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Essentials of
Sociology:
A Down-to-Earth
Approach, 11e
James M. Henslin
© 2015, 2013, 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Essentials of Sociology: A Down-to-Earth
Approach, 11e
James M. Henslin
Chapter 5
Social Groups and
Formal Organizations
© 2015, 2013, 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
LO 5.1 Groups within Society
•
•
•
•
•
Primary Groups
Secondary Groups
In-Groups and Out-Groups
Reference Groups
Social Networks
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LO 5.2—Primary Groups
• By providing intimate, face-to-face
interaction, your primary groups have
given you an identity, a feeling of who you
are.
• No matter how far you move away from your
childhood roots, your early primary groups
will remain “inside” you. There, they will
continue to form part of the perspective from
which you look out onto the world.
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Primary groups such as the family play a key role in the development
of the self. As a small group, the family also serves as a buffer from
the often-threatening larger group known as society. The family has
been of primary significance in forming the basic orientations of this
couple, as it will be for their son.
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LO 5.1—Secondary Groups
• Secondary groups are larger, more anonymous,
and more formal and impersonal. These groups
are based on shared interests or activities, and
their members are likely to interact on the basis
of specific statuses, such as president, manager,
worker, or student.
• They often fail to satisfy our deep needs for
intimate association. Consequently, secondary
groups tend to break down into primary groups.
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Secondary groups are larger and more anonymous, formal, and
impersonal than primary groups. Why are these cyclists lined up
at the start of a race an example of a secondary group?
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Aggregates are people who happen to be in the same
place at the same time.
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The outstanding trait that these three people have in common
does not make them a group, but a category.
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How our participation in
social groups shapes
our self-concept is a
focus of symbolic
interactionists. In this
process, knowing who
we are not is as
significant as knowing
who we are.
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LO 5.1—In-Groups and Out-Groups
• In-groups
– We feel loyalty
– Shape our perception of right and wrong
– “Us”
• Out-groups
– We feel antagonism
– “Them”
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LO 5.1—Reference Groups
• Evaluate Ourselves
• Family, Neighbors,
Teachers, Classmates
All of us have reference
groups—the groups we use
as standards to evaluate
ourselves. How do you think
the reference groups of these
members of the KKK who are
demonstrating in Jaspar,
Texas, differ from those of
the police officer who is
protecting their right of free
speech? Although the KKK
and this police officer use
different groups to evaluate
their attitudes and behaviors,
the process is the same.
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LO 5.1—Social Networks
• Social network: people who are linked to one
another. Your social network includes your
family, friends, acquaintances, people at work
and school, and even “friends of friends.”
• The “six degrees” phrase is based on the idea
of social networks, that people are connected
through the people they know.
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LO 5.1—Social Networks
• Barriers that divide us into small worlds are
primarily those of social class, gender, and
race–ethnicity.
• The analysis of social networks has become part
of applied sociology. An interesting application is
its use to reduce gang violence. When a gang
member is shot, the gang retaliates by shooting
members of the rival gang. This leads to endless
violence, with each trying to even the score.
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LO 5.2—The Characteristics of
Bureaucracies
• Bureaucracy: a formal organization with a
hierarchy of authority and a clear division
of labor; emphasis on impersonality of
positions and written rules,
communications, and records.
• These five characteristics help bureaucracies
reach their goals. They also allow them to
grow and endure.
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When society began to be rationalized, production of items was
broken into its components, with individuals assigned only specific
tasks. Shown in this wood engraving is the production of glass in
Great Britain in the early 1800s.
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LO 5.2—Goal Displacement and the
Perpetuation of Bureaucracies
• In a process called goal displacement,
even after an organization achieves its
goal and no longer has a reason to
continue, it does.
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The March of Dimes was founded by President Franklin Roosevelt in
the 1930s to fight polio. When a vaccine for polio was discovered in
the 1950s, the organization did not declare victory and disband.
Instead, its leaders kept the organization intact by creating new
goals—first “fighting birth defects,” and now “stronger, healthier
babies.” Sociologists use the term goal displacement to refer to this
process of adopting new goals.
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McDonald’s in Tel Aviv, Israel
The McDonaldization of society does not refer just to the robotlike
assembly of food. This term refers to the standardization of everyday
life, a process that is transforming our lives.
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McDonaldization: Sociologist George Ritzer
uses the term to describe how the fast food
industry applies to work:
1. Efficiency. Tasks are completed efficiently.
2. Calculability. Size, cost, and time are more
important than quality.
