SOCI 70 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Altruistic Suicide, Pre-Medical, Role Theory
Lecture 7
IV. Groups, Networks, and Organizations
A. Groups
1. Prelude
a. happiness – needs are adequately satisfied (not only material needs like
animals), many things humans want/need to be happy are not material
eeds ottoless pits of passios ad desires
b. Our social groups/roles of society limit our needs/wants
c. suicide rates increasing must be something broader than the individual,
emerges when one of 2 dimensions of society is miscalibrated (Durkheim)
Not enough
Too much
Egoistic suicide
(egoism- state of
loneliness/despair)
Integration →
Altruistic suicide (ex:
throwing yourself on a
grenade to save
everyone)
Anomic suicide (ex:
wealthy losing all
money or poor
winning the lottery,
suddenly being
single)
Regulation →
Fatalistic (ex: in total
institution)
2. Terminology
- Group: 2 or more people who identify and interact with one another (shared
sense of identification)
a. Status/role:
▪ status: social position in society
• Ascribed – assiged at irth, does’t hage over tie “ex, rae
• Assigned – chosen, attained, malleable (education, religion)
• Master – at one point one status takes precedence over all the
others (illness, birthday)
▪ role: set of behaviors expected of someone who holds a particular status
▪ set: assortment of statuses you occupy, each with a different role
▪ Role strain: when role demands in a single status becomes stressful,
tension between roles within one status
• ex: premed: competing demand to study, MCAT, rec letters
▪ role conflict: conflict that occurs between role demands of different
statuses
• ex: student athlete vs. student roles
▪ role exit: stop playing an important social role
b. Types of groups
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
