Basic Concepts & Terms of Sociology

We have explained in details the various terms used in Sociology. Check out the alphatically
listed terms of sociology for your reference. If there are any terms commonly used in Sociology
and that have not been explained in out list of Sociology Terms, please write to us and we will
add it to the list of terms of sociology for your benefit. After all it is the basic concepts of any
subject that requires clarity and if your basic concepts of Sociology are not clear you are bound
to remain unclear with many topics.

 Society
o Definitions Of Society
o Types Of Societies
 Community
 Cultural Relativism
 Association
o Main Characteristics Of Association
 Culture
o The Development Of Culture
 Diffusion
 Cultural Lag
 Cultural Relativism
 Ethnocentrism
 Values
o General And Specific Values
o Means Values, Ends Values, And Ultimate Values
o Values Conflict With One Another
 Social Norms
 Social Institutions
 Cooperation
 Competition
o Nature And Characteristics Of Competition
 Conflict
o Harmful Effects Of Conflict
o Useful Functions Of Conflict
 Accommodation
 Assimilation
 Acculturation
 Social Groups
o Primary Groups
o Secondary Groups
 o Reference Groups
 Social System
 Status And Role
o Ascribed Statuses
o Achieved Statuses
 Socialization
 Deviance
 Conformity
 Law
 Customs
 Acculturation
 Integration
 Social Distance
 Some Of Terms And The Theorists
 Important Points To Remember
 Important Books And Authors
 Important Concepts And Their Theorists
 Sociology of Media

Society
The term society is most fundamental to sociology. It is derived from the Latin word socius
which means companionship or friendship. Companionship means sociability. According to
George Simmel it is this element of sociability which defines the true essence of society. It
indicates that man always lives in the company of other people. Man is a social animal said
Aristotle centuries ago. Man needs society for his living, working and enjoying life. Society has
become an essential condition for human life to continue. We can define society as a group of
people who share a common culture, occupy a particular territorial area and feel themselves to
constitute a unified and distinct entity. It is the mutual interactions and interrelations of
individuals and groups.

 Definitions of Society

August Comte the father of sociology saw society as a social organism possessing a harmony of
structure and function.Emile Durkheim the founding father of the modern sociology treated
society as a reality in its own right. According to Talcott Parsons Society is a total complex of
human relationships in so far as they grow out of the action in terms of means-end relationship
intrinsic or symbolic.G.H Mead conceived society as an exchange of gestures which involves the
use of symbols. Morris Ginsberg defines society as a collection of individuals united by certain
relations or mode of behavior which mark them off from others who do not enter into these
relations or who differ from them in behavior. Cole sees Society as the complex of organized
associations and institutions with a community. According to Maclver and Page society is a
system of usages and procedures of authority and mutual aid of many groupings and divisions, of
controls of human behavior and liberties. This ever changing complex system which is called
society is a web of social relationship.

 Types of Societies

Writers have classified societies into various categories Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft of
Tonnies, mechanical and organic solidarities of Durkheim, status and contract of Maine, and
militant and industrial societies of Spencer. All these thinkers have broadly divided society into
pre-industrial and post-industrial societies. Sociologists like Comte based their classification of
societies on intellectual development. Most of them concede the evolutionary nature of society-
one type leading to the other. One more way of dividing societies is that of Marx. His
classification of society is based on the institutional framework of society as determined by a
group of people who control the means of production. Marx distinguishes five principal types of
societies: primitive, Asiatic, ancient, feudal and capitalist.

Following these classifications, sociologists often refer to societies as primitive or modern non-
literate or literate. A more recent kind of classification which is also used while distinguishing
societies into types is the one between open and closed societies. A closed society is the one
which is a traditional and simple society or a totalitarian State tends to resist change, while an
open society admits change.

None of these classifications is accurate; for every major type have number of sub-types. One
type like the capitalist can be of various kinds like carboniferous type, finance capital, and the
modern neo-colonial or multi-national type. Further, it is to be borne in mind that the chief task
of a sociologist is not that of identifying societies but finding out whether a particular kind of
society has the potential to nurture, defend and survive. Such a study alone can reveal the
sociological aspects of societies and thereby facilitating understanding of societies as they are,
and, if need be, activate the required changes. In other words, sociology based on values relies on
objective analysis of societies.

However, in recent years there have been several studies of what are variously called irrigation
civilization or hydraulic societies. These studies have been related to the general study of
bureaucracy, but little has yet been done in the way of large scale comparative work of various
complex organized societies. It is not enough, however, to characterize pre-British India as an
irrigation civilization with a centralized bureaucracy and a village system of production. The
unity and stability of Indian society depended also upon two other factors, caste and religion.
There, the aspect of caste to be emphasized is not so much its rigid hierarchical character and the
way in which it divided groups from each other, as its integrating function, closely connected
with religion.

M.N. Srinivas, in a discussion of Indian social structure, observes that caste guarantees
autonomy to a community into relation with numerous other communities all going to form a
hierarchy. The importance of such an institution is obvious in a vast country like India which has
been the meeting place of many different cultures in the past and which has always had
considerable regional diversity. While the autonomy of a sub- caste was preserved it was also
brought into relation with others and the hierarchy was also a scale of generally agreed values.

The work of K. Wittfoged suggests that many important similarities can be found, in ancient
Egypt, in Byzantium and elsewhere especially in the social functions of the priests and in the
elements and caste revealed in detailed regulation of the division of labor. Each human group
develops its own social and political structure in terms of its own culture and history. There
broad types of social structures may be distinguished. First, the tribal society represented by the
social structures of African tribes second, the agrarian social structure represented by the
traditional Indian society. And the third, the industrial social structure represented by the
industrially advanced countries Europe and U.S.A. Sociologists also speak of yet another type,
called post industrial society, which is emerging out of the industrial society.

Community

The term community is one of the most elusive and vague in sociology and is by now largely
without specific meaning. At the minimum it refers to a collection of people in a geographical
area. Three other elements may also be present in any usage. (1) Communities may be thought of
as collections of people with a particular social structure; there are, therefore, collections which
are not communities. Such a notion often equates community with rural or pre-industrial society
and may, in addition, treat urban or industrial society as positively destructive. (2) A sense of
belonging or community spirit. (3) All the daily activities of a community, work and non work,
take place within the geographical area, which is self contained. Different accounts of
community will contain any or all of these additional elements.

We can list out the characteristics of a community as follows:

 Territory
 Close and informal relationships
 Mutuality
 Common values and beliefs
 Organized interaction
 Strong group feeling
 Cultural similarity

Talcott Parsons defined community as collectivity the members of which share a common
territorial area as their base of operation for daily activities. According to Tonnies community is
defined as an organic natural kind of social group whose members are bound together by the
sense of belonging, created out of everyday contacts covering the whole range of human
activities. He has presented ideal-typical pictures of the forms of social associations contrasting
the solidarity nature of the social relations in the community with the large scale and impersonal
relations thought to characterize industrializing societies. Kingsley Davis defined it as the
smallest territorial group that can embrace all aspects of social life. For Karl Mannheim
community is any circle of people who live together and belong together in such a way that they
do not share this or that particular interest only but a whole set of interests.

Association

Men have diverse needs, desires and interests which demand satisfaction. There are three ways
of fulfilling these needs. Firstly they may act independently each in his own way without caring
for others. This is unsocial with limitations. Secondly men may seek their ends through conflicts
with one another. Finally men may try to fulfill their ends through cooperation and mutual
assistance. This cooperation has a reference to association.

When a group or collection of individuals organize themselves expressly for the purpose of
pursuing certain of its interests together on a cooperative pursuit an association is said to be born.
According to Morris 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 organization with a view to securing a
specific end or specific ends. The associations may be found in different fields. No single
association can satisfy all the interests of the individual or individuals. Since Man has many
interests, he organizes various associations for the purpose of fulfilling varied interests. He may
belong to more than one organization.

Main characteristics of Association

 Association: An association is formed or created by people. It is a social group. Without

people there can be no association. It is an organized group. An unorganized group like
crowd or mob cannot be an association.
 Common interest: An association is not merely a collection of individuals. It consists of
those individuals who have more or less the same interests. Accordingly those who have
political interests may join political association and those who have religious interests may
join religious associations and so on.
 Cooperative spirit: An association is based on the cooperative spirit of its members. People
work together to achieve some definite purposes. For example a political party has to work
together as a united group on the basis of cooperation in order to fulfill its objective of
coming to power.
 Organization: Association denotes some kind of organization. An association is known
essentially as an organized group. Organization gives stability and proper shape to an
association. Organization refers to the way in which the statuses and roles are distributed
among the members.
 Regulation of relations: Every association has its own ways and means of regulating the
relation of its members. Organization depends on this element of regulation. They may
assume written or unwritten forms.
 Association as agencies: Associations are means or agencies through which their members
seek to realize their similar or shared interests. Such social organizations necessarily act not
merely through leaders but through officials or representatives as agencies. Associations
normally act through agents who are responsible for and to the association.
 Durability of association: An association may be permanent or temporary. There are some
long standing associations like the state; family, religious associations etc.Some associations
may be temporary in nature.

Culture

As Homo sapiens, evolved, several biological characteristics particularly favorable to the

development of culture appeared in the species. These included erect posture; a favorable brain
structure; stereoscopic vision; the structure of the hand, a flexible shoulder; and year round
sexual receptivity on the part of the female. None of these biological characteristics alone, of
course, accounts for the development of culture. Even in combination, all they guarantee is that
human beings would be the most gifted members of the animal kingdom.

The distinctive human way of life that we call culture did not have a single definite beginning in
time any more than human beings suddenly appearing on earth. Culture evolved slowly just as
some anthropoids gradually took on more human form. Unmistakably, tools existed half a
million years ago and might be considerably older. If, for convenience, we say that culture is
500,000 years old, it is still difficult day has appeared very recently.

The concept of culture was rigorously defined by E.B. Taylor in 1860s. According to him culture
is the sum total of ideas, beliefs, values, material cultural equipments and non-material aspects
which man makes as a member of society. Taylor's theme that culture is a result of human
collectivity has been accepted by most anthropologists. Tylarian idea can be discerned in a
modern definition of culture - culture is the man-made part of environment (M.J. Herskovits).

From this, it follows that culture and society are separable only at the analytical level: at the
actual existential level, they can be understood as the two sides of the same coin. Culture, on one
hand, is an outcome of society and, on the other hand, society is able to survive and perpetuate
itself because of the existence of culture. Culture is an ally of man in the sense that it enhances
man's adaptability to nature. It is because of the adaptive value of culture that Herskovits states
that culture is a screen between man and nature. Culture is an instrument by which man exploits
the environment and shapes it accordingly.

In showing affection, the Maori rub noses; the Australians rub faces; the Chinese place nose to
cheeks; the Westerners kiss; some groups practice spitting on the beloved. Or, consider this;
American men are permitted to laugh in public but not to cry; Iroquois men are permitted to do
neither in public; Italian men are permitted to do both. Since this is true, physiological factors
have little to do with when men laugh and cry and when they do not do either. The variability of
the human experience simply cannot be explained by making reference to human biology, or to
the climate and geography. Instead, we must consider culture as the fabric of human society.

Culture can be conceived as a continuous, cumulative reservoir containing both material and
non-material elements that are socially transmitted from generation to generation. Culture is
continuous because cultural patterns transcend years, reappearing in successive generations.
Culture is cumulative because each generation contributes to the reservoir.

An inherent paradox exists within the social heritage where culture tends to be both static and
dynamic. Humans, once having internalized culture, attach positive value judgments to it and are
more or less reluctant to change their established ways of life. Through most of recorded history
men have apparently considered that change per say is undesirable and that the ideal condition is
stability. The prospect of change can seem threatening, yet every human culture is subject to and
does experience change. Those who speak of a generation gap portray two generations at odds
with each other. According to this view, the parent generation embodied the dynamic dimension.
We contend that if, in fact, a generation gap does exist in modern societies, and the differences
are of degree and not of substance. Part of the social heritage of almost every modern society is
the high value placed on progress. Parents encourage young people to seek progress, and
progress is a form of social change. Debates between generations in modern societies are seldom
about whether any change should occur. The debates are usually about how such change should
occur, how fast it should occur, and which methods should be used for bringing about change.