3. Predictability. Products are standardized
4. Control through technology. Automation
replaces human labor.
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Technology has changed our
lives fundamentally. The
connection to each telephone
call used to have to be made
by hand. As in this 1939 photo
from London, England, these
connections were made by
women. Long-distance calls,
with their numerous handmade connections, not only
were slow, but also expensive.
In 1927, a call from New York
to London cost $25 a minute.
In today’s money, this comes to
$300 a minute!
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How is this worker trying to avoid becoming a depersonalized
unit in a bureaucratic-economic machine?
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LO 5.3 Working for the Corporation
• Self-Fulfilling Stereotypes in the “Hidden”
Corporate Culture
• Diversity in the Workplace
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LO 5.3—Self-Fulfilling Stereotypes in
the “Hidden” Corporate Culture
• Self-Fulfilling Stereotypes and Promotions
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Bureaucracies have their dysfunctions and can be slow and
even stifling. Most, however, are highly functional in uniting
people’s efforts toward reaching goals.
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The cultural and racial–ethnic diversity of today’s work
force has led to the need for diversity training.
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LO 5.4 Technology and the Control of
Workers: Toward a Maximum-Security
Society
• Technology allows bosses to monitor
millions of workers
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Candidates for jobs
are sometimes
rejected when the
prospective
employer finds
negative images or
information on social
media sites.
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LO 5.6 Group Dynamics
• Effects of Group Size on Stability and
Intimacy
• Effects of Group Size on Attitudes and
Behavior
• Leadership
• The Power of Peer Pressure: The Asch
Experiment
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LO 5.6 Group Dynamics Continued
• The Power of Authority: The Milgram
Experiment
• Global Consequences of Group Dynamics:
Groupthink
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LO 5.6—Effects of Group Size on
Stability and Intimacy
• Dyad: Two People
• Triad: Three People
– Stability
– Coalitions
• More Group Members  More Stability
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Group size has a significant influence on how people interact.
When a group changes from a dyad (two people) to a triad
(three people), the relationships among the participants
undergo a shift. How do you think the birth of this child
affected the relationship between the mother and father?
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LO 5.6—Effects of Group Size on
Attitudes and Behavior
• Increase in Size Increases Formality
• Increase in Size Diffuses Responsibility
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LO 5.6—Leadership
• Types of Leaders
– Instrumental
– Expressive
• Leadership Style
– Authoritarian
– Democratic
– Laissez-faire
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Through the Author’s Lens
Helping a Stranger
As I was walking in Vienna, a city of almost 2 million people,
I heard a crashing noise behind me. I turned, and seeing
that a man had fallen to the sidewalk, quickly snapped this
picture. You can see strangers beginning to help the man.
This photo was taken about three seconds after the man fell.
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Two strangers are helping the man, with another two ready
to pitch in. They have all stopped whatever they were doing
to help a man they did not know.
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The man is now on his
feet, but still a bit shaky.
The two who have
helped him up are still
expressing their
concern, especially the
young woman.
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By this point, the police officer has noticed that I have been taking
photos. You can see him coming toward me, his hand on whatever he
is carrying at his hip, his shoulders back, glowering and ready for a
confrontation. He asked, “What are you doing?” I said, “I am taking
pictures” (as though he couldn’t see this). He asked, “Do you have to
take pictures of this man?” I said, “Yes,” and hoping to defuse the
situation, added, “I’m a sociologist, and I’m documenting how people
help each other in Vienna.” He grunted and turned away. This photo
really completes the series, as this individual was acting as the
guardian of the community, placing a barrier of protection around the
participants in this little drama.
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Adolf Hitler, shown here in Nuremberg in 1938, was one of the
most influential—and evil—persons of the twentieth century. Why
did so many people follow Hitler? This question stimulated
research by Stanley Milgram (discussed in the text on pages 165–
166).
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LO 5.6—The Power of Peer Pressure:
The Asch Experiment
• Conformity
– Experiment in Which Respondents Often
Conformed to a Group of Strangers
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LO 5.6—The Power of Authority: The
Milgram Experiment
• Milgram found that participants would
“hurt” strangers by following the authority
of the scientist
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In the 1960s, social psychologists did highly creative but
controversial experiments. This photo, taken during Stanley
Milgram’s experiment, should give you an idea of how
convincing the experiment was to the “teacher.”
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LO 5.6—Global Consequences of
Group Dynamics: Groupthink
• Groupthink
– Collective Tunnel Vision
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