1. Social Interaction in Everyday Life

2. Social Interaction
Definition: The process by which people act and react in relation to others
Humans rely on social structure to make sense out of everyday situations
Thomas Theorem:
Situations that become real because people believe it to be true
Think someone is laughing at you because they started laughing when you walked in the room

3. Status and Role Status: A social position that an individual occupies
Ascribed:
Involuntary positions
Achieved:
Voluntary positions
Role:
The behavior expected of someone who holds a particular status

4. Educator
Teacher
Caregiver
Daughter
Responsibility
Respect

5. Role Conflict and Role Strain
Involves two or more statuses
Example: Conflict between role expectations of a police officer who catches her own son using drugs in her home
Statuses: Mother and Police Officer
Role Strain
Involves a single status
Example: Manager who tries to balance concern for workers with task requirements
Status: Office Manager

6. Groups & Organizations

7. Social Group A social group is:
Two or more people who identify and interact with one another
A social group is NOT:
Category
People with common status
Crowd
Temporary cluster of people
A group can have temporal status

8. Primary Groups Secondary Groups
Traits
Small
Personal orientation
Enduring
Primary relationships
First group experienced in life
Irreplaceable
Security
Assistance of all kinds
Emotional to financial
Traits
Large membership
Goal or activity orientation
Formal and polite
Secondary relationships
Weak emotional ties between persons
Short term
Examples
Co-workers
Political organizations

9. Group Leadership Two roles: Instrumental Task oriented Expressive
People oriented
Three styles:
Authoritarian
Leader makes decisions; Compliance from members
Democratic
Member involvement
Laissez-faire
Lets the group function on its own

10. Reference Groups
Groups act as point of reference in making evaluations and decisions
Stouffer’s research
We compare ourselves in relation to specific reference groups
INGROUPS and OUTGROUPS
Loyalty to INGROUP
Opposition to OUTGROUPS

11. Group Size The dyad The triad A two member group
Very intimate, but unstable
The triad
A three member group
More stable than a dyad; more types of interaction possible

13. Conformity

14. McDonaldization of Society
Efficiency
-Do it quickly
Uniformity
-Leave nothing to chance
Control
-Humans are most unreliable factor

16. Conformity Group Conformity Asch’s research
Willingness to COMPROMISE our own judgments
Line experiment
In Asch’s experiment, subjects were asked to match the line on Card 1 to one of the lines on Card 2.
Most subjects agreed with the wrong answers given by others in their group