 Development of Culture

The distinctive human way of life that we call culture did not have a single definite beginning.
This is to say that human beings did not suddenly appear on earth. Culture evolved slowly just as
anthropoids gradually took on more human form. The earliest tools cannot be dated precisely.
Australopithecus may have used stones as weapons as long as five million years ago. Stones that
have been used as weapon do not differ systematically from other stones, however, and there is
no way to tell for sure. The first stones that show reliable evidence of having been shaped as
tools trace back some 500,000 to 600,000 years. The use of fire can be dated from 200,000 to
300,000 years ago. Tools of bone had come into existence by 100,000 B.C. the age of
Neanderthals. The Neanderthals also apparently had some form of languages and buried their
deal with an elaborateness that indicates the possibility of religious ceremonies. Cro-Magnon,
dating from 35,000 years ago, was a superior biological specimen and had a correspondingly
more elaborate culture. Their cave paintings have been found. They also made jewellery of shells
and teeth, and carved statuettes of women that emphasized pregnancy and fertility. They made
weapons of bone, horn, and ivory, and used needle in the fabrication of garments.
Thus, a striking parallel appears between the evolution of Homo sapiens and the development of
culture. The parallel cannot be drawn in detail because all inferences to the period before the
dawn of history must be made from material artifacts, and these tell little about the total way of
life of the people who used them. Moreover, the parallel between biological and cultural
evolution should not be overdrawn. Cro-Magnon's brain capacity, for example, was large, but
factors having to do with the growth of culture itself were sufficient to prevent any quantum leap
in the development of learned behaviour.

Diffusion

In spite of the fact that invention occupied a dominant place in culture growth over such a long
period of time, most of the content of modern cultures appears to have been gained through
diffusion. The term diffusion refers to the borrowing of cultural elements from other societies in
contrast to their independent invention within a host society.

In order for diffusion to operate on a substantial scale, there must be separate societies that have
existed long enough to have elaborated distinctive ways of life. Moreover, those societies must
be in contact with one another so that substantial borrowing is possible. These conditions
probably developed late in the evolutionary process. Once begun, however, culture borrowing
became so pervasive that most of the elements of most modern cultures, including our own,
originated with other people.

Culture has grown, then, through a combination of invention and diffusion. It grew slowly at
first, mostly as the result of invention. As the culture base expanded and societies became
differentiated, the large -scale diffusion of traits become possible and the rate of growth speeded
up. In modern times, and particularly in the Western world, the rate of culture growth has
become overwhelming.

Cultural Lag

The role played by material inventions, that is, by technology, in social change probably received
most emphasis in the work of William F. Ogburn. It was Ogburn, also, who was chiefly
responsible for the idea that the rate of invention within society is a function of the size of the
existing culture base. He saw the rate of material invention as increasing with the passage of
time.Ogburn believed that material and non-material cultures change in different ways. Change
in material culture is believed to have a marked directional or progressive character. This is
because there are agreed-upon standards of efficiency that are used to evaluate material
inventions. To use air-planes, as an example, we keep working to develop planes that will fly,
higher and faster, and carry more payloads on a lower unit cost. Because airplanes can be
measured against these standards, inventions in this area appear rapidly and predictably. In the
area of non-material culture, on the other hand there often are no such generally accepted
standards. Whether one prefers a Hussain, a Picasso, or a Gainsborough, for example, is a matter
of taste, and styles of painting fluctuate unevenly. Similarly, in institutions such as government
and the economic system there are competing forms of styles, Governments may be
dictatorships, oligarchies, republics or democracies.

Economic system includes communist, socialist, feudal, and capitalist ones. As far as can be told,
there is no regular progression from one form of government or economic system to another. The
obvious directional character of change in material culture is lacking in many areas of non-
material culture. In addition to the difference in the directional character of change, Ogburn and
others believe that material culture tends to change faster than non-material culture. Certainly
one of the imperative aspects of modern American life is the tremendous development of
technology. Within this century, life has been transformed by invention of the radio, TV,
automobiles, airplanes, rockets, transistors, and computers and so on. While this has been
happening in material culture, change in government, economic system, family life, education,
and religion seems to have been much slower. This difference in rates of cultural change led
Ogburn to formulate the concept of culture lag. Material inventions, he believed bring changes
that require adjustments in various areas of non-material culture.Invention of the automobile, for
instance, freed young people from direct parental observation, made it possible for them to work
at distances from their homes, and, among other things, facilitated crime by making escape
easier. Half a century earlier, families still were structured as they were in the era of the family
farm when young people were under continuous observation and worked right on the homestead.

Culture lag is defined as the time between the appearance of a new material invention and the
making of appropriate adjustments in corresponding area of non-material culture. This time is
often long. It was over fifty years, for example, after the typewriter was invented before it was
used systematically in offices. Even today, we may have a family system better adapted to a farm
economy than to an urban industrial one, and nuclear weapons exist in a diplomatic atmosphere
attuned to the nineteenth century. As the discussion implies, the concept of culture lag is
associated with the definition of social problems. Scholars envision some balance or adjustment
existing between material and non-material cultures. That balance is upset by the appearance of
raw material objects. The resulting imbalance is defined as a social problem until non-material
culture changes in adjustment to the new technology.

Cultural Relativism

This is a method whereby different societies or cultures are analyzed objectively without using
the values of one culture to judge the worth of another. We cannot possibly understand the
actions of other groups if we analyze them in terms of our motives and values. We must interpret
their behavior in the light of their motives, habits and values if we are to understand them.
Cultural relativism means that the function and meaning of a trait are relative to its cultural
setting. A trait is neither good nor bad in itself. It is good or bad only with reference to the
culture in which it is to function. Fur clothing is good in the Arctic but not in the tropics. In some
hunting societies which occasionally face long periods of hunger to be fat is good; it has real
survival value and fat people are admired. In our society to be fat is not only unnecessary but is
known to be unhealthful and fat people are not admired.

The concept of cultural relativism does not mean that all customs are equally valuable, nor does
it imply that no customs are harmful. Some patterns of behavior may be injurious everywhere,
but even such patterns serve some purpose in the culture and the society will suffer unless a
substitute is provided. The central point in cultural relativism is that in a particular cultural
setting certain traits are right because they work well in that setting while other traits are wrong
because they would clash painfully with parts of that culture.

Ethnocentrism

Closely related to the concept of cultural relativity is the concept of ethnocentrism. The world
ethno comes from Greek and refers to a people, nation, or cultural grouping, while centric comes
from Latin and refers, of course to the centre. The term ethnocentrism then refers to the tendency
for each society to place its own culture patterns at the centre of things. Ethnocentrism is the
practice of comparing other cultural practices with those of one's own and automatically finding
those other cultural practices to be inferior. It is the habit of each group taking for granted the
superiority of its culture. It makes our culture into a yardstick with which to measure all other
cultures as good or bad, high or low, right or queer in proportion as they resemble ours.

Ethnocentrism is a universal human reaction found in all known societies, in all groups and in
practically all individuals. Everyone learns ethnocentrism while growing up. The possessiveness
of the small child quickly translates "into my toys are better than your toys" Parents; unless they
are quite crude, outwardly discourage their children from verbalizing such beliefs. But in private,
they may reassure their off springs that their possessions are indeed very nice. Much of the
learning of ethnocentrism is indirect and unintended, but some of it is deliberate. History for
example, is often taught to glorify the achievements of one's own nation, and religious, civic and
other groups disparage their competitors openly. Among adults, ethnocentrism is simply a fact of
life.

Once one becomes conscious of ethnocentrism, the temptation is strong to evaluate it in moral
terms; to label it with epithets such as bigoted chauvinistic, and so on, and to imply that one who
has not discovered and compensated for his or her ethnocentric biases is not worthy. This
incidentally, is another form of ethnocentrism. The important point, however, is that
ethnocentrism is one of the features of culture and , like the rest of culture , it needs to be
evaluated in terms of its contribution to the maintenance of social order and the promotion of
social change.

The functions of ethnocentrism in maintaining order are more apparent than those which
promote social change. First, ethnocentrism encourages the solidarity of the group. Believing
that one's own ways are the best, encourages a "we" feeling with associates and strengthens the
idea that loyalty to comrades and preservation of the basis for superiority are important values.
Positively, ethnocentrism promotes continuance of the status quo negatively, it discourages
change.

Second, ethnocentrism hinders the under standing of the cooperation with other groups. If the
ways of one's own group are best, there is little incentive to interact with inferior groups. In fact,
attitudes of suspicion, disdain and hostility are likely to be engendered. Extreme ethnocentrism is
likely to promote conflict, as the records of past wars, and religious and racial conflicts reveal.

Conflict, of course often leads to social change and in that sense ethnocentrism becomes a
vehicle for the promotion of social change. It does so, however, through encouragement of its
peaceful evolution. There is little doubt that most social scientists are biased in favor of peaceful
social change and are opposed to conflict. Consequently, they tend even if subtly, to denigrate
ethnocentrisms and to imply that students must rid themselves of it if they are to learn
effectively. In so doing, sociologists operate implicitly from a combination of evolutionary and
functionalist models. Recent years have seen this stance called into question. The revolutionary
efforts of groups who see themselves as downtrodden blacks, the poor, women, and young
people have included deliberate efforts to foster ethnocentrism as a means of strengthening
themselves. Slogans such as' "black power" conflict model of society from which they operate.

Values

The term 'value' has a meaning in sociology that is both similar to and yet distinct from the
meaning assigned to it in everyday speech. In sociological usage, values are group conceptions
of the relative desirability of things. Sometimes 'value' means 'price'. But the sociological
concept of value is far broader than here neither of the objects being compared can be assigned a
price.

What is the value, for illustration, of the right of every human being to dignity in comparison to
the need to improve the technical aspects of education? This issue is directly involved in the
desegregation of the public schools and has been debated bitterly. Some attempts have been
made to estimate the dollar costs of the old system of segregated schools and, more recently,
estimates have been made of the costs of using both black and white children to end segregation.
Most of the social costs of the two systems, however, defy statement in monetary terms and most
people take their stand on the issue in terms of deeply held convictions about what is important
in life.

The idea of deeply held convictions is more illustrative of the sociological concept of value than
is the concept of price. In addition, there are four other aspects of the sociological concept of
value. They are: (1) values exist at different levels of generality or abstraction; (2) values tend to
be hierarchically arranged (3) values are explicit and implicit in varying degrees; and (4) values
often are in conflict with one another.

 General and Specific Values

Such values as democracy, freedom, and the right to dissent are stated at a very broad level of
generality. Each of them pervades many aspects of life and each is anything but situationally
specific. If a comprehensive list of values were prepared, a large proportion of them would be
found to be very general and abstract. Values are, however, also stated in fairly specific terms.
Thus, we may define values as physical health or affluence. On more specific levels yet, we may
value between symphonies or powerful automobiles. We may also value silk rather than nylon or
the writing of a particular novelist rather than that of another.

 Means Values, ends values, and ultimate values

Values tend to be hierarchically arranged. This may be shown through use of the concepts of
means values and ends values. As the words themselves imply, means values are instrumental
values in that they are sought as part of the effort to achieve other values. Ends values are both
more general and more important in the eyes of the groups who are doing the valuing. Thus, if
health is an American value, then the maintenance of good nutrition, the securing of proper rest
and the avoidance of carcinogenic and mind-destroying substances all become means to that end.

