Sociology: Sixteenth Edition

Sociology
Sixteenth Edition
Chapter 7
Groups and Organizations
Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Learning Objectives
7.1 Explain the importance of various types of groups to
social life.
7.2 Describe the operation of large, formal organizations.
7.3 Summarize the changes to formal organizations over
the course of the last century.
7.4 Assess the consequences of modern social
organization for social life.
The Power of Society
• Does your social class
influence which groups
and organizations you
join?
Social Groups (1 of 2)
• Social groups
– Clusters of people with whom we interact in everyday
life
– Two or more people who identify with and interact
with one another
– Made up of people with shared experiences, loyalties,
and interests
– A special “we”
Social Groups (2 of 2)
• As human beings, we live
our lives as members of
groups.
• Such groups may be large
or small, temporary or long-
lasting, and can be based
on kinship, cultural heritage,
or some shared interest.
Social Groups: Primary Groups
• Traits (Cooley)
– Small
– Personal orientation
– Enduring
• Primary relationships
– First group experienced in life
– Irreplaceable
• Assistance of all kinds
– Emotional to financial
Social Groups: Secondary Groups
• Traits
– Large membership
– Goal or activity orientation
– Formal and polite
• Secondary relationships
– Weak emotional ties
– Short term
• Examples
– Co-workers and political organizations
Social Group
• Categories
– Not every collection of individuals forms a group
– Women, homeowners, soldiers, college graduates,
millionaires
Not Quite a Social Group: What Is…?
• Crowd
– Temporary cluster of people
– A group can have temporal status
• Crowd to group to crowd again
– A large gathering of people at a football game
– A crowd that begins to riot might be considered a
group
Summing Up (1 of 2)
Primary Groups and Secondary Groups
blank
Primary Group Secondary Group

Quality of relationships Personal orientation Goal orientation
Duration of relationships Usually long-term Variable; often short-term
Breadth of relationships Broad; usually involving Narrow; usually involving few
many activities activities
Perception of Ends in themselves Means to an end
relationships
Examples Families, circles of Co-workers, political
friends organizations
Group Leadership
• Three leadership styles
– Authoritarian: Leader makes decisions; Compliance
from members
– Democratic: Member involvement
– Laissez-faire: Let group function on its own
• Two roles
– Instrumental: Task-oriented
– Expressive: People-oriented
Group Conformity Studies (1 of 2)
• Asch’s research
– Line experiment
– Conclusion
▪ Willingness to
compromise our
own judgments to
avoid the
discomfort of being
seen as different
Group Conformity Studies (2 of 2)
• Milgram’s research
– Punishment experiment
– Authority figure and groups of ordinary individuals
influenced willingness to harm another person.
• Janis’s research
– Groupthink: Tendency of group members to conform,
resulting in a narrow view of some issue
– Negative side of groupthink
▪ Number of U.S. foreign policy errors
Reference Groups
• Reference group
– Social group that serves as a point of reference in
making evaluations and decisions
• Stouffer’s research
– We compare ourselves in relation to specific
reference groups.
Groups: What Is…?
• In-groups
– Display loyalty and respect to group members
– Exist in relation to out-group
– Generally hold overly positive views of themselves
• Out-groups
– Opposition to out-groups
– May be defined by in-group as lower status
– May be socially, politically, and economically
subordinated by in-group
Group Size
• The dyad
– A two-member group
– Very intimate, but unstable given
its size
• The triad
– A three-member group
– More stable than a dyad and
more types of interaction are
possible
• In a triad, if the relationship between
any two members becomes more
intense in a positive sense, two are
likely to exclude the third.
Figure 7-2 Group Size and Relationships
Social Diversity: Race, Class, and Gender
(1 of 3)
• Social diversity influences intergroup contact (Blau and

colleagues).
– Large groups turn inward.
▪ Members have relationships between themselves.
– Heterogeneous groups turn outward.
▪ Diverse membership promotes interaction with
outsiders.
– Physical boundaries create social boundaries.
▪ If segregation of groups takes place, the chances
for contact are limited.
(2 of 3)
• Networks
– Networks are web of weak social ties, people we
know of or who know of us.
– Largest network of all is the World Wide Web of the
Internet.
• Social media and networking
– Social media refers to technology that links people in
social activity.
– By 2011, 600 million people were involved in
Facebook networks and by the end of 2012, the
number had passed 1 billion.
(3 of 3)
– Today, Facebook, Twitter, and

