GROUPS WITHIN SOCIETY

Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics

Quarter 2 Module 1

Social group may be defined as a group of individuals who often act with each other on the premise
of shared expectations regarding behaviour and who share a common identity.

Categories of Groups

Primary group is a typical small social group whose members share close, personal, intimate, and
face to face association and cooperation and have strong emotional ties. The members have a
feeling of togetherness and belongingness, and sympathetic with one another.

Examples:
o Families o peers
o friendship groups o neighbours, etc.
o play groups

Secondary group can be small or large who do not interact much; mostly impersonal; interactions
among members are casual and usually short-term; typically found at work and school.

Examples:
o include the group for a school o superior-subordinate
project o seller-buyer
o members of the committee o etc

Reference group. They serve as model of standards; we use them as patterns to guide behaviours
and attitudes.

Examples
o peer groups o actors and actresses, etc.
o senior schoolmates

Reference group may be classified as in-group or out-group.

In-group is a social group to which an individual identifies and which give him/her a sense of
belongingness, solidarity, camaraderie, the feeling of togetherness, and protective attitude toward
the other members.  The members know each other intimately and loyal to each other. They share
common activities, goals, and background. Examples are membership of a church organization,
sports club. 

Out-group is a social group that an individual does not identify with; viewed as outsiders of the in-
group. Any member of the in-group has a feeling of strangeness, avoidance, antagonism, etc.
towards the members of the out-group. Example could be a sports team opponent.

Networks (link or connection) are defined as sets of informal and formal social ties that link people
to each other.  Social network is a sociological concept for a group of interdependent individuals and
the relationships between them. It is formed by the presence of social linkage for some personal,
economic, religious, or political reasons. The social actors within a network might be people,  families,
organizations, corporations, states, or a mixture of individuals and groups.