely charismatic leaders

proscriptions

avoiding the things we're not supposed to do

aggregates

collections of people such as crowds, audiences & queues who share a physical location but do not have lasting social relations but ppl in groups do

social ties

connections between individuals. can be direct, such as b/w you & a friend or indirect, such as b/w you & your friend's cousin whom you've never met

social influence

group control over others' decisions, aka peer pressure When individuals are part of groups, they are necessarily influenced by other members, referred to as _____ ______. Knowing how ______ _____ can help you when you need to convince others to act in a certain way (agreeing on a certain movie or restaurant) & it can also help you recognize when others are trying to influence you (drink too much, drive too fast)

Primary groups

groups composed of the ppl who are most important to one's sense of self; members' relationships are typically face-to-face interaction, high levels of cooperation, & intense feelings of belonging. Groups in which we are intimately associated with the other members, such as families and close friends. Members often associate with each other for no other reason than to spend time together.

solutions to social loafing

includes recognizing individual effort and finding ways to make a task more interesting or personally rewarding, having a social identity, as opposed to a personal one, involves thinking and feeling like a representative of a group; you have a real desire to belong to the group, not simply keep company w/ it (social identity theory)

Leadership

involves getting ppl to do things they may or may not want to do. ex football coach might wield both coercive & influential power over his players. although athletes want to win games, they might not want to run training drills every day. during a workout, team members might respond to the threat of being kicked off the team orencouragement from coach. power, in w/e form it takes, is both a privilege & requirement of ________

expressive

leadership concerned w/ maintaining emotional & relational harmony w/in the group. conveys interest in group members' emotions as well as their achievements. we expect women to be more of this type of leader

instrumental

leadership that is task or goal oriented. less concerned w/ ppl's feelings than w/ getting the job done. we expect men to be more of this type of leader

coercive power

power that is backed by the threat of force

Influential power

power that is supported by persuasion

category

ppl who share one or more attributes but who lack a sense of common identity or belonging. everyone 18 yrs of age or all owners of Chevy trucks, for example- don't regularly interact w/ one another or have common sense of connection other than their status in the category

6 degrees of separation

suggests that everyone in the world is connected to everyone else w/in 6 steps: if you know 100 ppl, each of them knows 100 more, then you have 10,000 friends of friends. take that a step further to 3 degrees & you are connected to 1 million ppl. at 6 degrees the number inscreases to 9 billion. this means that theoretically you're connected to every human on the planet

Power

the ability to impose one's will on others. one thing almost all leaders have in common

enlightened

"________" bureaucracies are inclusive, share responsibilities, provide opportunities for all to advance. ex Google believes that corporate success & employee well-being are complementary

Rationalization

the application of economic logic to human activity; the use of formal rules and regulations in order to maximize efficiency without consideration of subjective or individual concerns. the focus is on logical procedures, rules/regulations are paramount, & an individual's unique personal qualities are unimportant (how many bureaucracies are: highly efficient secondary groups that operate on the principle of ______)

instrumental & expressive

2 types of leadership

traditional, legal-rational, charismatic authority

3 types of authority that maybe found in social organizations. these 3 types are not necessarily mutually exclusive, they can coexist w/in the same leader.

specialization, technical competence, hierarchy, rules & regulations, impersonality, formal written communication

6 organizational traits that help bureaucracies operate efficiently

technical competence

All members are expressly trained and qualified for their specific roles within the organization. ex sociology professor would be useless in a chemistry lab, math classroom or English seminar- they're not qualified to do that job

specialization

All members of a bureaucracy are assigned specialized roles and tasks. ex the groundskeepers, campus police, coaches, librarians are all specially qualified to do their own jobs & no one else's

positive

Almost all members of society are susceptible to what is either real or imagined social pressure to conform. we conform because we want to gain acceptance and approval (_____ sanctions) and avoid rejection and disapproval (______ sanctions)

hierarchy

Bureaucracies always feature the supervision of subordinates by higher-ranking managers and bosses. ex ladder at a university consists of trustees & president to vice chancellors, provosts, deans & department chairs. other campus units have their own _____- athletics, residence life, food service, facilities maintenance

authority

the legitimate right to wield power. b/c leadership requires the exercise of power, most formal organizations have institutionalized it in some officially recognized form of _______

compliance

the mildest kind of conformity, going along w/ something because you expect to gain rewards or avoid punishments. when ppl ______, they don't actually change their own ideas or beliefs. ex someone who is court ordered to attend AA meetings b/c of DWI. they ______ in order to avoid jail or hefty fine but may not be persuaded to join AA when required visits are done

contagion

what flows through social ties. not only influences an individual's health but can also spread everything from obesity to smoking & substance abuse. ex STDs are more likely among ppl who have had 4 or more partners in the past yr. whites who have many partners tend to have sex w/ other whites who have many partners, whites who have few partners tend to have sex w/ whites who have few partners. STDs then, are kept in "core" groups of active white partners & are found less often in less active groups

primary group

Cooley introduced the term primary for this type of group because such groups have the most profound effects on us as individuals. they provide most of our emotional satisfaction through interaction with other members, are responsible for much of our socialization, and remain central to our identities throughout our lives. they represent the most important "looking glasses" in the formation of our social selves—they constitute our "significant others."

