Basic concepts in Sociology

1. BASIC CONCEPTS
IN SOCIOLOGY

2. Concepts
• A science is mature if it has a solid foundation for the
construction of theories;
• Solid foundation-a set of commonly accepted and well
defined concepts
• Mental constructs
• Chair? Car? - almost same for everyone

3. I. Types of Human
Collectivities
• Society
• Community
• Institution
• Association
• Social groups

4. II. Social Order
• Social structure
• Social functions
• Status and role
• Values
• Norms

5. II. Social Order
• Customs
• Folkways
• Mores
• Law
• Etiquette
• Fashion
• Fads

6. II. Social order
• Socialisation
• Social control
• Public opinion
• Conformity
• Social deviance
• Sanctions

7. III. Social processes
Culture and civilisation
• Ethnocentrism
• Diffusion
• Acculturation
• Integration

8. III. Social processes
Types of social interactions
• Cooperation
• Competition
• conflict

9. I. Types of Human
Collectivities
I.1. Society
derived from socius-meaning companionship or friendship
• Man is a social animal-Aristotle
• Society is a large aggregate of human beings, social groups are
the constituent elements of society;both are complementary to
each other
• Definition- a society is a relatively independent, self perpetuating
human group which occupies a territory, shares a culture and has
most of its associations within group (Horton and Hunt)

10. Characteristics
• A large interacting group of individuals
• Sometimes definite territory (some without a definite
territory:nomadic tribes of Arab origin of the Jewish groups),
Social relationships occur within the boundaries of society
• Attempts to become self sufficient by establishing
procedures for satisfying the needs of members
• Ultimate decision making unit
• Cultural autonomy
• Different types of societies- agrarian, industrial, urban/rural,
simple/complex etc

11. I.2 Community
• Most elusive and vague term in sociology
• Community is a social group with some degree of ‘we
feeling’ and living in a given area (Bogardus)
• A subsystem of society
• Two necessary conditions-locality and community
sentiments

12. Characteristics
• Definite territory, smaller population size
• Evolve in a natural way, mutuality, organised interaction
• Close informal social relationships-binds people with a single
thread
• Cultural similarity
• Strong group feeling
• Common believes and values
• Neighbourhood is the unit of a community
• e.g.. Tribal community, rural community, urban community etc.

13. I.3 Association
• A social organisation purposefully created to attain specified goals
• Has organisational characteristics
• Definition- According to M. Ginsberg, an association is a group of
social beings related to one another by the fact that they possess
or have instituted in common an organisation with a view to
specific ends
• According to MacIver, an association is a group organised for the
pursuit of an interest or group of interest
• e.g..government departments, schools and colleges, hospitals etc

14. Characteristics
• Voluntarily created and membership is also formal-has a
legal status
• Officials who are elected for a definite time period
• Fixed and written rules to be followed
• Definite goals to achieve
• Satisfies the needs and interests of the individuals

15. I.4 Institution
• Complex norms regulating social activities
• A unit of social organisation
• machineries through which man satisfied all his economic,
political, education and religious needs
• Social interaction between the members is regulated by
customs, law etc
• e.g.. family, marriage, political parties, schools and
colleges

16. Relevance of institutions
• Training new members
• Providing channels of communication
• Assigning roles and tasks to members
• Establishing social norms and operational rules
• Making collective decisions etc

17. • In our day-to-day life it is difficult to separate institutions
from association
• eg. college is an association but modes of training,
education etc are institutions; church is an association but
its sacraments, modes of worship and rituals are institutions
• The individuals belong to associations but not to institutions

19. Relationship b/w Association
and Institution

20. I.5 Social Groups
• Which all social groups do you know?how big are they?how
do you decide who to include in those groups?
• According to Pascual Gisbert, a social group is a collection of
individuals interacting on each other under a recognisable
structure
• Social groups are collections of human beings existing within
a society whereas society is a system of social relationships
• Membership is usually voluntary (in society it is compulsory)
• A group is formed with a view to realise certain goals while
community is a natural entity; community has a locality but for
groups no such preconditions

21. Classification of Group
• How group size can affect group dynamics and relationships
• Dyads and Triads-Introduced by Leopald Von Wiese, a German Sociologist
• Dyad-the most fundamental type of social group consists of only two people
• e.g.. doctor and patient, lawyer and client
• Triad-if you add another person to a dyad, it becomes a triad-a social group
that consists of three people
• Simple addition significantly affects the group interactions and dynamics
• Relationships in triad will be fairly intense and stable than dyad

