What Is a Group That Provides Standards by Which an Individual Can Judge His Own Accomplishments?

Learning Objectives

• Understand primary and secondary groups as the 2 sociological groups
• Recognize in-groups and out-groups every bit subtypes of primary and secondary groups
• Define reference groups

Most of us feel comfortable using the word "group" without giving information technology much idea. In everyday use, information technology can be a generic term, although it carries important clinical and scientific meanings. Moreover, the concept of a group is central to much of how nosotros think about lodge and human interaction. Oft, we might hateful unlike things by using that word. We might say that a group of kids all saw the canis familiaris, and it could hateful 250 students in a lecture hall or four siblings playing on a front lawn. In everyday chat, there isn't a articulate distinguishing utilise. So how can we strop the meaning more precisely for sociological purposes?

Defining a Group

The term group is an baggy one and can refer to a broad diversity of gatherings, from just 2 people (think near a "grouping project" in school when y'all partner with another student), a club, a regular gathering of friends, or people who work together or share a hobby. In brusk, the term refers to any collection of at least two people who interact with some frequency and who share a sense that their identity is somehow aligned with the group. Of course, every fourth dimension people are gathered information technology is not necessarily a group. A rally is usually a one-time consequence, for case, and belonging to a political political party doesn't imply interaction with others. People who exist in the aforementioned place at the same time but who do not interact or share a sense of identity—such as a bunch of people continuing in line at Starbucks—are considered an aggregate, or a crowd. Another example of a nongroup is people who share similar characteristics just are not tied to one some other in any way. These people are considered a category, and as an example all children built-in from approximately 1980–2000 are referred to as "Millennials." Why are Millennials a category and not a group? Because while some of them may share a sense of identity, they practise not, as a whole, interact frequently with each other.

Interestingly, people within an aggregate or category can get a grouping. During disasters, people in a neighborhood (an amass) who did not know each other might become friendly and depend on each other at the local shelter. Afterwards the disaster ends and the people get dorsum to merely living virtually each other, the feeling of cohesiveness may concluding since they have all shared an feel. They might remain a group, practicing emergency readiness, coordinating supplies for side by side time, or taking turns caring for neighbors who demand actress help. Similarly, at that place may be many groups within a unmarried category. Consider teachers, for example. Inside this category, groups may exist like teachers' unions, teachers who coach, or staff members who are involved with the PTA.

Types of Groups

Sociologist Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929) suggested that groups can broadly be divided into two categories: primary groups and secondary groups (Cooley 1909). According to Cooley, primary groups play the nearly disquisitional role in our lives. The chief group is usually fairly modest and is made up of individuals who generally appoint confront-to-face up in long-term emotional ways. This group serves emotional needs: expressive functions rather than businesslike ones. The primary group is usually made upwards of significant others, those individuals who take the most bear upon on our socialization. The best example of a primary grouping is the family.

Secondary groups are often larger and impersonal. They may also be task-focused and time-limited. These groups serve an instrumental role rather than an expressive 1, meaning that their role is more goal- or task-oriented than emotional. A classroom or function can be an example of a secondary group. Neither primary nor secondary groups are bound past strict definitions or set limits. In fact, people can move from one group to some other. A graduate seminar, for example, tin can kickoff as a secondary group focused on the class at paw, but every bit the students piece of work together throughout their plan, they may find common interests and stiff ties that transform them into a primary group.

Best Friends She'southward Never Met

Writer Allison Levy worked alone. While she liked the liberty and flexibility of working from domicile, she sometimes missed having a customs of coworkers, both for the applied purpose of brainstorming and the more than social "water cooler" aspect. Levy did what many do in the Cyberspace age: she found a grouping of other writers online through a web forum. Over time, a group of approximately twenty writers, who all wrote for a similar audience, broke off from the larger forum and started a private invitation-but forum. While writers in general correspond all genders, ages, and interests, information technology concluded upwardly being a drove of twenty- and thirty-something women who comprised the new forum; they all wrote fiction for children and young adults.