The distinction between means values and ends values is a matter of logic and relates to the
context of a particular discussion. When the context shifts, so also may change the definition of
particular values as means values or ends values. To a narcotics agent, the avoidance of
hallucinogenic substances might be defined as an end in itself requiring no further justification.
To a religious person, health might not be an end in itself but only a means to the continued
worship of the deity. One additional distinction may be useful that implied in the concept of
ultimate values. The concept of ultimate value is arrived at by following the same logical
procedures used in distinguishing between means values and end values, and continuing the
process until it can be pursued no further. If good nutrition is sought as a means to health, health
as a means to longevity, and long life to permit one to be of service to God, is there any higher or
more ultimate value than service to the deity? Regardless of which way the question is answered,
it is obvious that one is about to arrive at an ultimate value that can no longer be justified in
terms of other values.

 Values conflict with one another

The examples of the right to dissent, conformity, and respect for authority as American values
illustrate the point that values frequently are in conflict with one another. At least in complex
societies, there is generally not just one value system but multiple, overlapping, and sometimes
opposing ones. In America, for example, the problem is not that they value religions working
over personal gratification or vice versa, but that they value them both at the same time; along
with the achievement of status, the accumulation of wealth, and a host of other values. These
potentially conflicting values are so pervasive that it is virtually impossible to pursue some of
them without violating others. Societies probably differ in the extent to which their value
systems are internally consistent and in small homogeneous societies than in large heterogeneous
ones. American society has long had the reputation of embracing many and deep value conflicts.

Social Norms

Social norms grow out of social value and both serve to differentiate human social behavior from
that of other species. The significance of learning in behavior varies from species to species and
is closely linked to processes of communication. Only human beings are capable of elaborate
symbolic communication and of structuring their behavior in terms of abstract preferences that
we have called values. Norms are the means through which values are expressed in behavior.

Norms generally are the rules and regulations that groups live by. Or perhaps because the words,
rules and regulations, call to mind some kind of formal listing, we might refer to norms as the
standards of behavior of a group. For while some of the appropriate standards of behavior in
most societies are written down, many of them are not that formal. Many are learned, informally,
in interaction with other people and are passed "that way from generation to generation.

The term "norms" covers an exceedingly wide range of behaviour. So that the whole range of
that behaviour may be included. Sociologists have offered the following definition. Social norms
are rules developed by a group of people that specify how people must, should, may, should not,
and must not behave in various situations.

Some norms are defined by individual and societies as crucial to the society. For example, all
members of the group are required to wear clothing and to bury their dead. Such "musts" are
often labeled "mores", a term coined by the American sociologist William Graham Sumner.

Many social norms are concerned with "should "; that is, there is some pressure on the individual
to conform but there is some leeway permitted also. The 'should behaviors' are what Sumner
called "folk-ways"; that is, conventional ways of doing things that are not defined as crucial to
the survival of either the individual or the society. The 'should behaviors' in our own society
include the prescriptions that people's clothes should be clean, and that death should be
recognized with public funerals. A complete list of the should behaviors in a complex society
would be virtually without end.

The word "May" in the definition of norms indicates that, in most groups, there is a wide range
of behaviors in which the individual is given considerable choice. To continue the illustration, in
Western countries girls may select to wear dresses or halters and jeans. Funerals may be held
with or without flowers, with the casket open or closed, with or without religious participation,
and so on. We have confined our examples to just two areas, but students should be able to
construct their own examples from all areas of life.
The remainder of the definition, including the 'should-not' and the 'must-not' behaviours,
probably does not require lengthy illustration because such examples are implicit in what has
already been said. One should not belch in public, dump garbage in the street, run stop signs, or
tell lies. One must not kill another person or have sexual intercourse with one's sister or brother.

Social norms cover almost every conceivable situation, and they vary from standards where
almost complete conformity is demanded to those where there is great freedom of choice. Norms
also vary in the kinds of sanctions that are attached to violation of the norms. Since norms derive
from values, and since complex societies have multiple and conflicting value systems, it follows
that norms frequently are in conflict also.

Taking the illustration of American sex norms, two proscriptive norms prohibit premarital
intercourse and extramarital intercourse. But many boys also have been taught that sex is good
and that they should seek to "score" with girls whenever possible. Somewhat similarly, girls have
been taught that promiscuous intercourse before marriage is bad; but they have also been taught
that sex is acceptable within true love relationships. Members of both sexes, then, find
themselves faced with conflicting demands for participation in sex and for abstinence from it.
They also discover that there are sanctions associated with either course of action.

Normative conflict is also deeply involved in social change. As statistical norms come to differ
too blatantly from existing prescriptive norms, new prescriptive norms give sanction to formerly
prohibited behaviour and even extend it. Recent changes in the sex norms of teenage and young
adult groups provide examples. The change is more apparent in communal living groups where
sometimes there is an explicit ideology of sexual freedom and the assumption that sexual
activities will be shared with all members of the group. In less dramatic fashion, the change is
evident among couples who simply begin to live together without the formality of a marriage
ceremony.

Social Institutions

A social institution is a complex, integrated set of social norms organized around the
preservation of a basic societal value. Obviously, the sociologist does not define institutions in
the same way as does the person on the street. Lay persons are likely to use the term "institution"
very loosely, for churches, hospitals, jails, and many other things as institutions.

Sociologists often reserve the term "institution" to describe normative systems that operate in
five basic areas of life, which may be designated as the primary institutions. (1) In determining
Kinship; (2) in providing for the legitimate use of power; (3) in regulating the distribution of
goods and services; (4) in transmitting knowledge from one generation to the next; and (5) in
regulating our relation to the supernatural. In shorthand form, or as concepts, these five basic
institutions are called the family, government, economy, education and religion.
The five primary institutions are found among all human groups. They are not always as highly
elaborated or as distinct from one another as into the United States, but, in rudimentary form at
last, they exist everywhere. Their universality indicates that they are deeply rooted in human
nature and that they are essential in the development and maintenance of orders. Sociologists
operating in terms of the functionalist model society have provided the clearest explanation of
the functions served by social institutions. Apparently there are certain minimum tasks that must
be performed in all human groups. Unless these tasks are performed adequately, the group will
cease to exist. An analogy may help to make the point. We might hypothesize that cost
accounting department is essential to the operation of a large corporation. A company might
procure a superior product and distribute it then at the price which is assigned to it, the company
will soon go out of business. Perhaps the only way to avoid this is to have a careful accounting of
the cost of each step in the production and distribution process.

Cooperation

Cooperation involves individuals or groups working together for the achievement of their
individual or collective goals. In its simplest form, cooperation may involve only two people
who work together towards a common goal. Two college students working together to complete
a laboratory experiment, or two inter-city youths working together to protect their 'turf' from
violation by outsiders are examples. In these cases, solidarity between the collaborators is
encouraged and they share jointly the reward of their cooperation. Again at the level of two-
person interactions, the goals towards which the cooperation parties work may be consistent with
each other, but they may not be identical or shared. From the college experience again, student
and professor may cooperate towards the student's mastery of professor's discipline, but the
student may be working to make a good grade while the professor is working to establish or
reinforce his/her reputation as a good teacher. If some of their rewards are shared, some also are
individual but attainable only through joint effort. The cooperating parties in this case may be
either neutral or kindly disposed towards one another but their relationship is not likely to have
lasting solidarity.

Man can't associate without cooperating, without working together in the pursuit of like to
common interests. It can be divided into five principal types.

1. Direct Cooperation: Those activities in which people do like things together play together,
worship together, labor together in myriad ways. The essential character is that people do in
company, the things which they can also do separately or in isolation. They do them together
because it brings social satisfaction.

2. Indirect Cooperation: Those activities in which people do definitely unlike tasks toward a
single end. Here the famous principle of the 'division of labour' is introduced, a principle that is
imbedded in the nature of social revealed wherever people combine their difference for mutual
satisfaction or for a common end.
3. Primary Cooperation: It is found in primary groups such as family, neighborhood, friends
and so on. Here, there is an identity end. The rewards for which everyone works are shared or
meant to be shared, with every other member in the group. Means and goals become one, for
cooperation itself is a highly prized value.

4. Secondary Cooperation: It is the characteristic feature of the modern civilized society and is
found mainly in social groups. It is highly formalized and specialized. Each performs his/her
task, and thus helps others to perform their tasks, so that he/she can separately enjoy the fruits of
his/her cooperation.

5. Tertiary Cooperation: It may be found between 2 or more political parties, castes, tribes,
religions groups etc. It is often called accommodation. The two groups may cooperate and work
together for antagonistic goals.

Cooperation is important in the life of an individual that it is difficult for man to survive without
it. C.H. Cooley says that Cooperation arises only when men realize that they have a common
interest. They have sufficient theme, intelligence and self control, to seek this interest through
united action.

Competition

Just as cooperation exists as a universal form of social interaction, so is competition found in all
societies. Competition grows out of the fact that human needs and desires appears to be
insatiable and the goods, prestige, and perquisites that are the rewards for successful competition
always are in short supply. People everywhere compete for dwelling space, for mates, for
elaborate clothing and other bodily ornaments, and for wealth whether defined in terms of land,
animals, money or even cockle shells.

Although all societies acknowledge and support the value of competition in some areas of life,
they differ in the relative emphasis that they place on competition and cooperation, cooperation
and competition always exist as reciprocal aspects of the same general experience. European
capitalist society, generally, has accepted the view that the collective interest further by
individual and group competition spurs people on to accomplish more than can be managed
under other circumstances. This stands in marked contrast to the beliefs of some other societies;
to that of the Zuni Indians of the American South west. The Zunis discouraged the accumulation
of wealth and they minimize status differences among themselves.

They also regard overt competitiveness as a matter of taste in their children. There is some
justification for this reaction to competition. Competition, however, is an ideal type. An ideal
type is a form of concept that is constructed by taking one or more characteristics of a
phenomenon and accentuating those characteristics to their logical maximum or reducing them to
their logical minimum. The type thus constructed does not represent reality because the very
process of its construction involves exaggeration. Ideal types, nevertheless, are very useful as
logical standards by which reality can be measured. This often is done by making a pair of ideal
types and letting them represent the ends of a continuum or scale. Because the ends of the scale
are defined in terms of logical extremes, no existing case falls at either end of the continuum, but
all cases may be ranged somewhere along the continuum between the two end points.

 Nature and characteristics of Competition

1. Scarcity as a condition of competition: Wherever there are commonly desired goods and
services, there is competition. Infact economics starts with its fundamental proposition that while
human wants are unlimited the resources that can satisfy these wants are strictly limited. Hence
people compete for the possession of these limited resources. As Hamilton has pointed out
competition is necessitated by a population of insatiable wants and a world of stubborn and
inadequate resources.

2. Competition is continuous: it is found virtually in every area of social activity and social
interaction- particularly, competition for status, wealth and fame is always present in almost all
societies.

3. Competition is a cause of social change: Competition is a cause of social change in that; it

causes persons to adopt new forms of behavior in order to attain desired ends. New forms of
behavior involve inventions and innovations which naturally bring about social change.

4. Competition may be personal or impersonal: Competition is normally directed towards a goal

and not against any individual. Some times, it takes place without the actual knowledge of other's
existence. It is impersonal as in the case of civil service examination in which the contestants are
not even aware of one another's identity. Competition may also be personal as when two
individuals contest for election to an office. As competition becomes more personal it leads to
rivalry and shades into conflict. Competition in the social world is largely impersonal.

5. Competition is always governed by norms: Competition is not limitless nor is it un- regulated.
There is no such thing as unrestricted competition. Such a phrase is contradiction in terms. Moral
norms or legal rules always govern and control competition. Competitors are expected to use fair
tactics and not cut throat devices.

Some sociologists have also spoken of cultural competition. It may take place between two or
more cultural groups. Human history provides examples of such a competition for example; there
has always been a keen competition between the culture of the native and that of the invaders.
Like cooperation, competition occurs at personal, group, and organizational levels. People
competing for affection, a promotion, or public office all are examples of personal competition.
The competitors are likely to know one another and to regard others defeat as essential to the
attainment of their own goals.
 Conflict

Conflict is goal-oriented, just as cooperation and competition are, but, there is a difference, in
conflict, one seeks deliberately to harm and/ or destroy one's antagonists. The rules of
competition always include restrictions upon the injury that may be done to a foe. But in conflict
these rules break down; one seeks to win at any cost. In talking about conflict, the notion of a
continuum or scale is again useful. It is useful in at least two ways: in differentiating conflict
from competition; and in differentiating personal form group and organizational conflict. If we
have the data with which to do it, all rival situations probably could be ranged along a continuum
defined at one end by pure competition and at the other end by pure conflict.

