Social Interaction

Elements of Social Interaction

Statuses
• Positions in society that are used to classify individuals in a hierarchical structure
• Ascribed Status: one that is given involuntarily, due to factors such as race, ethnicity,
gender, and family background
• Achieved Status: gained as a result of one’s efforts or choices
• Master Status: Status by which a person is most identified
o Typically, the most important status that a person holds and affects all aspects of
that person’s life.
o Generally, how people view themselves and holds symbolic value
o Pigeonholding: may view a person only through the lens of their master status
Roles
• Each status has a role: set of beliefs, values, attitudes, and norms that define
expectations for those who hold the status.
• Role performance: carrying out of behaviors that are associated with a given role.
• Role Partner: the person with whom one is interacting
• Role Set: various roles associated with a status
• Role Conflict: difficulty in satisfying the requirements or expectations of multiple roles
• Role Strain: difficulty in satisfying multiple requirements of the same role
• Role Exit: dropping of one identity for another
Groups
• Consists of two or more people who share similar characteristics and a sense of unity.
• Dyad: two-person group. Triad: three-person group
• As group size increases, intimacy is traded for stability
• Common characteristics that are shared by a social group include: values, interests,
ethnicity, social background, family ties, and political representation.
• Social interaction is the most important characteristic that strengthens a social group
• Meet many basic human needs: provide an opportunity to belong and be accepted;
offer protection, safety, and support.
• Peer Group: defined by association of self-selected equals around similar interests, ages,
and statuses.
o Provide an opportunity for friendship and feelings of belonging.
• Family Group: determined by birth, adoption and marriage.
o Joins members of different ages, sexes, generations through emotional ties.
o Can sometimes be filled with conflict
▪ Especially true during adolescent years; when peer groups compete with
family groups.
o May also struggle with cultural gaps and social differences between generations.
• In-Groups: groups where an individual belongs
o Contrasted with out-groups: individual competes or is in opposition with
 • Reference Groups: establish the terms by which individuals evaluate themselves
Primary and Secondary Groups
• Primary Group: interactions are direct, with close bonds providing warm, personal and
intimate relationships to members
o Often last a long period of time
o E.g. – core group of friends, family, members of a team
• Secondary Group: interactions are superficial and there are few emotional bonds.
o Typically, last for a short period of time
o E.g. – students working together for a group project.
Community and Society
• Community (Geminschaft): groups united by feelings of togetherness due to shared
beliefs, ancestry, or geography
o E.g. – families and neighborhoods
• Society (Gesellschaft): groups that are formed because of mutual self-interests working
together toward the same goal
o E.g. – companies and countries
Observing and Analyzing Groups
• Interaction Process Analysis: technique for observing, classifying, and measuring the
interactions within small groups
• System for multiple level observation of groups (SYMLOG): revised version of the above
o Belief is that there are three fundamental dimensions of interaction:
▪ Dominance vs submission
▪ Friendliness vs unfriendliness
▪ Instrumentally controlled vs emotionally expressive
• Group Conformity: group holds power over its members which creates pressure that
ultimately shapes members’ behaviors.
o Individuals conform in an attempt to fit in and be accepted by the group
o Individuals will often participate in behavior that they normally wouldn’t
• Groupthink: refers to group conformity, and occurs when members begin to focus solely
on ideas generated within the group while ignoring outside ideas.
Networks
• The observable pattern of social relationships among individuals or groups.
• These patterns can be determined by mapping the interactions between individual units
• Network Redundancy: overlapping connections with the same individual
• Analysis is used to gain understanding of the actions of individuals and groups to study
the broader social structure
• Immediate Networks: dense with strong ties
• Distant Networks: looser and contain weaker ties
• Combination of immediate and distant network provides the most benefit to individuals
since they can work complementarily to provide different resources.
 Organizations
• Entities that are set up to achieve specific goals and are characterized by having a
structure and a culture
• Everyone is involved with multiple organizations throughout their lifetime: school,
sports teams, companies, music groups, etc.
o As such, the study of these is at the heart of sociology
• Formal Organization: different from groups in many ways
o Continue despite the departure of an individual member
o Have expressed goals that are generally recorded in written format
o Organizations have enforcement procedures that seek to control the activities of
their members
o Characterized by the hierarchical allotment of formal roles or duties to members
• Characteristic Institution: basic of organization of society is found here
o In modern times this is a bureaucracy
• Bureaucracy: rational system of political organization, administration, discipline, and
control
o Generally, has six characteristics:
▪ Paid, nonelected officials on a fixed salary
▪ Officials who are provided rights and privileges from making a career in
Makes them holding office
slow to ▪ Regular salary increases, seniority rights, promotion upon passing exams
change and or milestones
less efficient ▪ Officials who enter organization by holding an advance degree or training
▪ Responsibilities, obligations, privileges and work procedures that are
rigidly defines
▪ Responsibility for meeting the demands of one’s position
o Iron law of oligarchy: democratic or bureaucratic systems naturally shift to being
ruled by an elite group
• Mcdonaldization: Shift in focus towards efficiency, predictability, calculability, and
control in societies