Impersonality

In a bureaucracy, rules come before people; no individual receives special treatment. ex rules of bureaucracy trumps your individual needs, no matter how deserving you thought you were, bureaucracies often treat you "like a number" even by having a student ID number

dyads & triads

The features of _____ and _____ point out an important axiom (a statement or proposition which is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true.) of group dynamics in general: The smaller a group is, the more likely it is to be based on personal ties; larger groups are more likely to be based on rules and regulations, such as bureaucracies

rules & regulations

These are meant to make all operations as predictable as possible. ex these keep a school running smoothly or can keep students from doing what they really want to do. ex adding a class after a deadline, moving into a campus apartment

Leidner

developed a model for understanding the increasing routinization of service industries such as fast food places: standardized "scripts" for interaction help shape customer's experiences. customers don't expect to sit down & be waited on. Instead, they enter, order food from predetermined menu, pay, quickly eat, throw away their trash & leave. what happens when breakdowns occur in these expectations? if customers are angry/uncooperative, workers try to serve them swiftly so they leave faster & have less time to make trouble

dyad

a 2 person social group. smallest possible social group. they are usually intense but also fundamentally stable because if one person wants out of the group, it's over.

triad

a 3 person social group. is slightly more stable because the addition of a third person means that conflicts between two members can be refereed by the third

prescriptions

doing the things we're supposed to do

group

a collection of people who share some attribute, identify with one another, and interact with each other. any collection of 2+ ppl who have something in common, whether it's their appearance, culture, occupation, or physical proximity. a collection of ppl who not only share some attribute but also identify w/ one another & have ongoing social relations- like a family, Star Trek fan club, soccer team, sorority or ppl you play monthly poker w/

in-group

a group that one identifies with and feels loyalty toward. Members usually feel a certain distinctness from or even hostility toward other groups, known as out-groups. Group loyalty and cohesion intensify when differences are strongly defined between the "us" of an in-group and the "them" of an out-group; we may also feel a sense of superiority toward those who are excluded from our __________

reference group

a group that provides a standard of comparison against which we evaluate ourselves. a common ________ group is peers. may also be one to which we aspire to belong but of which are not yet a member. ex nurse, lawyer

out-group

a group toward which an individual feels opposition, rivalry, or hostility

identification

a somewhat stronger kind of conformity, is induced by a person's desire to establish or maintain a relationship w/ a person or group. it's possible the person required to attend AA might begin to identify w/ other members & confirms to members' wishes & follows their behaviors. especially true when there is strong attraction to the group. ex person first ordered to attend AA decides to keep going, stay sober, & become a member of the AA group

crowd

a temporary gathering of people in a public place; members might interact but do not identify with each other and will not remain in contact. not usually considered a group. they don't necessarily have a sense of common identity & rarely assemble again once they disperse

social identity theory

a theory of group formation and maintenance that stresses the need of individual members to feel a sense of belonging. according to this model, the most efficient teams are characterized by the greatest shared social identity among their members- this increases motivation & places needs of group above purely personal concerns

Bureacracy

a type of secondary group designed to perform tasks efficiently, characterized by specialization, technical competence, hierarchy, written rules, impersonality, & formal written communication. designed to perform tasks efficiently, and they approach their tasks with calculations designed deliberately to meet their goals.

group; never; increases

actual _______ productivity can ______ equal potential productivity b/c there will always be losses in the team process. 2 major sources of inefficiency in particular come w/ group process, & both get worse as group size ______. one source of organization: coordinating activities and delegating tasks

most ties

an actor w/ the _____ _____ in a given network is what gives it powerful influence & not the actual outcomes of disputes

formal written communication

Documents such as memos (or e-mails) are the heart of the organization and the most effective way to communicate.

Kaizen

Japanese management technique in which lower level workers are encouraged to suggest innovative ways to improve the organization & upper level managers are required to put these ideas into practice, rewarding individual creativity & benefiting the company at the same time

secondary groups

groups that are larger and less intimate than primary groups; members' relationships are usually organized around a specific goal and are often temporary. ex co-workers, college classes, athletic organizations, labor unions, and political parties. Interaction here is more formal and impersonal. organized around a specific activity or accomplishment of a task. membership is often temporary & doesn't carry the same potential for emotional satisfaction that primary group does. a great deal of what we do involves ______ groups, it often generates primary group ties, ex friends from work. is sometimes a direct outgrowthof our attempts to counteract depersonalizing nature of ______ groups so it is sometimes difficult to classify a particular group

homogeneous

how does someones distant relatives & acquaintances, attached to diff social networks, pass along info about job opportunities? an individual w/ high socioeconomic, or (SES, taking into account income, education, occupation) for ex usually has relatives & aquaintances w/ similarly high SES. b/c those relatives/acquaintances belong to diff social networks, all w/ high SES, the job seeker now has indirect connections w/ a vast array of high SES contacts who can provide job leads. ppl tend to form ________ social networks (they have direct ties to those who are like themselves-through race, class, background, national origin, religion. this same goes for low SES except info for job opportunities is less likely to travel along low SES networks

