Social group
1800s: Martineau · Tocqueville · Marx · Spencer · Le Bon · Ward · Pareto · Tönnies · Veblen · Simmel · Durkheim · Addams · Mead · Weber · Du Bois · Mannheim · Elias In the social sciences, a social group is defined as two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics, and collectively have a sense of unity.
Characteristics shared by members of a group may include interests, values, representations, ethnic or social background, and kinship ties.
[5] Social psychologist Muzafer Sherif proposed to define a social unit as a number of individuals interacting with each other with respect to:[6] This definition succeeds in providing the researcher with the tools required to answer three important questions: The attention of those who use, participate in, or study groups has focused on functioning groups, on larger organizations, or on the decisions made in these organizations.
Some of the earliest efforts to understand these social units have been the extensive descriptions of urban street gangs in the 1920s and 1930s, continuing through the 1950s, which understood them to be largely reactions to the established authority.
Indeed, vast literature on organization, property, law enforcement, ownership, religion, warfare, values, conflict resolution, authority, rights, and families have grown and evolved without any reference to any analogous social behaviors in animals.
Territorial and dominance behaviors in humans are so universal and commonplace that they are simply taken for granted (though sometimes admired, as in home ownership, or deplored, as in violence).
Coming to understand territorial and dominance behaviors may thus help to clarify the development, functioning, and productivity of groups.
[11] Also problematic for the social cohesion account is recent research showing that seemingly meaningless categorization can be an antecedent of perceptions of interdependence with fellow category members.
[13] Whereas social identity theory was directed initially at the explanation of intergroup conflict in the absence of any conflict of interests, self-categorization theory was developed to explain how individuals come to perceive themselves as members of a group in the first place, and how this self-grouping process underlies and determines all problems subsequent aspects of group behaviour.
[15] This group component varies greatly, including verbal or non-verbal communication, social loafing, networking, forming bonds, etc.
Most groups have a reason for their existence, be it increasing the education and knowledge, receiving emotional support, or experiencing spirituality or religion.
The model divides group goals into four main types, which are further sub-categorized “The state of being dependent, to some degree, on other people, as when one's outcomes, actions, thoughts, feelings, and experiences are determined in whole or part by others.
Lower quantity or quality social relationships have been connected to issues such as: development of cardiovascular disease, recurrent myocardial infarction, atherosclerosis, autonomic dysregulation, high blood pressure, cancer and delayed cancer recovery, and slower wound healing as well as inflammatory biomarkers and impaired immune function, factors associated with adverse health outcomes and mortality.
Social connectedness also plays a large part in overcoming certain conditions such as drug, alcohol, or substance abuse.
With these types of issues, a person's peer group play a big role in helping them stay sober.
Extroverts may seek out groups more, as they find larger and more frequent interpersonal interactions stimulating and enjoyable (more than introverts).
(For more, see Minimax Principal, as part of Social Exchange Theory) Once a group has begun to form, it can increase membership through a few ways.
Classic examples of groups with high cohesion are fraternities, sororities, gangs, and cults, which are all noted for their recruitment process, especially their initiation or hazing.
If one brings a small collection of strangers together in a restricted space and environment, provides a common goal and maybe a few ground rules, then a highly probable course of events will follow.
Again depending on the common goal, eventually twosomes and threesomes will integrate into larger sets of six or eight, with corresponding revisions of territory, dominance-ranking, and further differentiation of roles.
All of this seldom takes place without some conflict or disagreement: for example, fighting over the distribution of resources, the choices of means and different subgoals, the development of what are appropriate norms, rewards and punishments.
Depending on the pressure of the common goal and on the various skills of individuals, differentiations of leadership, dominance, or authority will develop.
[citation needed] The military has been the best example as to how this is done in its hierarchical array of squads, platoons, companies, battalions, regiments, and divisions.
Consider the neighborhood, the country club, or the megachurch, which are basically territorial organizations who support large social purposes.
For a functioning group to attempt to add new members in a casual way is a certain prescription for failure, loss of efficiency, or disorganization.
After ten, subgroups will inevitably start to form with the attendant loss of purpose, dominance-order, and individuality, with confusion of roles and rules.
The standard classroom with twenty to forty pupils and one teacher offers a rueful example of one supposed leader juggling a number of subgroups.
The loss of the leader tends to dissolve all dominance relationships, as well as weakening dedication to common purpose, differentiation of roles, and maintenance of norms.
The most common symptoms of a troubled group are loss of efficiency, diminished participation, or weakening of purpose, as well as an increase in verbal aggression.