Self-Presentation and Interacting with Others

• Self-Presentation: process of displaying oneself to society through culturally accepted
behaviors. Used interchangeable with impression management
Expressing and Detecting Emotions
• Basic Model of Emotional Expression: emotional expression involves a number of
components: facial expressions, behaviors, postures, vocal change, and physiological
changes
o Darwin assumed that expression is like evolution and should be similar across
cultures
o Stated that animals exhibited muscle actions that are similar to humans.
o Researchers have found that many basic human emotions are universally
experienced and the corresponding facial expressions are recognized
 • Appraisal Model: closely relates to the above model and states that there a biologically
predetermined expressions once an emotion is experienced.
• Social Construct Model: assumes that there is no biological basis for emotions
o Emotions are based on experiences and the situational context only
o Suggests that certain emotions can only exist in certain social encounters
o Emotions are displayed differently (play different roles) in different cultures.
o One must be familiar with social norms for a certain emotion to perform the
corresponding correct emotional behavior
• Display Rules: cultural expectations of emotions
o Govern which emotions can be expressed and to what degree.
o May differ as a function of culture, gender or family background
• Cultural Syndrome: Shared set of beliefs, attitudes, norms, values, and behaviors among
members of the same culture
o Influence the rules for expressing and suppressing emotions and can sometimes
influence the way some emotions are experienced.
Impression Management
• Attempt to influence how others perceive us. Done through the regulation or controlling
of information in social interactions. Used synonymously with self-presentation.
• Authentic Self: describes who person actually is
• Ideal Self: who we would like be under optimal circumstances
• Tactical Self: who we market ourselves to be when we adhere to others’ expectations.
• Look on page 335 for table of common impression management strategies
Dramaturgical Approach
• how individuals create images of themselves in various situations.
• A person’s status can be likened to that person’s part in the performance and role in a
script.
o Front stage: where the actor is in front of the audience and performs according
to the setting, role and script
▪ Conforms to the image that he wants others to see
o Back Stage: actor is not being observed by an audience and is free to act in ways
that may not be congruent with his desired public image.
Two Part Self Theory
• “I” – creative expression of the individual
• “Me” – part of self that is response to the environment
Verbal and Nonverbal Communication
• Communication: ability to convey information by speech, writing, signals or behavior
o Foundation of social interaction and is often used to elicit changes, generate
action, create understanding, share a point of view or inform.
• Verbal Communication: transmission of information by using words.
o Often dependent on nonverbal cues for the receiver to understand the sender’s
full meaning
• Nonverbal Communication: how people communicate without words
 o Function in expressing emotion, conveyance of attitudes and personality traits,
and facilitation of verbal communication
o Often dictated by culture. E.g. – in U.S eye contact is needed to seem
trustworthy

Animal Signals and Communications

• Any behavior of one animal that affects the behavior of another
• Nonhuman animals communicate with one another to convey information such as
emotions, intent, status, health and the location of resources
o Use nonverbal means like body language, rudimentary facial expressions, visual
displays, scents, and vocalization
• Body language can indicate if an animal is frightened, aggressive, relaxed or
embarrassed, can also signify a readiness to mate
• Facial expressions seem to be more highly conserved between species than body
language
o E.g. – showing teeth and lunging forward signals aggression
• Visual displays are common in sex discrimination for birds
o Bioluminescence, colour plumage (peacocks), and dancing are used for visual
communication.
• Scent communication is commonly used to communicate interspecifically (between
members of the same species) and interspecifically (between members of different
species)
o E.g. – pheromones or skunks
• Vocalization is also common. Various levels of sophistication
o E.g. – prairie dogs have different noises for different types of predators. Or bird
calls