Chapter 4: Social Structure and Social Interaction
Chapter Summary
People are influenced by the norms and beliefs of their cultures and society. This influence can take a more personal and intimate level or a more general and widespread level that affects large numbers of people. Sociologists who study the affect of social life on society use two approaches, macrosociology (focusing on broad features of social structure) and microsociology (concentrating on small-scale, face-to-face social interactions). Functionalists and conflict theorists tend to use the macrosociological approach, while symbolic interactionists are more likely to use the microsociological approach. Although most sociologists specialize in one approach or the other, both approaches are necessary for a complete understanding of social life.
Using the macrosociological approach, functionalists and conflict theorists examine the more expansive aspects of social structure. It refers to a society’s framework, consisting of the various relationships between people and groups that direct and set limits on human behavior.
The major components of social structure include culture, social class, social status, roles, groups, and social institutions. Social structure guides people’s behaviors. A person’s location in the social structure (his or her social class, social status, the roles he or she plays, and the culture, groups, and social institutions to which he or she belongs) underlies his or her perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors. People develop these perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors from their place in the social structure, and they act accordingly. All of the components of social structure work together to maintain social order by limiting, guiding, and organizing human behavior.
Social institutions are the organized, usual, or standard ways by which society meets its basic needs. In industrial and postindustrial societies, social institutions include the family, religion, law, politics, economics, education, science, medicine, the military, and the mass media. Functionalists and conflict theorists disagree over the purposes and effects of social institutions. According to functionalists, social institutions exist because they meet universal group needs. Conflict theorists view social institutions as the primary means by which the elite maintains its privileged position. Social structure is not static. It responds to changes in culture, technology, economic conditions, group relationships, and societal needs and priorities.
Structural changes can, sometimes, fundamentally and permanently alter the way a society organizes itself. Emile Durkheim demonstrated this with the concepts of mechanical and organic solidarity; Ferdinand Tonnies used the constructs of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft.
While functionalist and conflict theorists tend to explore broad features of social structure from a macrosociological perspective, symbolic interactionists are more inclined to examine small- scale, face-toface social interactions from a microsociological perspective. Symbolic interactionists are especially interested in the symbols that people use to define their worlds and how these definitions, in turn, influence human behavior. For symbolic interactionists, this may include studying stereotyping, personal space, and touching.
Stereotypes are assumptions that people make about other people based on previous associations with them or people with similar visible characteristics. Stereotypes may also be based on what they have been “told” about “such people.” These assumptions may be accurate, semi-accurate, or completely inaccurate. Stereotypes affect how people define and treat other people. They influence how these “other people” define themselves and adjust their behaviors accordingly. Stereotypes based on gender, race, ethnicity, ability, and intelligence are particularly widespread and profoundly consequential in today’s society.
According to symbolic interactionists, people surround themselves with a “personal bubble” that they carefully protect by controlling space, touching, and eye contact. Anthropologist Edward Hall studied how human groups have different perceptions of personal space and how much physical distance they use to keep
physically apart from people in specific situations. Frequency of touching also differs across cultures. Furthermore, the meaning of touching differs not only across cultures, but also within cultures. People also protect their “personal bubble” by controlling eye contact. This includes the length of contact and whether it is direct or indirect.
Erving Goffman developed dramaturgy, an analytical approach that analyzes social life in terms of the stage. According to Goffman, everyday life consists of social actors playing assigned roles. At the core of Goffman’s approach is impression management, or how people try to control other people’s impressions of them through sign-vehicles (social setting, appearance, and manner), teamwork, and face-saving behavior. Symbolic interactionists contend that reality is subjectively created by people’s perceptions of “what is real.” People define their own realities and then live within those definitions. The social construction of reality refers to how people construct their views of the world. Ethnomethodology is the study of how people use background assumptions (deeply embedded common understandings concerning people’s views of the world and how they ought to act) to make sense out of life. Because social structure and social interaction influence human behavior, macrosociology and microsociology are essential to understanding social life.
Chapter Outline
I. Levels of Sociological Analysis
A. Macrosociology places the focus on large-scale features of social structure. It investigates largescale social forces and the effects they have on entire societies and the groups within them. It is utilized by functionalist and conflict theorists.