22. I.5.1 Primary group and
Secondary group
• Primary Group- Concept introduced by Charles Horton Cooley
in his book Social Organization : A Study of the Larger Mind
• Small group whose members share close, personal, enduring
relationships.
• Face to face group-the most effective agency of socialisation
and the nucleus of social organisation
• Informal group for mutual help and companionship
• Members work together for a common end and share common
experience. Eg: families and close friends

23. • Secondary Groups: usually large groups, whose
relationships are impersonal and goal oriented, temporary
• Secondary because develop later in life and are much less
likely to be influential on one’s identity than primary groups
• Weak emotional ties, little personal knowledge of one
another; don’t have any goal of maintaining and developing
the relationships themselves
• Exchanges explicit commodities such as labor for wages,
services for payments etc
• e.g.. university classes, athletic teams, and groups of o-
workers; doctor patient relationship

24. (I.5.2) In-Groups and Out-Groups
• William Graham Sumner, an American Sociologist, divided
groups into in-group and out-group; especially for
understanding group prejudice
• In-Groups: social groups to which an individual feels he or
she belongs-may be small as the family-also considered as
the ‘we group’
• Out-Group: the individual doesn’t identify with the out-group;
“they group”
• The members of the in-group regard the members of out-
group as strangers; often marked by hostility or conflict; they
evaluate each other in emotional rather than rational terms

25. (I.5.3) Reference Groups
• First introduced by Hayman, later elaborated by Merton and
Sherif
• The reference groups is the one with which an individual
identifies himself either consciously or unconsciously
• A perpetual group; may not have physical proximity
• Could be occupational, professional, religious, political etc.; e.g..
a doctor may be a member of a medical association which may
be located in a distant city and the doctor’s attitude is moulded
by the perspective of the reference group
• The symbolic character of human communication means that it
may respond to the symbols of one group while he is physically
present in another; to achieve higher status

26. • M.N Srinivas-Westernisation, Sanskritisation to describe the
social processes-individuals and groups imitate the values and
practices of another group which is higher in scale
• Sanskritisation- attempts made by low ranking castes to adopt
the beliefs and rituals of the higher castes such as Brahmins
and Rajputs
• Westernisation- the efforts made by the individuals to acquire
Western education, in order to join government offices etc and
improve their economic and social standing
• Social change in Indian society!

27. (I.5.4) Status Groups
• Max Weber distinguished b/w the classes and the status
groups
• Class-the groups of people, who, from the standpoint of
specific interest have the same economic position in
society (Ownership or non-ownership of material goods or
of definite skills constitutes the class-situation)
• Status- a quality of “social honour” or lack of it, and it is
mainly expressed through a specific style of life; they are
stratified according to the principles of their consumption
of goods as represented by their life style

28. II. Social Order
• Society has order that can be discovered, described and
understood
• It is the coordination and integration of social acts which
permits them to occur in such a way that chaos is avoided
• It rests on values, norms and social expectations that
govern the conduct of the individuals

29. II.1 Social Structure
• Arrangement or interrelationship (roles which individuals
enact) of the parts that make up a whole
• Always linked to the notion of “function”
• A.R Radcliff Brown defined- Social structure as an
arrangement of persons in relation to institutions and roles

30. II.2 Social Functions
• Total social system-independent parts performing
functions-essential to the system
• Herbert Spencer-organic analogy-society as super organic
• Emile Durkheim-normal and pathological functioning of
social institutions-religion functionally reinforced social
solidarity

31. II.3 Status and Roles
• Status-Rank or social position that one holds in a
group/society in relation to other members of the group
• Eg. female, childhood, son of an upper class man

32. According to Ralph Linton, two types of status:
1. Ascribed status- the social position a person receives at
birth; eg. sex, ethnicity, family background
2. Achieved status- individual achieves during his lifetime
as a result of the exercise of knowledge, ability, skill ad
perseverance; Eg. Lawyer
• He also regarded role as the dynamic or the behavioural
aspect of status

33. • Role-expected patterns of behaviour associated with a given social
status
• Statuses-occupied (who a person is) eg. student
• Roles-played (what a person is expected to do) eg. class prefect,
member of Ambedkar Chair, etc., many roles for a single person
• Role Set- Concept by Robert K Merton- a summation of social roles;
e.g.., mother, daughter, wife, teacher, research scholar, activist etc
• Role Conflict- tension while performing different roles (domestic role
vs employee role);
• Role Strain- tension among the roles connected to a single status; eg.
mother nurturing the child without punishing him at the same time she
needs to teach disciplinary lessons as well.
• Can you identify your status and role sets?