There might be a few situations that would be located near to each end of the continuum, but
many would prove to be mixed types and would cluster near the centre. Conflict also tends to be
more or less personal, just as is the case with cooperation and competition. First, fights and
'shoot-out' illustrate highly personal conflicts. The conflicts within football games generally are a
little less personal, and the conflict between students and campus police at a sit-in or rally is
personal. Yet, when two labor unions or two corporations set out to destroy each other, personal
conflict may be almost completely submerged in organizational struggle. Perhaps the most
impersonal of all conflicts is war between nations, where the enemy is perceived to be almost
faceless. Again, rather than being discrete types of personal and impersonal conflicts, conflicts
probably range almost imperceptibly along a continuum from the purely personal to the
completely impersonal.

Probably the most striking thing about conflict is its destructive potential. The word 'conflict'
itself often conjures up images of heads being broken, of buildings burning, and of deaths and
destruction. Moreover, the destructiveness that accompanies conflicts quickly cumulates. In a
confrontation between police and students, for example, things may be orderly until the first
blow is struck. Once that happens, however, a frenzy of skull cracking, shootings, burning, and
destroying may follow. Because the immediate results of conflict often are so horrible, there is a
tendency to see it, not as a normal and universal process of social interaction, but as pathological
process. It is very difficult for the unsophisticated not to imply value judgments in discussing
these social processes because our society as a whole tends to do so. Cooperation and
competition are more often perceived to be socially useful; but conflict, to be harmful.

The situation, however, it is not that simple. Few would defend the cooperation of a group of
men in the rape of a woman. And the school drop-out problem is hardly a beneficial effect of
competition. Thus, competition and cooperation, which otherwise receive a good deal of social
approval, also have untoward effects. So it is, also with conflict. Conflict is an abnormal and
universal form of social interaction as are any of the others. Analysis of conflict needs to
describe both the ways in which it is harmful and destructive and the way in which it is useful
and socially integrative.
 Harmful Effects of Conflict

The harmful effects probably are easier to see. We have already indicated that conflict tends to
cumulate rapidly. This snowballing tendency may lead to complete breakdown before the self-
limiting features of most inter-personal exchanges have a chance to operate. Before people can
decide that the pain is not worth it, people may have been killed and property destroyed.
Establishments may be closed or they may find themselves in chaos. Similarly, a company of
soldiers may shoot down women and children in an orgy of destruction. A second negative
feature of conflict, closely related to the first, is that it is often extremely costly. War probably
provides the best example, for nothing else in human experience exacts such a toll.

The third negative feature has to do with social costs. Conflict is inherently divisive. It sets
person against person and group against group in ways that threaten to destroy organized social
life. United States has seen conflict so widespread as to raise questions whether anarchy might
prevail. Youth against the establishment, blacks against whites, the poor against the affluent, and
Jews against Arabs represent something of the range of conflicts. In such situations, the question
becomes not simply how many people will be killed, how much property destroyed, or who will
win; it becomes one of the societal survival. Can race wars be avoided? Can the police maintain
order? Can universities operate? And can presidents keep the support of the populace? Whatever
else they may be, these are real questions. And the answers are by no means obvious. Conflict
threatens the existence of society itself.

 Useful Functions of Conflict

The explosiveness, the outward costs, and the divisiveness of conflict are so great that it is often
difficult to see the ways in which conflict fulfils socially useful functions. Yet it does at least the
following three things. First, it promotes loyalty within the group. Second, it signals the needs
for and helps promote short-run social change. And third, it appears intimately involved in
moving societies towards new levels of social integration.

If conflict pits groups and organizations against one another, it also tends to promote unity within
each of the conflicting groups. The necessity to work together against a common foe submerges
rivalries within the group and people, who otherwise are competitors, to work together in
harmony. Competing football halfbacks flock for each other, rival student leaders work together
to win concessions from the administration, and union leaders join forces against management.
Nations that are torn by dissent in peacetime rally together when they are attacked by other
countries. Thus, conflict is not simply divisive, it works to unify groups.

A second positive function of conflict is that it serves to notify the society that serious problems
exist that is not being handled by the traditional social organization. It forces the recognition of
those problems and encourages the development of new solutions to them.
The third general positive function of conflict is closely related to the second. And it is much
more problematic. One view of human history tends to focus upon conflict particularly upon war
- as a primary mechanism through which nations have developed. In other words, war was the
mechanism that permitted the consolidation of scattered, weak societies into large, powerful
ones. Similar arguments have been advanced that war was necessary during the early modern
period in Europe to permit the formation of nations as we know them.

Accommodation

The term 'accommodation' refers to several sorts of working agreements between rival groups
that permit at least limited cooperation between them even though the issues dividing them
remain unsettled. It does not technically end the conflict, but holds it in abeyance. The
accommodation may last for only a short time and may be for the purpose of allowing the
conflicting parties to consolidate their positions and to prepare for further conflict. Or, as is more
often the case, the initial accommodation agreed upon by the parties may be part of the process
of seeking solutions to the issues that divide them. If those solutions are not found, the
accommodation itself may become permanent.

 The famous psychologist J.M. Baldwin was the first to use the concept of accommodation.
According to him, the term denotes acquired changes in the behaviour of individuals which
help them to adjust to their environment.
 Mac Irer says that the term accommodation refers particularly to the process in which man
attains a sense of harmony with his environment.
 Lundberg is of the opinion that the word accommodation has been used to designate the
adjustments which people in groups make to relieve the fatigue and tensions of competition
and conflict.
 According to Ogburn and Nimkoff Accommodation is a term used by the sociologists to
describe the adjustment of hostile individuals or groups.

It is clear from the above that accommodation assumes various forms. Without accommodation
social life could hardly go on. Accommodation checks conflicts and helps persons and groups to
maintain cooperation. It enables person and groups to adjust themselves to changes functions and
status which is brought about by changed conditions. The only way in which conflicts between
groups may be eliminated permanently is through assimilation. Formally, assimilation is the
process whereby group differences gradually disappear. Issues are based upon differences. When
the differences disappear so do the issue and the conflict.

Assimilation

The term 'assimilation' again is in general use, being applied most often to the process whereby
large numbers of migrants from Europe were absorbed into the American population during the
19th and the early part of the 20th century. The assimilation of immigrants was a dramatic and
highly visible set of events and illustrates the process well. There are other types of assimilation,
however, and there are aspects of the assimilation of European migrants that might be put in
propositional form. First, assimilation is a two-way process. Second, assimilation of groups as
well as individuals takes place. Third some assimilation probably occurs in all lasting
interpersonal situations. Fourth, assimilation is often incomplete and creates adjustment
problems for individuals. And, fifth, assimilation does not proceed equally rapidly and equally
effectively in all inter-group situations.

Definitions:

 According to Young and Mack, Assimilation is the fusion or blending of two previously
distinct groups into one.
 For Bogardus Assimilation is the social process whereby attitudes of many persons are united
and thus develop into a united group.
 Biesanz describes Assimilation is the social process whereby individuals or groups come to
share the same sentiments and goals.
 For Ogburh and Nimkoff; Assimilation is the process whereby individuals or groups once
dissimilar become similar and identified in their interest and outlook.

Assimilation is a slow and a gradual process. It takes time. For example, immigrants take time to
get assimilated with majority group. Assimilation is concerned with the absorption and
incorporation of the culture by another.

Acculturation

This term is used to describe both the process of contacts between different cultures and also the
customs of such contacts. As the process of contact between cultures, acculturation may involve
either direct social interaction or exposure to other cultures by means of the mass media of
communication. As the outcome of such contact, acculturation refers to the assimilation by one
group of the culture of another which modifies the existing culture and so changes group
identity. There may be a tension between old and new cultures which leads to the adapting of the
new as well as the old.

Social Groups

A social group consists of two or more people who interact with one another and who recognize
themselves as a distinct social unit. The definition is simple enough, but it has significant
implications. Frequent interaction leads people to share values and beliefs. This similarity and
the interaction cause them to identify with one another. Identification and attachment, in turn,
stimulate more frequent and intense interaction. Each group maintains solidarity with all to other
groups and other types of social systems.

Groups are among the most stable and enduring of social units. They are important both to their
members and to the society at large. Through encouraging regular and predictable behavior,
groups form the foundation upon which society rests. Thus, a family, a village, a political party a
trade union is all social groups. These, it should be noted are different from social classes, status
groups or crowds, which not only lack structure but whose members are less aware or even
unaware of the existence of the group. These have been called quasi-groups or groupings.
Nevertheless, the distinction between social groups and quasi-groups is fluid and variable since
quasi-groups very often give rise to social groups, as for example, social classes give rise to
political parties.

 Primary Groups

If all groups are important to their members and to society, some groups are more important than
others. Early in the twentieth century, Charles H. Cooley gave the name, primary groups, to
those groups that he said are characterized by intimate face-to-face association and those are
fundamental in the development and continued adjustment of their members. He identified three
basic primary groups, the family, the child's play group, and the neighborhoods or community
among adults. These groups, he said, are almost universal in all societies; they give to people
their earliest and most complete experiences of social unity; they are instrumental in the
development of the social life; and they promote the integration of their members in the larger
society. Since Cooley wrote, over 65 years ago, life in the United States has become much more
urban, complex, and impersonal, and the family play group and neighborhood have become less
dominant features of the social order.

Secondary groups, characterized by anonymous, impersonal, and instrumental relationships,

have become much more numerous. People move frequently, often from one section of the
country to another and they change from established relationships and promoting widespread
loneliness. Young people, particularly, turn to drugs, seek communal living groups and adopt
deviant lifestyles in attempts to find meaningful primary-group relationships. The social context
has changed so much so that primary group relationship today is not as simple as they were in
Cooley's time.

 Secondary Groups

An understanding of the modern industrial society requires an understanding of the secondary

groups. The social groups other than those of primary groups may be termed as secondary
groups. They are a residual category. They are often called special interest groups.Maclver and
Page refers to them as great associations. They are of the opinion that secondary groups have
become almost inevitable today. Their appearance is mainly due to the growing cultural
complexity. Primary groups are found predominantly in societies where life is relatively simple.
With the expansion in population and territory of a society however interests become diversified
and other types of relationships which can be called secondary or impersonal become necessary.
Interests become differentiated. The services of experts are required. The new range of the
interests demands a complex organization. Especially selected persons act on behalf of all and
hence arises a hierarchy of officials called bureaucracy. These features characterize the rise of
the modern state, the great corporation, the factory, the labor union, a university or a nationwide
political party and so on. These are secondary groups.Ogburn and Nimkoff defines secondary
groups as groups which provide experience lacking in intimacy. Frank D. Watson writes that the
secondary group is larger and more formal ,is specialized and direct in its contacts and relies
more for unity and continuance upon the stability of its social organization than does the primary
group.

 Characteristics of secondary group:

Dominance of secondary relations: Secondary groups are characterized by indirect,

impersonal, contractual and non-inclusive relations. Relations are indirect because secondary
groups are bigger in size and members may not stay together. Relations are contractual in the
sense they are oriented towards certain interests

Largeness of the size: Secondary groups are relatively larger in size. City, nation, political
parties, trade unions and corporations, international associations are bigger in size. They may
have thousands and lakhs of members. There may not be any limit to the membership in the case
of some secondary groups.

Membership: Membership in the case of secondary groups is mainly voluntary. Individuals are
at liberty to join or to go away from the groups. However there are some secondary groups like
the state whose membership is almost involuntary.