B. Microsociology places the emphasis on social interaction, or what people do when they come together. Symbolic interactionism uses this level of analysis.
C. Each yields distinctive perspectives, and both are needed to gain a more complete understanding of social life.
II. The Macrosociological Perspective: Social Structure
A. Social structure is defined as the patterned relationships between people that persist over time. Behaviors and attitudes are determined by our location in the social structure. Components of social structure are culture, social class, social status, roles, groups, and institutions.
B. Culture refers to a group's language, beliefs, values, behaviors, and gestures. It includes the material objects used by a group. It determines what kind of people we will become.
C. Social class is based on income, education, and occupational prestige. Large numbers of people who have similar amounts of income and education and who work at jobs that are roughly comparable in prestige make up a social class.
D. Social status refers to the positions that an individual occupies. A status may carry a great deal of prestige (judge or astronaut), or very little (gas station attendant or cook in a fast-food restaurant).
1. Status set refers to all the statuses or positions that an individual occupies.
2. Ascribed statuses are positions an individual either inherits at birth or receives involuntarily later in life. Examples include race, sex, and social class of parents.
3. Achieved statuses are positions that are earned, accomplished, or involve at least some effort or activity on the individual's part. Examples include becoming a college president or a bank robber.
4. Each status provides guidelines for how we are to act and feel.
5. Status symbols are signs that people use who want others to recognize that they occupy a certain status. For example, wedding rings that are worn, fancy cars, living in expensive homes, etc.
6. A master status—such as being male or female—cuts across the other statuses that an individual occupies. Status inconsistency is a contradiction or mismatch between statuses. A disability can become a master status for some. This condition can override other statuses and determines others’ perception of this person.
E. Roles are the behaviors, obligations, and privileges attached to a status. The individual occupies a status, but plays a role. Roles are an essential component of culture because they lay out what is expected of people, and as individuals perform their roles, those roles mesh together to form the
society.
F. A group consists of people who regularly and consciously interact with one another and typically share similar values, norms, and expectations. When we belong to a group we give up to others at least some control over our lives.
1. The control depends on the relationship and amount of interaction that we have with that group.
III. Social Institutions
A. Social institutions are society's standard ways of meeting its basic needs.
1. The family, religion, law, politics, economics, education, science, medicine, and the military all are social institutions.
2. In industrialized societies, social institutions tend to be more formal and in nonliterate societies, more informal.
3. Each institution has its own groups, status, values, and norms.
B. Social institutions are sociologically significant because they set limits and provide guidelines for our behavior.
C. The mass media is an emerging social institution; it influences our attitudes toward social issues, other people, and even our self-concept. Of interest is who controls the mass media. Functionalists would say that the mass media represent the varied interests of the many groups that make up the nation, while conflict theorists would see that the interests of the political elite are represented.
D. The functionalists and conflict theorists differ in how they see social institutions.
1. Functionalists view social institutions as established ways of meeting group needs (or functional requisites), such as replacing members; socializing new members; producing and distributing goods and services; preserving order; and providing a sense of purpose.
2. Conflict theorists look at social institutions as the primary means by which the elite maintains its privileged position.
E. Changes in social structure occur as culture changes because of evolving values, new technologies, innovative ideas, and globalization.
F. Many sociologists have tried to find an answer to the question of what holds society together.
1. Emile Durkheim found the key to social cohesion, the degree to which members of a society feel united by shared values and other social bonds, in the concepts of mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity. Mechanical solidarity is a collective consciousness that people experience as a result of performing the same or similar tasks, while organic solidarity is a collective consciousness based on the interdependence brought about by an increasingly specialized division of labor—that is, how people divide up tasks.
2. Ferdinand Tonnies analyzed how intimate community (Gemeinschaft) was being replaced by impersonal associations (Gesellschaft). Gemeinschaft is a society in which life is intimate; a community in which everyone knows everyone else and people share a sense of togetherness and Gesellschaft is a society dominated by impersonal relationships, individual accomplishments, and self-interest.
3. These concepts are still relevant today, helping us understand contemporary events such as the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.
IV. The Need for Both Macrosociology and Microsociology
A. To understand human behavior, it is necessary to grasp both social structure (macrosociology) and social interaction (microsociology).
B. Both are necessary to understand social life fully because each adds to our knowledge of human experience.
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