Groupthink

in very cohesive groups, the tendency to enforce a high degree of conformity among members, creating a demand for unanimous agreement. highly cohesive groups may demand absolute conformity & punish those who threaten to undermine the consensus. it can help maintain solidarity but also short-circuit decision-making process, letting a desire for unanimity prevail over critical reasoning, making groups feel invulnerable & morally superior

consequential strangers

researchers are interested in examining the ways in which ppl make up for the loss of intimate contact that is commonly shared among those who belong to primary groups. Blau & Fingerman identified "_______ _______"- ppl we may not think of as mattering much to our sense of happiness or well-being but who play an important role in our otherwise fragmented postmodern lives. they aren't total strangers but are more likely to be acquaintances from places of work, shop, play or conduct business. ppl who become familiar & essential parts of our everyday lives. they serve as social anchors, just as our close friends or family members do

virtual communities

social groups whose interactions are mediated through information technologies, particularly the internet

compliance, identification, internalization

social influence produces one of three kinds of conformity: _______, ________, _______

internalization

strongest kind of conformity & most long-lasting, occurs when individuals adopt beliefs of a leader or group as their own. when this occurs, there is no separation b/w beliefs & behavior, ppl believe in what they're doing & feel it is morally right. ex members of AA practice principles of 12 step program, making it an integral part of their identity & way of life

honor killing

the murder of a family member- usually female- who is believed to have brought dishonor to her family or community. primarily seen in Middle Eastern & South Asian cultures, victims are usually women who haven't lived up to moral codes set by religion or community. reasons for killings: refusing arranged marriage, being rape victim, dressing/acting immodestly, sex outside marriage. UN estimates 5,000 women/yr are victims though there is no definitive accounting & it is rarely classified or prosecuted as a crime. has increased in last 2 decades. methods: shooting to setting on fire or stoning. person who commits the crime is seen as the norm enforcer, not the norm violator b/c he is seeking vindication & righting a wrong. murdered woman is viewed as deserving to die for betraying & dishonoring her family. countries w/ less access to basic resources, health care, human capital there is correlating lack of social power & equality for women. gender equality is exacerbated in places w/ fewer social resources, making these killing more likely. in some cases it is the adoption of Western values by women in traditional societies such as India, Iraq, Yemen that is invoked as grounds for these killings. Pakistani law permits these killings to be resolved by families themselves. the cultural norm promoting strong family values that cause disgust toward murderers such as Drew Petterson is the same norm behind _____ ______ but in these killings, the family is seen as more important than each individual family member, so an individual family member should suffer sever punishment for bringing shame to the family

group dynamics

the patterns of interaction between groups and individuals. how groups form, change, disintegrate, achieve great goals, or commit horrendous wrongs. The size of a group affects how it operates and the types of individual relationships that can occur within it

social loafing

the phenomenon in which each individual contributes a little less as more individuals are added to a task; a source of inefficiency when working in teams. Also, as more people become involved, the harder it is to discern individual effort. If it is impossible for any single person to receive credit or blame, motivation usually suffers. Jeff Bezos has taken this quite seriously, instituting something referred to as the two pizza rule. If a team of Amazon workers cannot be fed by two pizzas, then that team is too large. Too many people means too much miscommunication, chaos, and bureaucracy, which leads to ______ ______ and reduces efficiency and slows progress

group cohesion

the sense of solidarity or loyalty that individuals feel toward a group to which they belong, team spirit, the force that binds members together. a group is said to be more cohesive when individuals feel strongly tied to membership. ex frat brothers are more cohesive than random group of classmates. the life/existence of a group depends on at least a minimum level of cohesion. it tends to rely heavily on interpersonal factors such as shared values & shared demographic traits like race, gender, age, class

social network

the web of direct and indirect ties connecting an individual to other people who may also affect the individual. ex family, friends, peers, colleagues, teachers, co-workers

Aristotle

this person considered persuasion or social influence/peer pressure in his Rhetoric. modern studies on social influence date back to World War II, scientists were trying to help in the war effort by using motivational films to boost morale among servicemen. It has expanded to discovering the principles that determine our beliefs, create our attitudes, and move us to action. Research has revealed that everything from our performance in school to how we settle disagreements in small groups to the likelihood that we will commit rape can be subject to the influence of others.

McDonaldization

trickle-down rationalization process. Ritzer's term describing the spread of bureaucratic rationalization & the accompanying increases in efficiency & dehumanization. ex we one-touch our way through phone calls at work, never speaking to a real person, salad bars, bussing our own tables. the dehumanizing aspects of "iron cage" of bureaucracy- the way bureaucracies can trap individuals