Chapter 5 - Separate and Together: Life in Groups
Describe characteristics of bureaucracies
1. Specialization: All members of a bureaucracy are assigned specialized roles and tasks. 2. Technical competence: All members are expressly trained and qualified for their specific roles within the organization. 3. Hierarchy: Bureaucracies always feature the supervision of subordinates by higher- ranking managers and bosses. 4. Rules and regulations: These are meant to make all operations as predictable as possible. 5. Impersonality: In a bureaucracy, rules come before people; no individual receives special treatment. 6. Formal written communication: Documents such as memos (or e-mails) are the heart of the organization and the most effective way to communicate.
3. What are social networks?
SOCIAL NETWORK the web of direct and indirect ties connecting an individual to other people who may also affect the individual SOCIAL TIES connections between individuals You and your family, your friends, peers, colleagues, teachers, and co- workers constitute a social network. Sociologists who study networks call the connections between individuals social ties. Social ties can be direct, such as the tie between you and your friend, or indirect, such as the tie between you and your friend's cousin whom you've never met. To understand how a social network works, think of yourself at the center with lines connecting you to all your friends, family, peers, and so on. These lines represent direct ties. Now think about all the family, friends, and peers who belong to each of these people.
4. What is the relationship between anomie and group membership according to Durkheim?
According to Durkheim, all the social groups with which we are connected (families, peers, co- workers, and so on) have this particular feature: the norms of the group place certain limits on our individual actions. For example, you may have wanted to backpack through Europe after you graduated from high school, but your parents demanded that you stay home, work, and save money for college. Durkheim argues that we need these limits— otherwise, we would want many things we could never have, and the lengths to which we would go in search of our unattainable desires would be boundless. Think about it: if you were always searching for but never getting the things you wanted, you would be very unhappy and over time might even become suicidal. Durkheim (1893/1964) called such a state of normlessness anomie and believed that group membership keeps us from feeling it. So group membership not only anchors us to the social world— it's what keeps us alive. Durkheim was worried that in our increasingly fragmented modern society, anomie would become more and more common. Other scholars share Durkheim's position,
8. Explain the Asch and Milgram experiments on conformity.
Asch - Cards, lines, testing one guy choose wrong line on card. Milgram - The Milgram experiment (1963, 1974) used a laboratory setting to test the lengths to which ordinary people would follow orders from a legitimate authority figure. Tested the 'teacher' by shocking learner and dude in lab coat would keep telling its okay.
10. What is a bureaucracy? Describe characteristics of bureaucracies.
BUREAUCRACY a type of secondary group designed to perform tasks efficiently, characterized by specialization, technical competence, hierarchy, written rules, impersonality, and formal written communication Examples of bureaucracy, a specific type of secondary group, are everywhere in your life—your university, employer, Internet service provider, fast-food restaurant, and even church are likely to be organized bureaucratically. Bureaucracies are designed to perform tasks efficiently, and they approach their tasks, whatever they are, with calculations designed deliberately to meet their goals.
6. Distinguish between a dyad and triad; in-groups and out-groups, as well as reference groups.
DYAD a two- person social group TRIAD a three- person social group IN- GROUP a group that one identifies with and feels loyalty toward OUT- GROUPS groups toward which an individual feels opposition, rivalry, or hostility REFERENCE GROUP a group that provides a standard of comparison against which we evaluate ourselves
7. What is group cohesion?
GROUP COHESION the sense of solidarity or loyalty that individuals feel toward a group to which they belong; the sense of solidarity or team spirit that members feel toward their group. Put another way, group cohesion is the force that binds members together. A group is said to be more cohesive when individuals feel strongly tied to membership, so it is likely that a group of fraternity brothers is more cohesive than a random group of classmates.
5. Define group dynamics.
GROUP DYNAMICS the patterns of interaction between groups and individuals
1. What is a group?
GROUP a collection of people who share some attribute, identify with one another, and interact with each other
What is Group Think?
GROUPTHINK in very cohesive groups, the tendency to enforce a high degree of conformity among members, creating a demand for unanimous agreement; Whereas a high degree of cohesion might seem desirable, it can also lead to the kind of poor decision making seen in hazing cases. In a process Irving Janus (1971, 1982) called groupthink, highly cohesive groups may demand absolute conformity and punish those who threaten to undermine the consensus. Although groupthink does help maintain solidarity, it can also short- circuit the decision- making process, letting a desire for unanimity prevail over critical reasoning.
2. What is the difference between a primary and secondary group?
PRIMARY GROUPS the people who are most important to our sense of self; members' relationships are typically characterized by face- to- face interaction, high levels of cooperation, and intense feelings of belonging 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 Primary = more intimate/casual/less formal Secondary = task oriented/ formal
11. What is McDonaldization and who coined the term?
bureacracies are highly efficient secondary groups that operate on the principle of rationalization, where the focus is on logical procedures, rules and regulations are paramount, and an individual's unique personal qualities are unimportant. Worse yet, some of the hyperrationalized features of successful bureaucracies are trickling down into other areas of our everyday lives. Sociologist George Ritzer (1993, 1996, 2013) called this trickle-down rationalization process McDonaldization. We touch-tone our way through telephone calls at work, never speaking to a real person; at lunch, we construct our own salads at the salad bar and bus our own tables afterward; at the bank, we no longer interact with human tellers but rather drive through the ATM on the way home, where we microwave our dinners and watch increasingly predictable sitcoms or movie sequels on TV. Ritzer is critical of the dehumanizing aspects of McDonaldization and hopes that increased awareness of the process will help us avoid the "iron cage" of bureaucracy—a term coined by Weber to illustrate the way bureaucracies can trap individuals. Sociologist Robin MCDONALDIZATION George Ritzer's term describing the spread of bureaucratic rationalization and the accompanying increases in efficiency and dehumanization
12. Read "In Relationships" on pages 130-1. Ferris and Stein claim that when it comes to social networking sites, "you're not the customer - you're the product." What do they mean by this?
when social networks become online social networks they also become big business. "When something online is free, you're not the customer, you're the product." This aphorism seems to have been independently coined by a number of different people, and it expresses one of the most significant features of social networking websites. Online, social networks exist because businesses like Facebook facilitate them. For everyone who participates, the rewards and benefits are obvious— staying in touch with faraway friends and family, sharing photos of cute babies and kittens, organizing for political change. But are there risks as well? In June 2014 researchers at Facebook and Cornell University published a paper arguing that "emotional states can be transferred to others via emotional contagion, leading people to experience the same emotions without their awareness," and this can happen through exposure to emotionally IN RELATIONSHIPS Social Networking: You're Not the Customer— You're the Product charged posts on Facebook (Kramer, Guillory, and Hancock 2014). The researchers wondered if "exposure to emotional content led people to post content that was consistent with the exposure." Does seeing happy posts lead to more happy posts, and seeing sad posts lead to more downbeat ones? Online social networks are an increasingly important part of people's lives, but the consequences of giving so much power over our personal lives to a for- profit business are still not well understood. What does it mean to live in a world where a corporation has a profit motive to meddle in our social networks?