No physical basis: Secondary groups are not characterized by physical proximity. Many
secondary groups are not limited to any definite area. There are some secondary groups like the
Rotary Club and Lions Club which are international in character. The members of such groups
are scattered over a vast area.

Specific ends or interest: Secondary groups are formed for the realization of some specific
interests or ends. They are called special interest groups. Members are interested in the groups
because they have specific ends to aim at. Indirect communication: Contacts and
communications in the case of secondary groups are mostly indirect. Mass media of
communication such as radio, telephone, television, newspaper, movies, magazines and post and
telegraph are resorted to by the members to have communication.

Communication may not be quick and effective even. Impersonal nature of social relationships in
secondary groups is both the cause and the effect of indirect communication.

Nature of group control: Informal means of social control are less effective in regulating the
relations of members. Moral control is only secondary. Formal means of social control such as
law, legislation, police, court etc are made of to control the behavior of members. The behavior
of the people is largely influenced and controlled by public opinion, propaganda, rule of law and
political ideologies. Group structure: The secondary group has a formal structure. A formal
authority is set up with designated powers and a clear-cut division of labor in which the function
of each is specified in relation to the function of all. Secondary groups are mostly organized
groups. Different statuses and roles that the members assume are specified. Distinctions based on
caste, colour, religion, class, language etc are less rigid and there is greater tolerance towards
other people or groups.

Limited influence on personality: Secondary groups are specialized in character. People

involvement in them is also of limited significance.Members's attachment to them is also very
much limited. Further people spend most of their time in primary groups than in secondary
groups. Hence secondary groups have very limited influence on the personality of the members.

 Reference Groups

According to Merton reference groups are those groups which are the referring points of the
individuals, towards which he is oriented and which influences his opinion, tendency and
behaviour.The individual is surrounded by countless reference groups. Both the memberships
and inner groups and non memberships and outer groups may be reference groups.

Social Systems

A social system basically consists of two or more individuals interacting directly or indirectly in
a bounded situation. There may be physical or territorial boundaries, but the fundamental
sociological point of reference is that the individuals are oriented, in a whole sense, to a common
focus or inter-related foci. Thus it is appropriate to regard such diverse sets of relationships as
small groups, political parties and whole societies as social systems. Social systems are open
systems, exchanging information with, frequently acting with reference to other systems. Modern
conceptions of the term can be traced to the leading social analysts of the nineteenth century,
notably Auguste Comte, Karl Marx, Herbert Spencer and Emile Durkheim; each of whom
elaborated in some form or other conceptions of the major units of social systems (mainly
societies) and the relationships between such units- even though the expression social system
was not a key one. Thus, in Marx's theory, the major units or components of the capitalist
societies with which he was principally concerned were socio-economic classes, and the major
relationships between classes involved economic and political power.

The most influential conceptualization of the term has been that of Talcott Parsons. Parsons'
devotion to this issue has two main aspects. First, what is called the problem of social order; i.e.
the nature of the forces giving rise to relatively stable forms of social interaction and
organization, and promoting orderly change. Parsons took Thomas Hobbes Leviathan, 1651, as
his point of departure in this part of his analysis. Hobbes had maintained that man's fundamental
motivation was the craving for power and that men were always basically in conflict with each
other. Thus order could only exist in strong government. To counter this Parsons invoked the
work of Max Weber and, in particular, Durkheim, who had placed considerable emphasis on the
functions of normative, factors in social life, such as ideals and values. Factors of this kind came
to constitute the mainspring in Parsons Delineation of a social system. Thus in his major
theoretical work, The Social system, 1951, he defines a social system as consisting in a plurality
of individual actors interacting with each other in a situation which has at least a physical or
environmental aspect, actors, who are motivated in terms of a tendency to the optimization of
gratification and whose relations to their situations, including each other, is defined and mediated
in terms of a system of culturally structured and shared symbols.

The major units of a social system are said to be collectivities and roles (i.e. not individuals as
such); and the major patterns or relationships linking these units are values (ends or broad guides
to action) and norms (rules governing role performance in the context of system values). Parsons
second major interest has been to make sociology more scientific and systematic, by developing
abstract conceptions of the social system; one of this points being that even though Weber placed
much emphasis upon normative factors as guiding action, there was in Weber's sociology no
elaboration of a theoretically integrated total system of action. Hence the attempt to combine in
one framework both a conception of actors in social situations and an overall, highly abstract,
outside view of the major factors involved in a social system as a going concern. Various points
in Parsons' formulation have been criticized. Notably, objections have been made to the
emphasis upon normative regulation, and it has been alleged that Parsons neglected social
conflict under the pressure of his systematic perspective; i.e. pre-occupation with system ness
and analytical elegance which blinds the sociologist to disconsensus in real life and spurs him to
stress integrative phenomena in his analyses. However, it is widely agreed that sociologists
should operate with some clearly defined conception of what constitutes a social system. Thus,
for many sociologists the term social system is not by any means restricted to those situations
where there is binding normative regulation; but in order to qualify as social system it must
involve a common focus, or set of foci, or orientations and a shared mode of communication
among a majority of actors. Thus, on this basis there can be a system of conflict.

Status and Role

The term has two sociological uses:

1. R. Linton (1936) defined status simply as a position in a social system, such as child or parent.
Status refers to what a person is, whereas the closely linked notion of role refers to the behaviour
expected of people in a status.

2. Status is also used as a synonym for honor or prestige, when social status denotes the relative
position of a person on a publicly recognized scale or hierarchy of social worth. (See 'Social
Stratification').

It is the first meaning of the term status, status as position, which we are going to refer to in the
following paragraphs. Status as honour or prestige is a part of the study of social stratification.
A status is simply a rank or position that one holds in a group. One occupies the status of son or
daughter, playmate, pupil, radical, militant and so on. Eventually one occupies the statuses of
husband, mother bread-winner, cricket fan, and so on, one has as many statuses as there are
groups of which one is a member. For analytical purposes, statuses are divided into two basic
types: Ascribed and Achieved.

 Ascribed Statuses

Ascribed statuses are those which are fixed for an individual at birth. Ascribed statuses that exist
in all societies include those based upon sex, age, race ethnic group and family background.

Similarly, power, prestige, privileges, and obligations always are differentially distributed in
societies by the age of the participants. This has often been said about the youth culture in the
U.S. because of the high value Americans attach to being young. Pre-modern China, by contrast,
attached the highest value to old age and required extreme subordination of children. The
perquisites and obligations accompany age change over the individual's lifetime, but the
individual proceeds inexorably through these changes with no freedom of choice.

As the discussion implies, the number and rigidity of ascribed statuses vary from one society to
another. Those societies in which many statuses are rigidly prescribed and relatively
unchangeable are called caste societies, or at least, caste like. Among major nations, India is a
caste society. In addition to the ascribed statuses already discussed, occupation and the choice of
marriage partners in traditional India are strongly circumscribed by accident of birth. Such
ascribed statuses stand in contrast to achieved statuses.

 Achieved Statuses

Achieved statuses are those which the individual acquires during his or her lifetime as a result of
the exercise of knowledge, ability, skill and/or perseverance. Occupation provides an example of
status that may be either ascribed or achieved, and which serves to differentiate caste-like
societies from modern ones. Societies vary in both the number of statuses that are ascribed and
achieved and in the rigidity with which such definitions are held. Both ascribed and achieved
statuses exist in all societies. However, an understanding of a specific society requires that the
interplay among these be fully understood. For Weber class is a creation of the market situation.
Class operates in society independently of any valuations. As Weber did not believe in the
economic phenomena determining human ideals, he distinguishes status situation from class
situation.

According to Linton, status is associated with distinctive beliefs about the expectations of those
having status, as for example, the status of children. Other common bases for status are age, sex,
birth, genealogy and other biological constitutional characteristics. However, status, according to
Linton, is only a phenomenon, not the intrinsic characteristic of man but of social organization.
What matters is not what you really are, but what people believe you to be. At times, some
confuse the two terms, status and role. Status defines who a person is, as for example, he is a
child or a Negro, or a doctor; whereas, role defines what such a person is expected to do, as for
example, he is too young to work, he should care about parents etc.

A common method of identifying the statuses in a social system is to discover the list of status-
designators, as for example, kinship status typically begins with a list of kin terms and their
usage. One other characteristic feature of status, as understood today, is that any person can have
more than one status. Generally, no status in any social situation encompasses one person. Also,
it has to be kept in mind those statuses and persons are not only distinct concepts but also at
distinct levels of analysis. Besides, in sociology it is status, rather than person, which is more
useful as a tool of analysis.

Why we should treat these two terms as separate can be argued on various grounds. First, two
persons having quite different characters may possess similar observable conduct if they have the
same status, as for example, very acquisitive and very altruistic doctors may behave in much the
same way. Secondly, two persons having the same character, very often, have different
observable conduct because of having two different statuses. Thirdly, even two persons having
similar characters but having two different statuses show very often different observable
conduct, as for example, a docile son and a kind father.

Thus, in society, which in reality is a social system where interaction occurs between actors,
status but not person in important. If we treat person as the unit of such a system we must
discover a basic personality structure which is an impossible task. On the other hand, it is easy to
comprehend status although it is an abstract concept. Status is the most elementary component of
the social system which is equally abstract.

Interaction between two actors occurs not as persons but as two having statuses. A social
position is always defined in relation to a counter position, as for example, a doctor to a patient,
to a nurse, and to the hospital administrator. In other words, the basic unit of analysis for social
system is not status itself but the relation of two statuses. The first writer to do considerable work
in this field was Merton in 1957. According to him, there are three aspects of status. To illustrate,
Mr. Pandey is a doctor must have social relations with nurses, patients, other doctors, hospital
administrators, and so on, that is, a role set. If Mr. Pandey is also a husband, a father, a member
of Hare-Krishna cult and a municipal councilor, it is a status set. And the process, by which Mr.
Pandey became a doctor, required that he first be a medical student, then an intern and then a
resident, that is, a status sequence.

Since what is known as status is related to other statuses, the interaction of statuses is a very
crucial one. Stable interaction systems depend on the emergence of normative expectations.
Once it emerges, such expectations are not created anew every time. Two new actors encounter
each other. The idea underlying this statement is that every actor is sensitive to the attitudes
others will have towards him. Every actor, therefore, tends to feel tense and upset if he is unable
to define the social situation in such a way that the behaviour of the other is predictable.

A more dynamic feature of this series of social interactions is the idea that each action implies a
status and each status action. Therein each actor reveals how he defines a situation by the way he
behaves, and thus provides other actors with cues to their own statuses in the situation.

Although the interaction of statuses is normally satisfactory, at times, confusion might arise
because of status ambiguity. If, however, an actor has more than one status, the attitudes of any
two statuses may be either compatible or incompatible with their demands on the person. If two
statuses that are activated in the same situation are incompatible it would be difficult for each
status occupant to know how to interact with the other, because it will be difficult for him to
know which status is the basis of their interaction. Such ambiguities are a source of strain and
discomfort and people either get out of such situations or wish that they be changed.

The term social role is borrowed by social scientists originally from the Greek Drama. The word
person comes from the Latin word persona, which originally meant a mask. Greek actors wore
masks when they performed in their drama. This leads us directly to the definition of the concept
of social role. A social role is a set of social norms that govern a person's behaviour in a group
and determine his relationships with other group members. Put somewhat differently a role is the
expected pattern of behavior associated with a given social status. Status and role are reciprocal
aspects of the same phenomenon. Status, or position, is the static aspect that fixes the individual's
position in a group; role is the dynamic behavioral aspect that defines how the person who
occupies the status should behave in different situations.

Individuals in a society behave according to certain standard patterns of behaviour or roles.

