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Stark--Chapter 1
Groups and Relationships:
A Sociological Sampler
Science: Theory and Research
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Science: A sophisticated and precise method for
describing and explaining why and how things work.
Theory: An abstract statement that explains why and
how certain things happen, or are as they are. (An
explanation)
Research: Making appropriate empirical
observations or measurements.
– Test knowledge, or gather sufficient information
about some portion of reality.
The Discovery of Social Facts
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Que’telet, Guerry--Founders of Moral
Statistics.
– Studied The Compte . Noted the stability
of crime, suicide rates
– Stable from year-to-year
– Varied greatly from place to place
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Concluded powerful forces outside the
individual cause stability and variation.
Suicide rates in Europe (Morselli)
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Morselli extended work of Que’telet, Guerry
– Why the variations in suicide, and a general increase?
Suicide rates in Europe
Morselli: It’s due to the shift from a society
based on small town, rural life to a modern,
industrialized society.
 Cities: Huge, impersonal, disorderly
 Morselli: some nations had higher rates b/c
they were more modernized; Modernization
was taking place throughout Europe
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Suicide Rates in Europe (Durkheim)
Durkheim called himself a Sociologist;
expanded on Morselli’s thesis
 Durkheim: Modern societies are deficient in
the warm/secure personal relationships
typical of traditional rural life.
 Result: People lacked social resources to
carry them through times of trouble/despair.
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Suicide Rates in Europe (Durkheim)
Durkheim: Suicide reflects weaknesses in
the web of relationships among members of
society.
 Suicide, for Durkheim, was not a weakness
of character or personality.
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The Sociological Imagination
The ability to see the link between incidents
in the lives of individuals and large social
forces. (C. Wright Mills)
 Peter Berger: Sociology is devoted to
discovering the general in the specific.
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What is Sociology?
Sociology is one of several social sciences
(among them anthropology, economics,
political science, psychology, history).
 Sometimes difficult to distinguish among
them--even some psychologists do "social"
science.
 Sociology is "The scientific study of patterns
and processes of human social relations."
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Units of Analysis
Units of Analysis--the "things" being observed
by researchers.
 Units of Analysis can be: individuals, groups,
cities, counties, advertisements, countries,
cultures.
 Sociologists aggregate these units--a
collection of a type of unit of analysis (usually
larger numbers) in which the search for
patterns is made.
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Seeing the Patterns
Seeing the Patterns
Macro and Micro Sociology
Two Kinds of Sociology:
 Micro Sociology
– Small Groups, Individuals
 Macro Sociology
– Larger Groups, Structures
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Scientific Concepts
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Concepts:
– Names used to identify some set or class of things
said to be alike.
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Concepts:
– Are the building blocks of theories--we link them
together to illustrate relationships between
concepts
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Example: Groups are “Any set of two or more
persons who maintain a stable pattern of social
relations over a period of time.”
Groups: The Sociological Subject
Groups are not aggregates.
 Aggregates come together only briefly and
accidentally.
– Examples?
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Types of Groups
Dyad
– 2 Persons
 Triad
– 3 Persons
 Coalition formation
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Is Chivalry Dead?
Chivalry: "...a readiness to help the weak
and protect women."
 Examples of Chivalrous behavior: Men
helping women with their chairs or coats,
opening doors for them.
 How might we study this?
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Is Chivalry Dead?
Is Chivalry Dead?
Why would the environment make a
difference as to how people behave?
 What was different between McDonald's and
The Embers?
 The emergent quality of groups
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Effects of Size of Groups
What happens to groups as they grow?
 Groups of size 7 or more have a tendency to
break into cliques.
 How big should committees be?
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Primary and Secondary Groups
Primary Groups
– Characterized by great intimacy among
members
– People in primary groups know each other
well; strong emotional ties.
 Secondary Groups
– Less intimate social networks
– Involved in collective goal pursuit
– No powerful sense of belonging
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Solidarity and Conflict
What binds us together?
 What separates us?
 Social Solidarity: Density and emotional
intensity of attachments within a group.
– Solidarity: “Glue”
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Analyzing Social Networks
Network: Pattern of ties or connections
between some set of units.
 Social Network: Pattern of social links or
relationships among some set of social units.
 Social Relationship: Repeated actions
between social units or the persistence of
stable, shared features among units.
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Social Networks
The pattern of social relations among
members of a group
 Sociograms
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Depiction of a Social Network
= Person
= Social Link
Studying Self-aware Subjects
The difficulty of studying people.
 Reactiveness in research
 Unobtrusive Measures: Methods which
gather information without disturbing the
objects of research.
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Validation
Validation Research: Sociologists will use
this ensure that they are getting accurate
information.
 Self-Report data
– Checking against other records
 Using multiple measures to see if they return
the same results.
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Reducing and Eliminating Bias
Essence of Scientific Method: Systematic
Skepticism
– Try to disprove things
 Many things we “know” turn out not to be
true. That’s where science comes in.
 Science is a control for bias, for if we follow
the methods correctly there is much less
likelihood of our fudging the results, either
intentionally or not.
 The public nature of science.
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The Social Scientific Process
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Wonder
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Conceptualize
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Theorize
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Operationalize
The Social Scientific Process, Cont’d
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Hypothesize
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Observe
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Analyze
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Assess
Sociology and Free Will
Are we robots whose behavior is
preordained? No.
 People make choices; people will attempt to
do the most reasonable thing
– Maximizing rewards, minimizing costs
 It's only because people's choices are
predictable that it's possible to claim people
have free will.
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Sociology and Free Will
If behavior is not predictable, it must be
random, and thus people wouldn't be making
choices
 DuBois: Sociology is the Science of Free
Will.
 Humans make choices; Sociologists study
why people make the choices they do
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