- Society --
Where individuals interact and their interaction in a group setting allows them to fulfill their basic needs.
- Social Structure --
-
Bio-Social Systems -- where the social responses of each
individual spring from inherited tendencies to react in a fixed manner
to stimuli.
Oftentimes the "collective roles" can actually be seen in the physiology of individual members of bio-social systems.
Examples: Carebara Ant Society; Isoptera Termite Society
Can you "see" the different roles played by each of these members of Isoptera Termite Society?
Worker Isoptera Termite:
Soldier Isoptera Termite:
Queen Isoptera Termite:
Queen surrounded by workers and soldiers:
- Socio-Cultural Systems -- where the social responses of each individual are learned, not inherited. Example: Human Society. Norms, not genes, provide the blueprint for human interaction.
The patterns of collective roles and activities that fulfill basic needs.
Two Types of Social Structures:
Norms --
- Shared standards of desirable behavior.
Norms are not organized in a logical fashion, like a set of laws. They are organized in "clusters" that form to fulfill basic social needs
- Institutions --
- Folkways -- norms that are not punished severely when broken, but which facilitate social interaction. Example, walking on the right.
- Mores -- norms that are punished severely when broken, and which are essential for social life. Example, incest taboos.
- Laws -- norms that have been codified and for which there are predetermined sanctions. They can be either folkways (driving on the right) or mores (no murder).
- The way norms are organized in societies. A social
institution is a cluster of norms built around fulfilling a basic need
of society. The institution of the family is a "cluster" of folkways,
mores and laws that induces individuals in a particular society to reproduce
and care for young.
- Social Structure Terms
- Status Position --
Is a particular position in a social structure: mother, teacher, student, son.
- Role --
The expected behaviors, obligations and privileges associated with a status position.
- Role Set --
- All the roles that a given individual might be expected
to fulfill at a given moment.
- Role Conflict --
- When the expectations on two or more roles an individual
is expected to fulfill conflict. A working mother is expected
by her employer to be at work, while the school nurse expects her to be
at home with her sick child.
- Material Culture -- all the artifacts produced by a group. The tools (agricultural implements, weapons), inventions, housing forms, etc., that a group uses to flourish in a given environment.
- Immaterial Culture -- all the rules, norms, institutions, social hierarchies, etc., that a group has developed to flourish in a given environment.
Culture --
- What a society uses to better adapt itself
to a given environment. There are two aspects to culture: