SOCIAL

GROUPS
 INTRODUCTION
All human life is group life.

It is also found in animals.

Pre-human ancestors lived an associated life.

These are mainly for food, sex and protection.

These dependence proves the necessity of group life.

 DEFINITION
According to MacIver and Page (1949),
“By group, we mean any collection of human beings, who are
brought into social relationships with one another’’.

Bogardus (1949) writes:

“A social group may be thought of as a number of a persons, two or more, who
have some common objects of attention, who are stimulating to each other,
who have a common loyalty and participate in similar activities.”

Ogburn and Nimkoff (1955) stated

“whenever two or more individuals come together and influence one

another, they may be said to constitute a social group”
 Characteristics
On the basis of above definitions, the following main characteristics of
social groups may be discerned:

 Two and more than two persons.

 Some kind of regular and conscious interaction through direct or indirect
communication.
 Some degree of reciprocity
 Some common interest or some common object of attention
 A feeling of unity (similar norms, values and expectations).
 Some measure of mutual awareness.
 Common understanding.
 Collective behavior
 TYPES

1. In-groups and Out-groups

2. Primary and Secondary Groups
3. Quasi - Groups
4. Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft
5. Reference Groups
IN-GROUPS AND OUT-GROUPS
An in-group is a social category to which persons feel they belong and
share a consciousness or awareness of kind

In other words, these are the groups for which we precede with the
pronoun ‘my’ such as my family , my nation, my caste, my occupational
groups etc
IMPORTANT CHARACTERISTICS OF IN-GROUP ARE:

Mutual sympathy towards one another.

Mutual cooperation, help and goodwill.

Respect for mutual benefits and rights.

Sentiment of solidarity and we-feeling.

Feeling of tolerance, compassion and generosity.

Preferential behavior with the members.

 OUT-GROUP
 An out-group is a group or category to which people feel they do not belong.
 We treat most members of out-group as ‘others’.
 We have the feeling of indifference, avoidance, disgust, competition, suspicion and scorn
towards them.

Characteristics

 In-group tends to stereotype, label the out-group members such as

racists, barbarians, spendthrifts, anti-capitalists, revolutionaries rich and
greedy
 Any threat from the out-group increase solidarity of in-group
PRIMARY AND SECONDARY GROUPS

Small; characterized by long – lasting intimate relationship which binds the members
PRIMARY together more than the goal

According to Cooley,
A primary relationship is one in which intimate face-to-face association and cooperation
predominate. These relations are based on ties of affection and loyalty, involve many different aspects to
people’s lives, and endure over long period of times.

E.A. Shills (1951) writes:

“By primary group we mean a group characterized by a high degree of solidarity, informally in the
code of rules which regulate the behavior of its members, and autonomy in the creation of these rules.
The solidarity involves a close identification of the members with one another and with any symbols of
the group which might have grown up.”
SECONDARY

Can be large or small; common interests bind the members

together more than their friendship. These groups are typically
found at work and in school.
Quasi Groups

 These groups stand in between the primary and secondary groups

 Quasi groups are collection of people which lack organization and structure

and members do not have much awareness about the existence of their

group.

 Social classes, status groups, age groups, sex groups, racial groups, crowd,

public’s, audiences are some of the examples of quasi groups.

Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft
 Somewhat similar to the concepts of primary and secondary groups are the concepts of
gemeinschaft and gesellschaft.
 These are German terms and used to represent community and society.
 These concepts were developed by German sociologist Ferdinard Tonnies (1887) to differentiate
between urban and rural life

Gemeinschaft
“social relationship whatever Social control in gemeinschaft is
function characterized by relative maintained through informal means such
smallness, cohesion, long duration as moral persuasion, gossip, and even
and emotional intensity” gestures
Gesellschaft
 Characteristic of modern urban life
 A society based on relations or roles and consisting of associational groups.
 It is characterized by individualism, mobility, impersonality, the pursuit of self interest and an emphasis on
progress rather than tradition.
 Shared values and total personal involvement become secondary.

Tonnies (1897) writes:

“Everybody is by himself and isolated, and there exist a condition of tension
against all others.”

Gesellschaft, in short, is the logic of the market place, where relationships are
contractual, impersonal and temporary
Reference Groups
Musthafa Sherif (1953) defined reference group as

“those groups to which the individual relates himself as a part or to which

he aspires to relate himself psychologically”.

The term reference group’ was coined by Herbert Hyman.

 Reference group which is used as a basis for comparison and evaluation.
A reference group may or may not be a membership group

Types
 Positive reference groups
 Negative reference groups
Positive reference groups
 These are the ones we want to be accepted by. Thus, if we want to be a
film actors, we might carefully observe and imitate the behavior of film
actors

Negative reference groups

 These groups we do not want to be identified with
 Try to avoid resembling members of a particular group
 THE END

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