SOC 2000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Mcdonaldization, Stanley Milgram, Scientific Management
Chapter 5: Groups and Organizations
Social Groups
• A social group is two or more people who identify with and interact with one another.
• Some collections of individuals are categories, not groups
• A loosely formed collection of people in one place is a crowd rather than a group
Primary and Secondary Groups
• Social groups are of two types:
• A primary group is a small social group whose members share personal and lasting
relationships
o Joined by primary relationships, people spend a great deal of time together
o Family is most common and important primary group
o Members of a primary group tend to view each other as unique and irreplaceable
• A secondary group is a large and impersonal social group whose members pursue a
specific goal or activity
o Secondary relationships involve weak emotional ties and little personal
knowledge of one another
o Students enrolled in the same course at a university
o Members of a secondary group generally don’t think of themselves as we
• Members of primary groups display personal orientation and members of secondary
groups have a goal orientation
Group Leadership
• Two leadership roles:
o Instrumental leadership refers to group leadership that focuses on the completion
of tasks
▪ Members look to instrumental leaders to make plans, give orders, and get
things done
▪ Enjoy more respect from members
o Expressive leadership is group leadership that focuses on the group’s well being
▪ Take less interest in achieving goals than in raising group morale and
minimizing tension
▪ Receive more personal affection
• Three leadership styles:
o Authoritarian leadership: focuses on instrumental concerns, takes personal charge
of decision making, and demands that group members obey orders
▪ Appreciated in a crisis
o Democratic leadership is more expressive and makes a point of including
everyone in the decision-making process
▪ Draw ideas from others for creative solutions
o Laissez-fair leadership allows the group to function more or less on its own
▪ Least effective in group goals
Group Conformity
• Groups influence the behavior of their members by promoting conformity
• Asch’s research:
o Solomon Asch did an experiment on group conformity by having a group of
students put pressure on one student
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o Found that many of us are willing to compromise our own judgement to avoid the
discomfort of being seen as different
• Milgram’s research:
o Stanley Milgram conducted conformity experiments
o Showed that even when it comes to harming another person people will follow
authority figures and ordinary people
• Janis’s “groupthink:”
o Janis argues that group members seek agreement that closes off other points of
view
o Groupthink: the tendency of group members to conform, resulting to a narrow
view of some issue.
Reference Groups
• Reference group is a social group that serves as a point of reference in making
evaluations and decisions
o For this we use groups we belong to and groups we do not
• Stouffer’s research:
o Conducted a classic study of reference groups dynamics during WW2
o Results lie in the groups against which soldiers measured themselves
In-Groups and Out-Groups
• Each of us favors some groups over others based on political outlook, social prestige, or
even just manner of dress
• In-group: a social group toward which a member feels respect and loyalty
• Out-group: a social group toward which a person feels a sense of competition or
opposition
• Tensions between groups sharpen boundaries and give people a clearer social identity
• A powerful in-group can define others as a lower-status out-group
o Minorities can internalize these attitudes
Group Size
• Two people form a single relationship
o A third person results in three relationships
o A fourth person results in 6
o By seven people there are 21 channels
• The Dyad:
o To designate a social group with two members
o Social interaction in a dyad is usually more intense than in a larger group because
neither member shares the other’s attention with anyone else
o Love affairs, marriages and closest friendships are dyadic
• The Triad:
o A social group with three members
o Contains three relationships each uniting two or the three people
o More stable than a dyad because one member can be a mediator if necessary
o However if two intensify the relationship it can lead to the other feeling left out
Social Diversity: Race, Class, and Gender
• Race, ethnicity, class, and gender each play a part in group dynamics
• Social diversity influences intergroup contact
o Large groups turn inward
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