ACTIVITY

Instructions:
1.In your class, form three groups with approximately equal members.
2.Select a representative for your group. This representative will choose the scenario you will be depicting in a tableau.
3.There are 3 possible scenarios—a family at home, a group of friends in school, and a group of co-workers in a
company.
4.Once you picked a scenario, you will be given 3-5 minutes to talk about your tableau. After the group’s discussion,
each group will present their work to the class.
5.Following the activity, students must answer and reflect on the following questions:
 What are the actors showing in the scenario?
 What is the function of these groups in a person’s life?
 Are the groups in the scenarios important? Why or why not?
ORGANIZATION IN
SOCIETY
 THE CONCEPT OF HUMAN GROUP
• A group is composed of two or more persons interacting with each other, guided by a set of norms.

• A group is a specified number of individuals where each recognizes members a distinct from non-members; each has a sense of
what others do and think as well as what the purpose of the association or grouping is.

• Three meanings are always implied by the term group.

 Some people use it to refer to a set of individuals with some similar characteristics, such as age or occupation.
 Individuals sometimes peak of a group as any number of individuals who meet occasionally or regularly and have a sense of
who is present or absent, such as organizational meetings.
 Still others use group to mean a specific number of individuals,” where each recognizes members from non-members; each
has a sense of what others do and think as well as what the purpose of the association is.
 SOCIAL GROUP

• Is defined as a collection of two or more people who

participate in an enduring social interaction and
relationship.
 CHARACTERISTIC OF A GROUP
• Permanence beyond meetings and members-that is, even when members are dispersed

• Means for identifying members

• Mechanisms for recruiting new members

• Goals and purposes

• Social statuses and roles i.e norms for behavior

• Means of controlling members’ behavior

 COMMON BASES FOR GROUPS
• Common Ancestry
 It is a traditionally the strongest that binds human beings in their social relations, although its importance has
been greatly lessened in the modern complex, and large scale societies.

• Territorial Proximity
 People comprising a group must be limited to a physical territory.

• The classification of groups based on bodily characteristics

 It is widely used in modern societies, and the listing of groups under this heading would be interminable.

• The sharing of common interests

 It is the basis for a great variety of modern social groupings.
 BASIC CLASSIFICATIONS OF SOCIAL GROUPS
• Primary Group
 It is a group characterized by intimate face-to-
face relationships and close association, and
cooperation.
 In this kind of group relationships are
spontaneous, personal, and intimate.
• Secondary Group
 It is a group in which relationships are impersonal
and widely separate.
 It tends to be larger than primary groups and their
members do not necessarily interact with all
other members.
CHARLES HORTON COOLEY
• An American sociologist who used a
sociopsychological approach in studying
society. He believed that there is a qualitative
difference between social reality and physical
reality, deeming the former as a more difficulty
to measure.

• Among his theories is the looking glass self,

which states that a person’s view of himself
emerges from his contemplation of how others
see him.
IN - GROUP OUT - GROUP
• A group that members use as a point of • It exist in the perceptions of the in-group
references. members and takes on a social reality as a
result of behavior by in-group members
who use the out-group as a negative point
of reference.
 GROUPS INFLUENCE ON THE INDIVIDUAL

• Individuals in the presence of others become aroused or motivated to perform some kind of physical
and social skills at higher levels of excellence than they would if they were alone.

• The presence of others may inhibit the learning of new subject matter; individuals can assimilate
information more rapidly by themselves.

• Group pressure also exerts a powerful influence on the member’ opinion.

• Group discussion also pays an important role in shaping one’s attitude and behavior.
 WHY DO SOME PEOPLE CONFORM? WHAT ARE THEIR REASONS FOR
NOT VIOLATING THE NORMS?

• Norms develop and conformity occurs because individuals seek others with similar
characteristics.

• Based on Aristotle’s notion of distributive justice, it can be said that rewards in society are
passed out according to what one does.

• Conformity is seen to be rewarding because it confers social acceptance, whereas deviancy

is viewed costly because it brings social discomfort and may result in various forms of
punishment.
 SOME DIMENSIONS OF A GROUP
• Size

• Structure

• Nature of Goals

• Identifiability of Members

• Cohesiveness

• Leadership Styles
 REFERENCE GROUP
• A term coined by Herbert Hyman, is any group to which an individual compares himself. It
serves as a point of reference in evaluating one’s attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.

• Examples:
• One student who considers the opinion of his friends about his academic decisions, uses
his friends as a reference group.
• A young professional, who evaluates his behavior in reference to the behavior of his co-
workers, uses them as a reference group
 TYPES OF REFERENCE GROUP
Negative reference groups
Are groups which people do not want to
Positive Reference Group identify with. As a result, norms of the
Are those groups of which one aspires to be part. negative reference groups are usually
Example: avoided.
A student who aspires to be part of the student
council views the organization itself as a positive
reference group.