34. II.4 Values
• Certain courses of actions are approved and certain other
courses are disapproved
• Values provide standards by which choices can be made
from available alternatives, and by which certain actions
may be judged
• “What ought to be”- ideas or concepts which we think
are valuable-Deals with moral imperatives
• Eg., we value good manners

35. II.5 Norms
• Expected way of behaving
• Eg. saying “please” and “thank you”
• Both norms and values are culturally defined- every
culture has different ways of behaving
• Teaches these rules through socialisation

36. II.6 Customs
• Socially accredited ways of acting (McIver)
• Long established cultural practices that have been
followed for generations
• These are the basis of rights and duties as envisaged in Law
• The foundation of ethics in society
• Undergo changes
• Marriage as a custom

37. II.7 Folkways
• Ways of folk- the way people customarily think, feel and behave in
the society
• Introduced by W.G Sumner-in his work ‘folkways’
• According to him, “folkways represent man’s unique means of adapting
himself to the environment, the ways of eating, greeting. Walking etc”
• These are not normative, but social- does not involve punishment but
may result in inviting ridicule or gossip in social circles
• Differ from society to society, subject to change; unplanned origin
• Folkways are the basis of every culture and are transmitted from
generation to generation
• Eg. shaking hands or embracing while meeting

38. II.8 Mores
• Coined by Sumner to designate those norms which are of great
significance and are considered crucial for the well-being of
society
• Violations leads to strong disapproval, conformity to them brings
social approval-morally right and wrong
• Mores exists as ends in themselves- when expressed in negative
form, they are called taboos
• Universal mores upheld by major religious traditions across the
world
• Eg: stealing is considered unacceptable under any circumstance

39. II.9 Law
• Most significant and formal means of social control
• Laws are the rules of behaviour established by a political
authority and backed by state power
• Early small-scale societies-folkways and mores were sufficient
to regulate the conduct of members
• Complex societies- need for a formal apparatus to regulate the
conduct of people in accordance with the mores
• Laws which are not supported by folkways and mores do not
have much chance of enforcement generally. What do you say?

40. II.10 Etiquette
• Meaning good manners
• Serves as a symbol of one’s status in society
• It informs numerous ways in which an individual interacts
with others
• Etiquette of one era looks outdated in another era
• Saying please and thank you, telephone etiquette

41. II.11 Fashion
• Novelty of dress, appearance or acquisition of goods
(cars, etc)
• Unstable and undergoes rapid changes

42. II.12 Fads
• Styles of preferences cultivated by small groups of
teenagers or friends
• It may range from preference for music to eccentric food
styles
• May also express the protest of some groups of people,
especially youngsters, who dislike social conventions

43. (II.13) Socialisation
• The process whereby the individual internalises the values,
norms, traditions of society and shapes his own behaviour in
accordance with the social expectations of others
• Life long process
• Through formal and informal means, tends to be cumulative
• Family is the basic unit of primary socialisation
• In many Asian societies, boys are trained differently from
girls;
• Family contains both authoritarian (parent-child) and
equalitarian (siblings) types of socialisation

44. Four types of Socialisation
1. Primary socialisation- the most essential and basic one; takes
place in the early stages the child, by trial and error, observation,
imitation
2. Secondary Socialisation- also called developmental
socialisation/adult socialisation; occurs as the individual acquires skills
and knowledge as he takes up responsibilities and plays adult roles
3. Anticipatory socialisation- concept by Robert K Merton- when an
individual learns the culture of groups to which he does not belong to,
with the anticipation of joining them; eg. learning professional skills
4. Re socialisation- when a social role is radically changed; happens
due to rapid social mobility

45. Agents of Socialisation
Peer group- consists of an individual’s equals in terms of
age and status; most of the time serve as a substitute for
warm, personal relationships which are essential for a proper
development of the adolescents
Schools and Academic Institutions-enduring affection may
exist between teachers and students; rebellious children in a
family may be controlled and brought back to normal
behaviour by sympathetic teachers; however, schooling
deprive children of natural, spontaneous learning and have
stifling influence
Other agents- neighbours, religion, culture, mass media

46. (II.14) Social Control
• Refers to the arrangements by which the values and norms are
communicated and instilled
• Agencies of social control- both formal and informal; e.g.., customs,
folkways, mores, public opinion, education, law, religion etc
• Objective- maintenance of the social equilibrium which is vital for the
continuation of social structure
• Preliterate societies- customs, taboos etc control the divergence;
supernatural elements instil fear of reprisal in the minds of deviant
individuals
• Complex Societies- social control seeks to ensure conformity of
individuals by adopting explicit and objective methods; religions and
moral, notions of ‘guilt’ and ‘sin’ as instruments of conformity

