Chapter 4 SOCIETY

Building blocks: statuses, roles, groups, & institutions WHAT IS SOCIETY? Collection of interacting individuals sharing same way of life & living in same territory Building blocks: statuses, roles, groups, & institutions

STATUS: ASCRIBED vs. achieved Is a position in society; you behave according to this Ascribed – status that is given to us regardless of what we do (i.e. race & gender) Achieved – status we have to earn (i.e. graduate, jobs, etc)

PLEASE PASS THE ‘ROLES’ Role performance – people play same roles very differently for many different people Role conflict – play two roles at the same time; Sometimes you come into a conflict with all your different role performances Role strain – stress caused by too many demands from the different roles (can be relieved by hanging out with your own social group)

Society controls us Social Control – formal controls through law, police, courts, & prisons; informal through social relationships All the people we meet control us – ready to embarrass, scold, or hurt us if we don’t behave “appropriately” or meet expectations Durkheim called these “social facts” or “something beyond us”; prisoners of society

Role Performance Role Strain and Role Conflict Social Control

SOCIAL INTERACTION 5 main forms of interaction between members of a society: Exchange, Competition, Conflict, Cooperation, and Accommodation Conflict & Competition encourage societal change, while Exchange, Cooperation, and Accommodation encourage societal unification and stability

But we have to consent! With social control comes social consent – we play along with rules as long as it seems reasonable or fair We learn this from our social institutions This is how humans interact with each other – by actively & creatively interpreting each other’s actions Crash Course: How We Got Here Video