At outset, the writers' forum was clearly a secondary grouping united by the members' professions and work situations. As Levy explained, "On the Internet, you tin exist present or absent every bit often as you want. No i is expecting you lot to show up." It was a useful place to research information about different publishers and about who had recently sold what and to track industry trends. But equally time passed, Levy found it served a unlike purpose. Since the grouping shared other characteristics beyond their writing (such as age and gender), the online chat naturally turned to matters such as kid-rearing, aging parents, health, and exercise. Levy establish it was a sympathetic place to talk about any number of subjects, not just writing. Further, when people didn't post for several days, others expressed concern, asking whether anyone had heard from the missing writers. It reached a bespeak where nigh members would tell the group if they were traveling or needed to be offline for awhile.

The grouping continued to share. One member on the site who was going through a difficult family disease wrote, "I don't know where I'd be without you lot women. It is so not bad to have a place to vent that I know isn't hurting anyone." Others shared similar sentiments.

Then is this a master group? Nigh of these people have never met each other. They live in Hawaii, Commonwealth of australia, Minnesota, and across the world. They may never encounter. Levy wrote recently to the grouping, proverb, "Virtually of my 'real-life' friends and even my husband don't really get the writing thing. I don't know what I'd practice without you." Despite the altitude and the lack of physical contact, the group clearly fills an expressive need.

Engineering and construction students get together around a job site. How exercise your academic interests define your in- and out-groups? (Photo courtesy of USACEpublicaffairs/flickr)

In-Groups and Out-Groups

One of the ways that groups can be powerful is through inclusion, and its changed, exclusion. The feeling that we belong in an elite or select group is a heady one, while the feeling of not beingness allowed in, or of existence in competition with a grouping, can be motivating in a different mode. Sociologist William Sumner (1840–1910) adult the concepts of in-grouping and out-group to explain this phenomenon (Sumner 1906). In short, an in-grouping is the grouping that an individual feels she belongs to, and she believes it to exist an integral part of who she is. An out-group, conversely, is a grouping someone doesn't belong to; oftentimes we may feel disdain or competition in relationship to an out-group. Sports teams, unions, and sororities are examples of in-groups and out-groups; people may belong to, or be an outsider to, any of these. Primary groups consist of both in-groups and out-groups, as do secondary groups.

While group affiliations can exist neutral or even positive, such equally the case of a squad sport competition, the concept of in-groups and out-groups can too explain some negative homo behavior, such as white supremacist movements similar the Ku Klux Klan, or the bullying of gay or lesbian students. Past defining others equally "not like united states of america" and junior, in-groups tin cease upwards practicing ethnocentrism, racism, sexism, ageism, and heterosexism—manners of judging others negatively based on their civilization, race, sex, historic period, or sexuality. Often, in-groups can form within a secondary group. For instance, a workplace can take cliques of people, from senior executives who play golf together, to engineers who write code together, to young singles who socialize later on hours. While these in-groups might show favoritism and affinity for other in-group members, the overall arrangement may exist unable or unwilling to acknowledge it. Therefore, it pays to be wary of the politics of in-groups, since members may exclude others as a class of gaining status within the grouping.

Bullying and Cyberbullying: How Engineering Has Changed the Game

About of usa know that the quondam rhyme "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never injure me" is inaccurate. Words tin hurt, and never is that more apparent than in instances of bullying. Bullying has always existed and has often reached extreme levels of cruelty in children and young adults. People at these stages of life are especially vulnerable to others' opinions of them, and they're deeply invested in their peer groups. Today, technology has ushered in a new era of this dynamic. Cyberbullying is the employ of interactive media by i person to torment another, and it is on the rise. Cyberbullying tin can mean sending threatening texts, harassing someone in a public forum (such as Facebook), hacking someone'south business relationship and pretending to be him or her, posting embarrassing images online, and and so on. A report by the Cyberbullying Research Eye institute that xx percent of center schoolhouse students admitted to "seriously thinking nearly committing suicide" as a result of online bullying (Hinduja and Patchin 2010). Whereas bullying contiguous requires willingness to interact with your victim, cyberbullying allows bullies to harass others from the privacy of their homes without witnessing the damage immediate. This form of bullying is particularly dangerous because it's widely attainable and therefore easier to accomplish.

Cyberbullying, and bullying in general, made international headlines in 2010 when a fifteen-year-old girl, Phoebe Prince, in S Hadley, Massachusetts, committed suicide after beingness relentlessly bullied by girls at her schoolhouse. In the aftermath of her decease, the bullies were prosecuted in the legal system and the state passed anti-bullying legislation. This marked a significant modify in how bullying, including cyberbullying, is viewed in the U.s.a.. Now there are numerous resources for schools, families, and communities to provide pedagogy and prevention on this issue. The White House hosted a Bullying Prevention peak in March 2011, and President and First Lady Obama have used Facebook and other social media sites to discuss the importance of the event.