47. (II.15)Public Opinion
• The opinion formed by those constituting the public and
concerned with their well-being
• Influences the actions of the individuals
• Mass media play decisive roles in influencing the public
opinion- focus attention on the problems of society and
suggest ways to overcome them
• Media control over public opinion is not always balanced
or impartial- cannot reach large sections of people such as
rural and tribal hinder-land

48. Difference between public opinion and propaganda
• Public opinion is a rational decision by the members of
public which they arrive at after discussion
• Propaganda is a device by which a private interest or a
state apparatus spreads certain ideas, usually to gain a
certain advantage over people

49. (II.16)Social Conformity
• Individuals are guided by the normative patterns set by
society
• Conformity is a type of social influence involving a
change in belief or behaviour in order to fit in with a
group
• This change is in response to real (involving the physical
presence of others) or imagined (involving the pressure of
social norms/expectations) group pressure

50. (II.17)Social Deviance
• Nonconformity to a set of norms that are accepted by a
significant number of people in a community or society
• Some individuals do not come up to the expected standards
of behaviour- deviant behaviour-varies from society to
society (dowry, child marriage)
• Lack of harmony arises from the differences in values,
perspectives and the time dimension
• Murder, mob violence; sometimes reform and revolution too
expressed through deviance from the existing social order

51. (II.18)Sanctions
• Sanctions are meted out to deviant individuals of the society
• eg. fines, confiscations, prison terms, exile, death sentence
and so on
• Milder social sanctions- not incorporated into legal
documents- eg. frowns, contempt, ridicule etc
• Olden days- ostracism-expulsion of the deviant individual
from the security of the group
• People are rewarded for their good conduct and punished for
bad conduct

52. (III) Social Processes
(III.1)Culture and Civilisation
• Generally taken as synonyms
• Alfred Weber- on the basis of cognitive elements;
civilisation primarily include scientific or technical
knowledge where as culture is the artistic, religious,
philosophical and similar products of a society
• Civilisation can be measured and culture not

53. (III.1.1) Ethnocentrism
• The view that one’s own culture is better than that of
others
• In human history, it played havoc on civilisation
• The superior attitude of colonials towards the “natives”, the
Nazi notion of Nordic racial superiority, ethnic conflicts etc
are examples
• Positive aspects as well- many achievements in sports,
arts, adventure etc are often inspired by this feeling

54. (III.1.2) Cultural Diffusion
• Spread of cultural beliefs and activities from one group of people to
another
• When two people come into contact with one another or live in physical
proximity, words, gestures, customs, beliefs, tools, techniques etc spread
from one to the other
• e.g.. food habits, English as the global language

55. (III.1.3) Acculturation
• The process by which an individual or group adopts the
values of one culture while still retaining their own culture
• Two way process; e.g..,spread of Western culture in colonies

56. (III.1.4) Assimilation
• The process whereby group differences gradually
disappear-becomes more and more alike
• Emergent process- According to Robert Park,
assimilation not necessarily limited to the incorporation of
one social group with all its ideals and cultures into
another group; interacting groups may give and take over
a period of time and a relatively new group may emerge as
a result of prolonged interaction
• Racial and ethnic prejudices-assimilation is delayed or
held up-aiming at separate identity

57. (II.1.5) Integration
• Cultural integration is a form of cultural exchange in which
one group assumes the beliefs, practices and rituals of
another group without sacrificing the characteristics of its
own culture
• Becoming whole-does not destroy diversity
• Several cultures come together to form a new multi-
cultural society and each culture keeps its character,
feature and values

58. (III.2) Social Interaction
• Social interaction is the social exchange between two or more
individuals
• Building block of society
• Cooperation, competition and conflict

59. (III.2.1) Cooperation
• Cooperation is the process in which people work together to
achieve shared goals
• A universal process of human behaviour; Socialist philosophy
is based on cooperative thinking; UNO, UNESCO;
international cooperation

60. (III.2.2) Competition
• Competition is a process by which two or more people
attempt to achieve a goal that only one can attain
• Both positive and negative effects

61. (III.2.3) Conflict
Everything is fair in war and love
• Conflict is the process by which people attempt to physically or
socially conquer each other.
• Extreme form of social behaviour
• Also have positive and negative functions- unity, social change
etc

62. Reference
• T.K Oommen and C.N Venugopal, Sociology for law
students
• Anderson (1996) An Introduction to Sociology
• Seema and Sangwan, Essential Sociology for Civil
Services
• Rekha Venugopal, Sociology for Beginners