These standard patterns of behaviour are determined by the social position or the status which
the individual occupies in society because it is these social positions which lay down norms by
indicating which individual should observe which norms. In other words, status refers to a
collection of norms; and each society classifies its members into a more or less elaborate system
of statuses. Each of the statuses involves a role, set of behaviour or action-patterns that people
belonging to a given status are expected to perform. One plays as many roles as he has statuses.
A given man may both concurrently and sequentially enact the roles of husband, father bread-
winner, and football fan and so on. Social roles may be linked to blue-prints for behaviour that
are handed to the individual, hypothetically, when he becomes a member of a group. As such
these constitute the group's expectations concerning how one would behave. Thus, whereas the
status of a person tells us what he is, his role will tell us what he does as a member of a status
group.

Despite this fundamental difference between the two, statuses and roles are very closely
interlinked. There are no roles without statuses and no statuses without roles. Indeed, there are
some exceptions. Though all statuses imply some role or roles, it is not always possible to infer
people's statuses from what they do, as for example, two persons, who bear the title of
knighthood and thus holding same social positions, might be performing completely different
roles. Also, many statuses are wholly or partly defined with reference to roles which their
occupants are expected to perform. Example policemen, poets, etc.

The importance of role was recognized from 1936 when Linton presented the first systematic
statement identifying role as a segment of culture. He also held the view that role was related to
social status. Much work has been done after Linton in the form of experimental study. Many
studies have shown that lack of clarity and consensus in role conceptions is a contributory factor
in reducing organizational effectiveness and morale.

Since the concept is being extensively used, some differences appear in its usage. Some writers
treat role and actual behavior of an individual to be one and the same. Most of the writers treat
role as expected behavior and role behavior as an enactment. Another interpretation is that role is
a specific behavior or conditioned response. Finally, some treat role as a part to be learnt and
played.

Despite these differences, all sociologists agree to the following characteristics of role. It is
believed that when roles are stabilized, the role structure persists regardless of changes in the
actors. In some families when the parents become disorganized and become childish, a child
suddenly blossoms into responsibility and helps to supply the family leadership. As the roles get
stabilized, an individual adopts a given role; and if he fails to fulfill the role expectation, he will
be regarded as a violator of the terms of interaction.

The above functioning of the role is determined, to some extent, by the organizational setting
which supplies both direction and constraint to the working of the as for said processes. If the
role structure is incorporated in an organizational setting, the latter's goals tend to become the
crucial criteria for role differentiation, legitimacy of expectation, and judgments of adequacy.

Secondly, depending on the level of integration with the organizational setting, roles get linked
with statuses in the organization.

Thirdly, depending on the extent to which the roles are incorporated with an organizational
setting, each tends to develop a pattern of adaptation to incorporate other roles. A teacher in a
public school must incorporate within his role pattern, his role adaptations to pupils, parents,
other teachers and the principal. Merton describes several mechanisms that are employed to
minimize conflict in the role-set.

Fourthly, when roles are incorporated with the organisational setting they persist as tradition and
formalization. Finally, the place of role is determined by society itself; for, society is based on
accommodation among many organizations. Society introduces multiple organisational
references for roles, and multiplies roles for the actor. A view from society's perspective shows
that roles in different contexts tend to become merged. One example is our tendency to speak of
male and female roles of heroic and unheroic roles while seeking meaning and order in simple
human interactions. Viewed from the perspective of society, differentiation of roles gets linked
with social values. If the societies and the individuals' assigned roles are consistent with each
other the roles tend to get merged with social values. A glaring example is our tendency to use
age, sex and occupation as qualifying criteria for the allocation of other roles.

In the end we have to say that it is actor who faces the strain; for, the dynamic hinges on his
management of the several roles in his repertoire. This may come about through failure of role
cues, gross lack of consensus and so forth. This situation results in an individual adopting his
own repertoire of role relationship as a framework for his own behaviour, and as a perspective
for the interpretation of the behaviour of others. When the individual forms a self-conception by
selective identification of certain roles as his own to be held in his repertoire, the individual is
said to develop a sense of personal prestige, which is likely to be reflected in his bearing, his
self-assurance and other aspects of his interpersonal relations.

In general, the concept of role is crucial in all sociological analyses which attempt to link the
functioning of the social orders with the characteristics and behaviour of the individuals who
belong to that order. A study of roles provides a comprehensive pattern of social behaviour and
attitudes. It constitutes a strategy for coping with a recurrent type of situation. It is socially
identified as an entity. It can be played recognizably by different individuals, and it supplies a
major basis for identifying and placing persons in a society.

Socialization

Socialization is predominately an unconscious process by which a newborn child learns the

values, beliefs, rules and regulations of society or internalizes the culture in which it is born.
Socialization, in fact, includes learning of three important processes: (1) cognitive; (2) affective,
and (3) evaluative. In other words, socialization includes the knowledge of how things are caused
and the establishment of emotional links with the rest of the members of the society.
Socialization, therefore, equips an individual in such a way that he can perform his duties in his
society. Who are the agents of socialization? The agents of socialization vary from society to
society. However, in most of the cases, it is the family which is a major socializing agent, that is,
the nearest kinsmen are the first and the most important agents of socialization. The other groups
which are socializing units in a society vary according to the complexity. Thus, in modern
complex society, the important socializing agents are educational institutions, while in primitive
societies, clans and lineages play a more important role. Socialization is a slow process.

There is no fixed time regarding the beginning and the end of this process. However, some
sociologists formulated different stages of socialization. These are (1) oral stage, (2) anal stage
(3) oedipal stage, and (4) adolescence. In all these stages, especially in the first three, the main
socializing agent is the family. The first stage is that of a new-born child when he is not involved
in the family as a whole but only with his mother. He does not recognize anyone except his
mother. The time at which the second stage begins is generally after first year and ends when the
infant is around three. At this stage, the child separates the role of his mother and his own. Also
during this time force is used on the child, that is, he is made to learn a few basic things. The
third stage extends from about fourth year to 12th to 13th year, that is, till puberty. During this
time, the child becomes a member of the family as a whole and identifies himself with the social
role ascribed to him. The fourth stage begins at puberty when a child wants freedom from
parental control. He has to choose a job and a partner for himself. He also learns about incest
taboo.

Deviance

In everyday language to deviate means to stray from an accepted path. Many sociological
definitions of deviance simply elaborate upon this idea. Thus deviance consists of those areas
which do not follow the norms and expectations of a particular social group. Deviance may be
positively sanctioned (rewarded), negatively sanctioned (punished), or simply accepted without
reward or punishment. In terms of the above definition of deviance, the soldier on the battlefield
who risks his life above and beyond the normal call of duty may be termed deviant, as the
physicist who breaks the rules of his discipline and develops a new theory. Their deviance may
be positively sanctioned; the soldier might be rewarded with a medal, the physicist with a Noble
prize. In one sense, though, neither is deviant since both conform to the values of society, the
soldier to the value of courage; the physicist to the value of academic progress.

By comparison, a murderer deviates not only from society's norms and expectations but also
from its values, in particular the value placed on human life. His deviance generally results in
widespread disapproval and punishment. A third form of deviance consists of acts which depart
from the norms and expectations of a particular society but are generally tolerated and accepted.
The little old lady with a house full of cats or the old gentleman with an obsession for collecting
clocks would fall into this category. Usually their eccentricities are neither rewarded nor
punished by others. They are simply defined as a 'bit odd' but harmless, and therefore tolerated.
Deviance is relative. This means that there is no absolute way of defining a deviant act. Deviance
can only be defined in relation to a particular standard, but no standards are fixed or absolute. As
such deviance varies from time to time and place to place. In a particular society an act which is
considered deviant today may be defined as normal in the future. An act defined as deviant in
one society may be seen as perfectly normal in another. Put another way, deviance is culturally
determined and cultures change over time and vary from society to society. The following
examples will serve to illustrate the above points. Sometimes ago in Western society it had been
considered deviant for women to smoke, use make-up and consume alcoholic drinks in public.
Today this is no longer the case. In the same way, definitions of crime change over time.
Homosexuality was formerly a criminal offence in Britain. Since 1969, however, homosexual
acts conducted between consenting adults in private are no longer illegal. A comparison of
modern Western culture with the traditional culture of the Teton Sioux Indians of the USA
illustrates how deviance varies from society to society. As part of their religions rituals during
the annual Sun Dance Ceremony Sioux Warriors mutilated their bodies, leather thongs were
inserted through strips of flesh on the chest and attached to a central pole, and warriors had to
break free by tearing their flesh and in return they were granted favors by the supernatural
powers. Similar actions by members of Western society may well be viewed as masochism or
madness. In the same way behaviour accepted as normal in Western society may be defined as
deviant within primitive society. In the West the private ownership of property is an established
norm; members of society strive to accumulate wealth and substantial property holding brings
power and prestige. Such behaviour would have incurred strong disapproval amongst the Sioux
and those who acted in terms of the above norms would be regarded as deviant. Generosity was a
major value of Sioux culture and the distributed rather than accumulation of wealth was the route
to power and prestige. Chiefs were expected to distribute gifts of horses, beadwork and weapons
to their followers. The norms of Sioux culture prevented the accumulation of Wealth. The Sioux
had no conception of the individual ownership of land; the produce of the hunt was automatically
shared by all members of the group. Emile Durkheim developed his view on deviance in his
discussion of crime in The Rules of Sociological Method. He argues that crime is an inevitable
and normal aspect of social life; it is an integral part of all healthy societies. It is inevitable
because not every member of society can be equally committed to the 'collective sentiments, the
shared values and beliefs of society. Since individuals are exposed to different influences and
circumstances, it is impossible for all to be alike. Therefore, not everybody shares the same
restraints about breaking the law.

Crime is not only inevitable, it can also be functional. Durkheim argues that it only becomes
dysfunctional when its rate is unusually high. He argues that all social change begins with some
form of deviance. In order for change to occur, Yesterday's deviance must become today's
normality. Since a certain amount of change is healthy for society, so it can progress rather than
stagnate. So for change to occur, the collective sentiments must not be too strong, or too hostile.
Infact, they must have only moderate energy' because if they were to strong they would crush all
originality both of the criminal and of the genius. Thus the collective sentiments must not be
sufficiently powerful to block the expression of people like Jesus, William Wilberforce, Martin
Luther King and Mother Teresa. Durkheim regarded some crime as and anticipation of the
morality of the future. Thus heretics who were denounced by both the state and the established
church may represent the collective sentiments of the future. In the same way terrorists of
freedom fighters may represent a future established order .If crime is inevitable, what is the
function of punishment. Durkheim argues that its function is not to remove crime in society.
Rather it is to maintain the collective sentiments at their necessary level of strength. In
Durkheim's words, punishment 'serves to heal the wounds done to the collective sentiments'.
Without punishment the collective sentiments would lose their force to control behaviour and the
crime rate would reach the point where it becomes dysfunctional. Thus in Durkheim's view, a
healthy society requires both crime and punishment, both are inevitable, both are functional.
Following Durkheim, Merton argues that deviance results not from pathological personalities but
from the culture and structure of society itself. He begins from the standard functionalist position
of value consensus, that is, all members of society share the same values. However, since
members of society are placed in different positions in the social structure, for example, they
differ in terms of class position; they do not have the same opportunity of realizing the shared
value. This situation can generate deviance. In Merton's words: 'The social and cultural structure
generates pressure for socially deviant behaviour upon people variously located in that structure.

Using USA as an example, Merton outlines his theory as follows. Members of American Society
share the major values of American culture. In particular they share the goal of success for which
they all strive and which is largely measured in terms of wealth and material possessions. The
'American Dream' states that all members of society have an equal opportunity of achieving
success, of owning a Cadillac, a Beverley Hills mansion and a substantial bank balance. In all
societies there are institutionalized means of reaching culturally defined goals. In America the
accepted ways of achieving success are through educational qualifications, talent, hard work,
drive, determination and ambition. In a balanced society an equal emphasis is placed upon both
cultural goals and institutionalized means, and members are satisfied with both. But in America
great importance is attached to success and relatively less importance is given to the accepted
ways of achieving success. As such, American society is unstable, unbalanced. There is a
tendency to reject the 'rules of the game' and to strive for success by all available means. The
situation becomes like a game of cards in which winning becomes so important that the rules are
abandoned by some of the players. When rules cease to operate a situation of normlessness or
'anomie' results. In this situation of anything norms no longer direct behavior and deviance is
encouraged. However, individuals will respond to a situation of anomie in different ways. In
particular, their reaction will be shaped by their position in the social structure. Merton outlines
five possible ways in which members of American society can respond to success goals. The first
and most common response is conformity. Members of society conform both to success goals
and the normative means of reaching them. A second response is 'innovation'. This response
rejects normative means of achieving success and turns to deviant means, crime in particular.
Merton argues that members of the lower social strata are most likely to select this route to
success.