According to a report released in 2013 past the National Center for Educational Statistics, close to one in every 3 (27.8 percent) students study existence bullied by their schoolhouse peers. Seventeen pct of students reported being the victims of cyberbullying.

Volition legislation modify the behavior of would-be cyberbullies? That remains to be seen. Simply we can hope communities will piece of work to protect victims before they feel they must resort to extreme measures.

Reference Groups

Athletes are often viewed as a reference group for immature people. (Photo courtesy of Johnny Bivera/U.S. Navy/Wikimedia Commons)

A reference grouping is a group that people compare themselves to—it provides a standard of measurement. In U.S. society, peer groups are common reference groups. Kids and adults pay attention to what their peers wear, what music they like, what they do with their gratis time—and they compare themselves to what they meet. Most people have more than ane reference grouping, and so a centre school male child might look not just at his classmates but also at his older blood brother's friends and see a different set of norms. And he might notice the antics of his favorite athletes for nonetheless some other set of behaviors.

Some other examples of reference groups can be one's cultural center, workplace, family unit gathering, and even parents. Frequently, reference groups convey competing messages. For instance, on television and in movies, young adults often have wonderful apartments and cars and lively social lives despite non holding a job. In music videos, young women might dance and sing in a sexually ambitious way that suggests feel across their years. At all ages, we use reference groups to help guide our behavior and prove the states social norms. And then how important is information technology to surround yourself with positive reference groups? You may not recognize a reference group, but information technology however influences the way you lot human activity. Identifying your reference groups can help you understand the source of the social identities you aspire to or desire to distance yourself from.

Higher: A World of In-Groups, Out-Groups, and Reference Groups

Which fraternity or sorority would you fit into, if any? Sorority recruitment day offers students an opportunity to learn virtually these different groups. (Photograph courtesy of Murray State/flickr)

For a student entering college, the sociological study of groups takes on an immediate and applied meaning. Subsequently all, when nosotros make it someplace new, virtually of u.s.a. glance around to see how well nosotros fit in or stand up out in the ways we want. This is a natural response to a reference group, and on a large campus, there can be many competing groups. Say you are a strong athlete who wants to play intramural sports, and your favorite musicians are a local punk band. You may observe yourself engaged with two very different reference groups.

These reference groups tin also become your in-groups or out-groups. For example, different groups on campus might solicit you to join. Are there fraternities and sororities at your school? If so, chances are they will try to convince students—that is, students they deem worthy—to join them. And if y'all love playing soccer and want to play on a campus squad, but you're wearing shredded jeans, combat boots, and a local band T-shirt, yous might have a hard time convincing the soccer team to requite y'all a chance. While nearly campus groups refrain from insulting competing groups, in that location is a definite sense of an in-grouping versus an out-grouping. "Them?" a member might say. "They're all right, but their parties are nowhere near as cool as ours." Or, "Just serious engineering science geeks bring together that group." This firsthand categorization into in-groups and out-groups ways that students must choose advisedly, since whatsoever group they associate with won't just define their friends—it may too ascertain their enemies.

Summary

Groups largely define how nosotros think of ourselves. There are ii main types of groups: chief and secondary. As the names propose, the main group is the long-term, complex one. People use groups as standards of comparison to ascertain themselves—both who they are and who they are not. Sometimes groups tin exist used to exclude people or as a tool that strengthens prejudice.

Section Quiz

What does a Functionalist consider when studying a phenomenon similar the Occupy Wall Street motion?

1. The minute functions that every person at the protests plays in the whole
2. The internal conflicts that play out within such a various and leaderless group
3. How the motility contributes to the stability of gild past offering the discontented a safety, controlled outlet for dissension
4. The factions and divisions that form inside the movement

What is the largest deviation between the Functionalist and Conflict perspectives and the Interactionist perspective?