other social networking sites
connect people all over the
world.
• The 2010 film The Social Network
depicts the birth of Facebook, now
one of the largest social networking
sites in the world.
• In what ways have Internet-based
social networks changed social life
in the
• United States?
Global Map 7-1 Internet Users in Global
Perspective
Formal Organizations
• Types
– Utilitarian
▪ Material rewards for members
– Normative
▪ Voluntary organizations
▪ Ties to personal morality
– Coercive
▪ Punishment or treatment; total institutions
Origins of Formal Organizations
• Early organizations had limitations.
– First, they lacked technology to let people travel over
large distances, to communicate quickly, and to
gather and store information.
– Second, the preindustrial societies they were trying to
rule had traditional cultures.
Rationalization of Society: Weber
• Rationalization
– Tradition makes a society conservative by limiting
productive efficiency and ability to change.
– Modern society “disenchanted” as sentimental ties
give way to a rational focus on science, complex
technology, and the organizational structure called
“bureaucracy”
Summing Up (2 of 2)
Small Groups and Formal Organizations
blank Small Groups Formal Organizations
Activities Much the same for all members Distinct and highly
specialized
Hierarchy Often informal or nonexistent Clearly defined according to
position
Norms General norms, informally applied Clearly defined rules and
regulations
Membership Variable; often based on personal Technical competence to
criteria affection or kinship carry out assigned tasks
Relationships Variable and typically primary Typically secondary, with
selective primary ties
Communications Typically casual and face-to-face Typically formal and in writing
Focus Person-oriented Task-oriented
Max Weber’s Six Elements to Promote
Organizational Efficiency
• Elements of ideal bureaucratic organizations
• Specialization of duties
• Hierarchy of offices
• Rules and regulations
• Technical competence
The Ideal Bureaucracy
• Weber described the
operation of the ideal
bureaucracy as rational
and highly efficient. In
real life, however,
organizations often
operate very differently
from Weber’s model.
Organizational Environment
• Factors outside an organization that affect its operation
– Economic and political trends
– Populations patterns
– Current events
– Other organizations
Informal Side of Bureaucracy
• Origins of informality
– Personalities of organizational leaders
– Leadership style
– Modes of communication
– New information technology
Problems of Bureaucracies
• Bureaucratic alienation
– Potential to dehumanize individuals
• Bureaucratic inefficiency and ritualism
– Preoccupation with rules, interferes with meeting
goals
• Bureaucratic inertia
– Perpetuation of the organization
The Faceless Bureaucrat
• George Tooker’s
painting Government
Bureau is a powerful
statement about the
human costs of
bureaucracy.
Oligarchy
• Michels
– Link between bureaucracy and political oligarchy
– “Iron law of oligarchy”
▪ Pyramid shape of bureaucracy places a few
leaders in charge of the resources of the entire
organization.
▪ Democracy threatened because officials use
power and resources for personal gain.
▪ Distance created between officials and public.
Evolution of Formal Organizations
Scientific Management (1 of 2)
• Scientific management: Scientific principles applied to
the operation of a business/large organization (Taylor)
– Steps
▪ Identify tasks and time needed for tasks.
▪ Analyze to perform tasks more efficiently.
▪ Provide incentives for worker efficiency.
Figure 7-3 U.S. Managers in Private Industry, by
Race, Gender, and Ethnicity, 2013
Evolution of Formal Organizations
Scientific Management (2 of 2)
• The principles of scientific
management suggested
that workplace power
should reside with owners
and executives, who have
historically paid little
attention to the ideas of
their workers.
New Challenges to Formal Organizations
• Challenges
– Race and gender
– Japanese work organizations
– Changing nature of work
Differences in Today’s Information Age
Jobs
• Creative freedom
• Competitive work teams
• Flatter organization
• Greater flexibility
• The best of today’s information
age jobs-including working at
Google, the popular search
engine website-allow people lots
of personal freedom as long as
they produce good ideas.
Figure 7-4 Two Organizational Models
McDonaldization of Society
• Principles
• Efficiency: Do it quickly.
• Predictability: Use set formulas.
• Uniformity: Leave nothing to
chance.
• Control: Humans are most
unreliable factor.
Many other jobs, such as working
the counter at McDonald’s, involve
the same routines and strict
supervision found in factories a
century ago.
Future of Organizations: Opposing Trends
• Movement toward more creative freedom for highly
skilled information workers
• Movement toward increased supervision and discipline
for less skilled service workers
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• Social diversity influences intergroup contact (Blau and

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