Merton uses the term 'ritualism' to describe the third possible response. Those who select this
alternative are deviant because they have largely abandoned the commonly held success goals.
The pressure to adopt this alternative is greatest on members of the lower middle class. Their
occupations provide less opportunity for success than those of other members of the middle
class. However, compared o members of the working class, they have been strongly socialized to
conform to social norms. This prevents them from turning to crime. Unable to innovate and with
jobs that offer little opportunity for advancement, their only solution is to scale down or abandon
their success goals. Merton terms the fourth and least common response, 'retreatism'. It applies to
psychotics, artists, pariahs, drug addicts. They have strongly internalized both the cultural goals
and the institutionalized means but is unable to achieve success. They resolve the conflict of their
situation by abandoning both the goals and the means of reaching them. They are unable to cope
with challenges and drop out of society defeated and resigned to their failure. They are deviant in
two ways: they have rejected both the cultural goals and the institutionalized means. Merton does
not relate retreatism to social class position. Rebellion forms the fifth and final response. It is a
rejection of both the success goals and the institutionalized means and their replacement by
different goals and means. Those who adopt this alternative want to create a new society. Thus
urban guerillas in Western European capitalist societies adopt deviant means- terrorism- to reach
deviant goals such as a communist society. Merton argues that it is typically members of a rising
class rather than the most depressed strata who organize the resentful and rebellious into a
revolutionary group.

To summarize, Merton claims that his analysis shows how the culture and structure of society
generates deviance.

Conformity

The genesis of the study of social conformity or stability is the assumption that there is order in
nature and it can be discovered, described and understood. Applying this analogy to society what
sociologists aim is to discover, describe and explain the order which characterizes the social life
of man.

It is justifiable search because members of any large society perform millions and billions of
social acts in the course of a single day. The outcome of such social activity is not chaos but
rather a reasonable approximation of order. Sociology is concerned with an explanation of how
this wonder comes about. In doing so, sociologists talk of social system which means that the
coordination and integration of social structure which ends in order rather than in chaos. It is also
to be borne in mind that when sociologists study social conformity, it is not their business to
condemn or justify it. Logically, sociologists do study social stability in totalitarian societies too.

The means by which individuals or groups are induced and/or compelled to confirm to certain
norms and values are numerous. The most obvious and uniform manifestations of social control
are found in social institutions. Some of the prominent ones are law, government, religion,
marriage, family, education and social classes. Also, caste distinctions and classes provide
effective control over the behavior of individuals. These work in two ways. These distinctions
create patterns of behavior within limits which govern each class in its relation with other
classes. The importance of these patterns largely depends on the social setting of a potent means
of enforcing conformity, but it would be of little importance in enforcing conformity in the
impersonal life of an American metropolis.

In studying the values and norms that contribute to the order or conformity of society,
sociologists select only those of the social facts which are of sociological value. One's
conscience, too, can be regarded as a power that restrains and inhibits, but this cannot be a
subject-matter of sociology since it relates only to individuals. Hence the first pre-requisite for
any social fact to be regarded as one that has a bearing on social order is that it should affect
every member of society in one way or other.

Social decontrol or disorder is a part and parcel of the study of social control and conformity. No
social system is perfect in the sense that it is very orderly and stable. Social decontrol is endemic
in social life, as some norms are not followed, some values are not fulfilled, and some goals are
not attained. And in some societies the majority violates socially and/or legally defined standards
and value of life. Almost all societies experience riots, civil war, mob violence, terror, crime and
general disorganization, whether for short or long periods. It should also be kept in mind that
social disorder does not necessarily mean chaos.

All social groups show some absence or uniformity both in standards and effectiveness of social
control. There are always some mal by adjustments and conflicts, as illustrated psychopaths,
eccentrics and criminals. Moreover, in times of rapid social change the deviations may be
numerous and wide spread so as to be characterized as social disorganization. When pre-literate
people come under domination of a complex civilization the old norms and/or controls may
become weak so as to destroy all incentive for ordinary activities of life apart from zest of living.

The order of any social system consists of both regularized patterns of action and institutions that
control and channelize the conflict produced by persistent strains. The coordination that exists in
a society at a single point of time is perhaps miraculous. More wondrous is the fact that system
persists over relatively long periods of time. However, societies do change. And when they
change, certain amount of disorder creeps in. The concept of control and conformity, therefore,
includes the efforts to retain it and the departures from it.

Law

In our times state is the sole upholder of social control and conformity, and the principal means
at its disposal is law. Since law is enforced by State, force is present. Roscoe Pound explains law
as social control through systematic application of the force of a politically organized society. In
a lighter vein Bertrand Russell remarks that the good behaviour of even the most exemplary
citizen owes much to the existence of a police force. Much earlier, Durkheim was the first
sociologist to show that law is the means to enforce the collective conscience or collectivity
which makes society an entity by itself, almost God.

Law is closely associated with morality and religion. Legislation always rests on social doctrines
and ideals which have been derived from religion and morality, and judicial decisions always
rely on the fundamental moral ideas of society expressed as reason, natural law, natural justice,
and equality and, in more recent times, as public policy or public interest litigation as in
India.Law, therefore, rests upon moral sentiments derived from religion and is influenced by
institutional arrangements of society; and it brings about, by its precision and sanction, such a
degree of certainty in human behaviour that cannot be attained through other types of social
control. On occasions, law enforces social attitudes and contracts which initially were those of a
small minority of reformers. In Russia, law has established new morals of behaviour which were
originally the aspirations of small group of revolutionaries. In democratic societies, too, social
reformers played an important part in influencing social behaviour, later on approved by law.

One more characteristic of law is the changed outlook towards punishment. As societies are
becoming more confident of their powers to maintain order as a result of rising material
standards, declining class differences and spread of education and extension of rights, more and
more stress is being laid on the willing cooperation of people with state and its law. This
development has been further augmented by studies in sociology and psychology which have
shown that crimes are projection of society rather than the results of individual violation. That is
why the new discipline, called criminology, has developed as an applied branch of sociology.

Lastly, law as it is today, does not primarily deal with individuals alone. Very often it regulates
conflicts between individuals and groups as well as between individuals and large organisations
whether public or private. The role of property in social life has been modified by the changes
that have accrued in the relations between the employer and the worker through the abolition of
the crime of conspiracy, the recognition of collective bargaining, social security and direct
limitations on the use of private property, all through legislation.

The law as it exists today partly contributes to social change. As already remarked above, the
change in the role of property has led to a great social change in man's social behavior. Secondly,
individual initiative is no longer on the premium in modern societies. Mammoth organizations
and corporations undertake the vast socio-economic activities of modern times. Taking into
account these changes, American sociologists have introduced expressions such as the 'Other-
directed man' and the organization man. As the social complex of modern communities is
transforming itself, law, too, is keeping pace with them in making the interaction between the
other direct man and the mammoth organizations or the corporations to be smooth and efficient.

In developing societies the role of law in contributing to social change is much more. In all
countries there is a continuous rationalization of the existing law by modification, introduction of
foreign codes, and systematic legislation in relation to customary and traditional law. The Indian
Constitution is an embodiment of such monumental change. The philosophy governing social
changes, implied as well as explicitly stated in the Constitution, is governed by the principles
stated in the Preamble which are entirely secular and which bear the imprint of the leading minds
of the world like the 18th century French philosophers, liberal thinkers of the 19th century, the
Fabian socialists of the 20th century, and individual thinkers like Thoreau, Tolstoy and Mahatma
Gandhi.

Although law has an important role in maintaining social order or conformity, there are a few
weaknesses in the existing law. It no longer has charismatic qualities which it earlier had,
although our courts resound with expressions like the Majesty and the sanctity of law, your
Lordships and so on. Second, people do not feel collectively and directly involved when any law
is violated. It is more in the form of keeping each individual in his limits. Lastly, law does not
enable the criminal to be finally reconciled to society. Modern Law, as it has developed, is
increasingly being separated from custom and religion. It is only when legislation and litigation,
the two processes concerned with law, are harmonized that they take their appropriate place in
social control.

If you are suffering from pleural mesothelioma get the legal help you need to receive
compensation. Go online to research various mesothelioma attorneys, but with mass lawsuits of
this nature it is extremely important to get reliable legal representation.

Custom

Once a habit is established, it becomes a role or norm of action. Customs often involve binding
reciprocal obligations. Also, custom supports law, without which it becomes meaningless. In the
words of Maclver and Page, custom establishes a social order of its own so that conflict arising
between custom and law is not a conflict between law and lawlessness, but between the orders of
reflection (law) and the order of spontaneity (custom).

In general, customs regulate the whole social life of man. Law itself cannot cover the whole
gamut of social behavior. It is the customary practices that contribute to the harmonious social
interactions in a society which normal times of peace and tranquility. The influence of custom, at
times, extends beyond one's own community. In certain communities custom determines the
relations between two communities at war. The Bedouins of the African desert will never destroy
a water-well of the enemy.

Some of the customs do not play any role in social control. They just exist because of their
ancient nature just as all people bathing in an unhygienic tank or a lake just because of an
established religious custom. Even the custom of performing Shradha in India has no meaning if
people do not know how to respect what the past has given us as well as accept our moral
obligation to the future generations. However, in most of the traditional societies the customary
practices are all emptied of their meaning.

In brief, although custom is regarded as one of the less formal types of control like public
opinion, its influence on social life is very significant as it alone contributes to the textual part of
social behavior.

Integration

Integration is defined as a process of developing a society in which all the social groups share the
socioeconomic and cultural life. The integration of the communities is facilitated by the factors
that help assimilation. Alcott Parsons defined integration as a mode of relation of the units of the
system by virtue of which on the one hand they act collectively to avoid disrupting the system
and making it impossible to maintain the stability and on the other hand to cooperate to promote
its functioning as a unity. He believed that the kinship group, family, profession, the state and
religion are visible social structures and these perform the function of integration in various
forms.

Social Distance

Bogardus developed the concept of social distance to measure the degree of closeness or
acceptance we feel toward other groups. While most often used with reference to racial groups
social distance refers to closeness between groups of all kinds. Social distance is measured either
by direct observation of people interacting or more often by questionnaires in which people are
asked what kind of people they would accept in particular relationships. In these questionnaires a
number of groups may be listed and the informants asked to check whether they would accept a
member of each group as a neighbor, as a fellow worker as a marriage partner and so on through
a series of relationships. The social distance questionnaires may not accurately measure what
people actually would do if a member of another group sought to become a friend or
neighbour.The social distance scale is only an attempt to measure one's feeling of unwillingness
to associate equally with a group. What a person will actually do in a situation also depends upon
the circumstances of the situation.

Sociology Of Media

We can understand the social impact of the development of new networks of communication and
information flow only if we put aside the intuitively plausible idea that communication media
serve to transmit information and symbolic content to individuals whose relations to others
remain fundamentally unchanged. We must see instead that the use of communication media
involves the creation of new forms of action and interaction in the social world, new kinds of
social relationships and new ways of relating to others and to oneself. When individuals use
communication media they enter into forms of interaction which differ in certain aspects from
the type of face to face interaction which characterizes most encounters of daily life. They are
able to act for others who are physically absent or act in response to others who are situated in
distant locales. In a fundamental way the use of communication media transforms the spatial and
temporal organization of social life creating new forms of action and interaction and new modes
of exercising power, which are no longer linked to the sharing of a common locale.