1. The erstwhile two consider long-term repercussions of the grouping or situation, while the latter focuses on the present.
2. The offset two are the more common sociological perspective, while the latter is a newer sociological model.
3. The starting time 2 focus on hierarchical roles within an organization, while the concluding takes a more holistic view.
4. The kickoff 2 perspectives accost large-scale problems facing groups, while the final examines more detailed aspects.

What part do secondary groups play in society?

1. They are transactional, job-based, and short-term, filling applied needs.
2. They provide a social network that allows people to compare themselves to others.
3. The members give and receive emotional support.
4. They allow individuals to challenge their beliefs and prejudices.

When a loftier school student gets teased past her basketball squad for receiving an academic award, she is dealing with competing ______________.

1. primary groups
2. out-groups
3. reference groups
4. secondary groups

Which of the post-obit is not an case of an in-group?

1. The Ku Klux Klan
2. A fraternity
3. A synagogue
4. A loftier school

What is a group whose values, norms, and behavior come to serve every bit a standard for i'due south own behavior?

1. Secondary group
2. Formal organization
3. Reference grouping
4. Principal group

A parent who is worrying over her teenager's unsafe and self-destructive beliefs and low self-esteem may wish to expect at her child'south:

1. reference group
2. in-group
3. out-group
4. All of the above

Short Respond

How has technology changed your primary groups and secondary groups? Do y'all have more (and divide) main groups due to online connectivity? Practice you lot believe that someone, like Levy, can have a true principal grouping made up of people she has never met? Why, or why not?

Compare and contrast two dissimilar political groups or organizations, such equally the Occupy and Tea Party movements, or one of the Arab Spring uprisings. How do the groups differ in terms of leadership, membership, and activities? How practise the group'southward goals influence participants? Are any of them in-groups (and have they created out-groups)? Explain your respond.

The concept of hate crimes has been linked to in-groups and out-groups. Tin can you recollect of an instance where people have been excluded or tormented due to this kind of group dynamic?

References

Cooley, Charles Horton.1963 [1909]. Social Organizations: A Study of the Larger Mind. New York: Shocken.

Cyberbullying Research Center. n.d. Retrieved November 30, 2011 (http://www.cyberbullying.usa).

Hinduja, Sameer, and Justin West. Patchin.2010. "Bullying, Cyberbullying, and Suicide."Archives of Suicide Enquiry 14(iii): 206–221.

Khandaroo, Stacy T. 2010. "Phoebe Prince Instance a 'Watershed' in Fight Against School Bullying." Christian Scientific discipline Monitor, April ane. Retrieved February 10, 2012 (http://www.csmonitor.com/Usa/Education/2010/0401/Phoebe-Prince-case-a-watershed-in-fight-against-school-bullying).

Leibowitz, B. Matt. 2011. "On Facebook, Obamas Denounce Cyberbullying." http://msnbc.com, March ix. Retrieved February thirteen, 2012 (http://world wide web.msnbc.msn.com/id/41995126/ns/technology_and_science-security/t/facebook-obamas-denounce-cyberbullying/#.TtjrVUqY07A).

Occupy Wall Street. Retrieved November 27, 2011. (http://occupywallst.org/about/).

Schwartz, Mattathias. 2011. "Pre-Occupied: The Origins and Future of Occupy Wall St." New Yorker Magazine, November 28.

Sumner, William. 1959 [1906]. Folkways. New York: Dover.

"Times Topics: Occupy Wall Street." New York Times. 2011. Retrieved February 10, 2012 (http://topics.nytimes.com/meridian/reference/timestopics/organizations/o/occupy_wall_street/index.html?scp=1-spot&sq=occupy%20wall%20street&st=cse).

We Are the 99 Pct. Retrieved Nov 28, 2011 (http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/folio/two).

Glossary

aggregate

a collection of people who exist in the aforementioned place at the aforementioned time, but who don't interact or share a sense of identity

category

people who share similar characteristics only who are not connected in any way

expressive function

a group function that serves an emotional need

group

whatever collection of at to the lowest degree two people who interact with some frequency and who share some sense of aligned identity

in-group

a group a person belongs to and feels is an integral part of his identity

instrumental function

beingness oriented toward a job or goal

out-group

a group that an individual is not a member of, and may even compete with

principal groups

small, informal groups of people who are closest to us

reference groups

groups to which an individual compares herself

secondary groups

larger and more impersonal groups that are task-focused and time limited

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-baycollege-sociology/chapter/types-of-groups/