Assignment # 1

Social Process and its Types

1/26/2011

Social Process
Social process is the repetitive general process by which two or more individuals are In meaningful contact as a result of which their behavior is modified. It is merely the characteristic ways in which interaction occurs. The processes of interaction have been classified by sociologists based on the relationships that exist between two interacting individuals and groups. 1. Integrative or Associative or Conjunctive social processes: Those processes which tend to create harmony or unity in society. 2. Disintegrative or Dissociative or Disjunctive social processes They tend to create disharmony or disunity in society These two types are further divided into 14 different kinds: 1. Competition: It is an unconscious process because it is concerned with the subject only and not with the individual, impersonal, continuous activity because it never ends and universal process because it is practiced everywhere. There are five forms of competition Economic, Cultural, Social, Racial and Political competition. Examples: Competition is a factor in education as well. Each student is in competition with the other. There is a big global competition in the business field.

2. Conflict: Conflict is goal-oriented but, there is a difference, in conflict, one seeks deliberately to harm or destroy the other person or group. Conflict can also occur in cooperative situations, in which two or more individuals or parties have consistent goals, because the manner in which one party tries to reach their goal can still undermine the other individual or party. A clash of interests, values, actions or directions often sparks a conflict. Conflicts refer to the existence of that clash. Emotional conflict, clashing and contradictory emotions within a person. Group conflict, Organizational conflict, Workplace conflict and Controversy. Example of conflicts: The Kargil War that took place between May and July 1999 in the Kargil district of Kashmir. The cause of the war was the infiltration of Pakistani soldiers and Kashmiri militants into positions on the Indian side of the Line of Control. 3. Contravention: It is characterized by two main features, confusion and secret hatred. There are three forms; contravention of generations, sexes and parliamentary contraventions. Forms of Contravention: Contravention of Generations: It is found to exist between two or more generations. It is often seen that the young display dislike for the views of their elders.

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Contravention of Sexes: it is often expresses the tendency of regarding the members of the opposite gender with mistrust and suspicion. For example in male dominant societies opinion of females are not respected. Parliamentary contravention: it refers to the contravention between the majority and the minority opinions in parliament.

4. Dissension: It is a disagreement which leads to a quarrel. It is often found that two people or two classes of a society do not agree to one anothers point or their views clash each others views.

5. Stratification: In sociology and other social sciences, social stratification refers to the hierarchical arrangement of individuals into divisions of power and wealth within a society. Stratification derives from the geological concept of strata - rock layers created by natural processes. The term most commonly relates to the socio-economic concept of class, involving the "classification of persons into groups based on shared socio-economic conditions, a relational set of inequalities with economic, social, political and ideological dimensions. This leads to contradictions amongst these classes of levels. 6. Acculturation: It is the exchange of cultural features that results when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first hand contact; the original cultural patterns of either or both groups may be altered, but the groups remain distinct. Despite definitions and evidence that acculturation entails twoway processes of change, research and theory have continued with a focus on the adjustments and changes experienced by minorities in response to their contact with the dominant majority. Thus, acculturation can be conceived to be the processes of cultural learning imposed upon minorities by the fact of being minorities. 7. Cooperation: It is that form of social interaction in which two or more persons work for the achievement of a common goal. For example take the example of a college here all teachers work to maintain a high standard of education. The word cooperation has derived from two words co meaning together and opera meaning to work together they mean joint work. There are five forms of cooperation: direct, indirect, primary, secondary and tertiary cooperation. Example: 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. 8. Accommodation: It is the first step to move from conflicts to reconciliation and cooperation. An individual cannot always fight with the environment he lives in it is necessary for him to tolerate others. For example, when people from villages migrate to cities they have to accommodate themselves accordingly.

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Accommodation is a type of social process in which two or more individuals or groups interact with one another to prevent, reduce or eliminate conflicts. There are four forms of accomodation; Compromise, toleration, conversion, sublimation and rationalization. 9. Assimilation:

It is the process by which a person or a group coming into contact with another cultural group acquires its way of life in the long run. It is the form of adjusting to the society. It is an unconscious process but as a result the social attitudes get modifies. It is also a cultural process. Example: In terms of child development, Piaget used the term assimilation to refer to the process in
which a child modifies new information to fit into an existing schema. Example - a child sees a cow for the first time and says "doggy." The child fits the strange animal into the existing schema of "doggy." 10. Consensus: Consensus has two common meanings. One is a general agreement among the members of a given group or community, each of which exercises some discretion in decision making and follow-up action. The other is as a theory and practice of getting such agreements. 11. Differentiation: The principal feature of modern society is the increased process of system differentiation as a way of dealing with the complexity of its environment. This is accomplished through the creation of subsystems in an effort to copy within a system the difference between it and the environment. The differentiation process is a means of increasing the complexity of a system, since each subsystem can make different connections with other subsystems. it is defined sociologically as a process of selection from variation; the more differentiation that is available, the better the selection. 12. Specialization: It is the social process in which groups of workers, divided according to their skills, interact with each other. All these groups work on different tasks to accomplish one big goal. They are working on one common goal but are not responsible for the whole process alone.

13. Professionalization: It is the social process by which any trade or occupation transforms itself into a true profession of the highest integrity and competence. this process tends to involve establishing acceptable qualifications, a professional body or association to oversee the conduct of members of the profession and some degree of demarcation of the qualified from unqualified amateurs.

14. Exchange: It is the interaction which takes place as an effort to receive a reward or a return for their actions.

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