The development of communication media has not only rendered power visible in new ways, it
has also rendered it visible on an unprecedented scale. Today mediated visibility is effectively
global in scope. This circumstance is the outcome of a complex process of globalization whose
origins can be traced back at least as far as mid- 19 century.
Cultural theory

Three traditions of thought are relevant. One is the tradition of critical social theory stemming
from the work of Frankfurt school. The early writings of Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse their
critique of what they called 'the culture industry' were too negative and was rooted in a
questionable conception of modern societies and their developmental trends. But Habermas's
early accounts of the emergence and transformation of the public sphere is a work that still
merits careful consideration.

The great strength of Habermas's early work is that it treats the development of media as an
integral part of the formation of the modern societies. He argued that the articulation of critical
public opinion through the media was a vital feature of modern democratic life. The vision which
lies behind Habermas account is one that continues with some justification to command our
respect. The second tradition stemmed from the work of so-called media theorists. The most
well-known of these theorists was Marshall McLuhan but the most original and insightful was
probably McLuhan's compatriot and mentor Harold Innis.

Innis was one of the first to expose systematically the relations between media and
communication on the one hand and spatial and temporal organization of power on the other. His
theory of the bias of communication simply put that different media favored different ways of
organizing political power whether centralized or decentralized extended in time or space and so
on was no doubt too crude to account for the complexities of the historical relations between
communication and power. But Innis rightly emphasis the fact that communication media as
such are important for the organization of power, irrespective of the content of the messages they
convey. This approach has been taken up and dev eloped by others by McLuhan but also by
more recent theorists like Joshua Meyrowitz who insightfully combines an analysis of electronic
media inspired by McLuhan with an account of social interaction derived from Goffman.This
tradition is less helpful however when it comes to thinking about the social organization of the
media industries ,about the ways in which the media are interwoven with the unequal distribution
of power and resources and about how individuals make sense of media products and incorporate
them into their lives.

Hermeneutics

It is a tradition concerned with the contextualized interpretation of symbolic forms. Among the
recent contributions the works of Gadamer, Ricoeur but also the more ethnographically oriented
writings of Clifford Greetz.It highlight the fact that the reception of symbolic forms including
media products always involves a contextualized and creative process of interpretation in which
individuals draw on the resources available to them in order to make sense of the message they
receive. It also calls for our attention to the fact that the activity of appropriation is part of an
extended process of self formation through which individuals develop a sense of themselves and
others of their history their place in the world and the social groups to which they belong. By
emphasizing the creative, constructive and socially embedded character of interpretation.
Hermeneutics converges with some of the recent ethnographic work on the reception of media
products while at the same time enriching this work by bringing to bear on it the resources of a
tradition concerned with the link between interpretation and self formation

Some of terms and the theorists

 Animism- Tylor
 Animatism- Marett
 Anomie- Durkheim, Merton
 Achieved and Ascribed role- Linton
 Barbarism- Morgan
 Cultural lag- Ogburn
 Cultural Relativism- Herskovitz
 Cultural reproduction- Bourdien
 Culturalization - Kluckhon
 Ethnocentrism-Sumner
 Ethnology- J.S Mill
 Essentialism- Karl Popper
 Eugenics- Francis Galton, Karl Pearson
 Gesselschaft and Gemeinschaft- Earl Bell
 Quasi Group- Ginsberg
 Primary and Secondary group- Cooley
 Positive and Negative Group- Newscomb
 Membership& Non- membership group- Merton
 Marginal Man- Adorno
 Status situation- Lockwood
 Status Symbol- Pack and Bourdien
 Structuralism- Levi Strauss
 Structuration- Anthony Giddens
 Status Set- Merton
 Status sequence- Merton
 Relative Deprivation- Stouffer, Merton
 Role Distance- Goffmann
 Roleset- Merton
 Patterns of culture- Ruth Benedict
 Ethos- Kroeber
 Primary and Secondary deviance- Lemert
 Theory of Moral development- Piaget
 Social distance- Bogardus
 Social Position- A.R.Brown
 Societal System- A.G Keller
 Sociography- F.Tonnies Sociometry- J.L Moreno
 Spiralist- Bell
 Social Character- Eric Fromm
 Social Fact- Durkheim
 Differential Association Theory- Sutherland

Point to Remember

 Mores is to the folk society what law is to the modern society.

 Maclver characterized caste as a closed status group.
 Durkheim pioneered the method of multivariate analysis in sociology.
 Bernstein distinguished two patterns of speech naming them elaborated and restricted codes.
 Boas hold that there is not the slightest scientific proof that race determines mentality but
there is overwhelming evidence that mentality is influenced by traditional culture.
 Brown was associated with the concept of Interaction process analysis.
 Marx and Althusser put forward the materialistic variant of the evolutionary theory.
 Parsons argued that societies developed from organizational forms where relationship was
based on status to those based upon contract.
 Brown gave the concepts of external and internal systems.
 Burgess classified societies according to their volume and density.
 Comte saw society as a social organism possessing a harmony of structure and function.
 Simon distinguished between three stages of mental activity- the conjectural, miconjectural
and the positive.
 Durkheim for the first time used the concept of social structure in sociology.
 Promordial collectivities are another name given to ethnic group.
 Thurstone,Likert and Guttman were associated with sampling procedures.
 Lundberg codified cultural items into universal, alternatives and specialties.
 The term group dynamics refers to adjustive changes in small groups.
 To Robert Merton dysfunction is an activity that lessens the adoption or adjustment of the
unit to its getting.
 To Durkheim altruistic type of suicide is characterized in modern societies.
 According to Durkheim the nature of solidarity of a society can be indicated by the nature of
economy.
 Merton believed that a political ideology as communism could provide a functional
alternative to religion.
 According to Malinowski elements of institutions included personnel, charter and norms.
 Brown held that functionalism represented a triple alliance between theory, method and
practice.
 The tendency of the person to reject the culture of his own group is called lenocentrism.
 The orientation that emphasizes individual choice and decision-making in determining
behaviour is called altruism.
 The phase psychic unity of mankind is associated with evolutionism.
 A totem acquired significance because of social acceptance.
 The superorganic view of culture has given by Darwin.
 Sociology is confined to the study of forms of social relationship in their abstract forms is
held by Idealistic school.
 Thurston scale is type of attitude scale.
 Morphology refers to the objective, scientific study of society for the purpose of pure
knowledge and theoretical advancement.
 Sumner has divided sociology into systematic and general sociology and historical sociology.
 Max Weber defined sociology as a branch of study attempting the interpretative
understanding of social action.
 C.Wright Mills advocated the inverse deductive method in sociology.
 T.Stuart Chapin was a pioneer in measurement of attitude.
 The theory of relationship was propounded by Won Weise.

Books and Authors

 Social Change - Wilbert Moore

 Modernization :Protest and Change - Eisenstadat S.N
 Protestant Ethic and Modernization: A Comparative View- Eisenstadat S.N(Edited)
 Philosophy of Right - Hegel
 Phenomenology of Mind - Hegel
 Philosophy of History - Hegel
 Leviathan - Thomas Hobbes
 Middle Class Families - C.Bell
 The End of Ideology - Daniel Bell
 The Coming of Post industrial society- Daniel Bell
 The cultural contradictions of capitalism- Daniel Bell
 The dynamics of bureaucracy- Peter Blay
 Exchange and Power in social life - Peter Blay
 The sociology of modernization and development - David Harrison
 Authoritarian personality - Adorno
 Social Change - W.F Ogburn
 Configuration of culture growth- Kroeber
 Elements of social organization - R Firth
 Plan of the scientific works necessary for the reorganization of society - St Simon with
Comte
 White Collar - C Wright Mills
 The sociological imagination - C Wright Mills
 The Function of social conflict - L.A Coser
 Coming of Age in Samoa - Margaret Mead
 Patterns of Culture - Ruth Benedict
 The Chrysanthemum and the sword- Ruth Benedict
 Bureaucratic structure and personality- Merton
 Community: A sociological study- Maclver
 Folk culture of Yucatan - Robert Redfield
 Mind,Self and society- Mead
 Dialectics of nature- Engels
 The social construction of reality - Berger and Luckman
 The anatomy of work - George Friedmann
 Cities in Evolution - Patric Geddes
 The social life of modern community- Kingsley Davis
 Social research- George Lundberg
 Significance and limits of category of social role - Dahrendorf
 The sociology of economic life - Smelsor
 The new man of power - C.W Mills
 Society and knowledge -Garden Child
 Cultural patterns and technical change- Margaret Mead
 Class conflict in industrial society - Dahrendorf
 Social processes - C.H Cooley
 Culture and Ecology - Lowie
 Primitive Culture - Tylor
 Rise of Mentocracy - M Young
 Citizenship and social class - Thomas H Marshall
 The birth of the clinic - Foucault
 Madness and civilization - Foucault
 The birth of a prison- Foucault
 Primitive society- Lowie
 Studies in Ethnomethodology- Harold Garfinkel
 The city- R.E Park
 Democracy in America - Tocquerville
 The folk culture of Yucatan - Robert Redfield
 The little community and peasant society- Robert Redfield
 Peasant society and culture - Robert Redfield
 The acquisitive society- R.H Tawney
 Equality- R.H Tawney
 One dimensional man- Herbert Marcuse
 Eros and Civilization - Herbert Marcuse
 Soviet Marxism- Herbert Marcuse
 An essay on liberation - Herbert Marcuse
 Ancient Society - Morgan
 Principle of population - Malthus
 History of human marriage - Westermarck
 System of logic- J.S Mill
 Structure of science- Nagel
 The human group -Homans
 Phenomenology of social work- Alfred Schutz
 Class in modern society- Bottomore
 The future of an illusion- Freud

Important Concepts

 Affluent worker - Goldthorpe, Lockwood

 Alienation- Hegal, Marx
 Anomie - Durkheim used it suicide and later developed by Merton
 Anticipatory socialization- Merton
 Atomistic family- Zimmerman
 Bureaucracy- Weber explained it as ideal type
 Citizenship - T.H Marshall
 Concentric zone theory- Burgess
 Conurbation- Patrick Geddes
 Conspicuous consumption- Thorstein Veblen
 Cross cousin- Taylor
 Cultural lag - Ogburn
 Cultural reproduction- Bourdieu
 Differential worker- Lockwood
 Deschooling society- Illich
 Dialectical materialism- Hegel and later Marx
 Classificatory and descriptive system- Morgan
 Division of Labour- used by Adam Smith later developed by Durkheim
 Dysfunction and function- Merton
 Emergent properties - Talcott Parsons
 Ethnomethodolgy - Schutz and Harold Garfinkel
 Ethnology - J.S Mill
 Ideal Type- Max Weber
 Little tradition - Robert Redfield
 Internal colonialism- Gramsci,Lenin
 Leisure class- Veblen
 Labeling theory- E Lemart later discussed by Becker
 Marginal Man- Park
 Nuclear Family- Murdock
 Organizational man - Whyte
 Positivism- Auguste Comte
 Folkways - Sumner
 Grand theory- C.W Mills
 Frankfurt school - Adorno
 Oriental despotism- Karl Wittfogel
 Asymmetric society- James S Coleman
 Teknonymy- Taylor
 Relative deprivation- Stouffe in "American soldier" ,later developed by Merton
 Post Industrial society- David Bell
 Pattern variables- Talcott Parsons and Shills
 Reciprocity - Mauss
 Role distance- Goffman
 Social distance- Bogardus
 Sociometry- Moreno
 Sponsored mobility- Turner
 Rationality- Max Weber
 Styles of life - Robert Redfield
 Status inconsistency- Lenski
 Social Darwinism - Charles Darwin
 Sociology- Auguste Comte
 Utilitarianism - Bentham and Mill
 Verstehen -Max Weber
 Sib - Murdock
 Total institution - Erving Goffman
 Social circle- Zenienki
 Hermeneutics - W Dilthey, Later Mannheim Gouldner and Schultz