it's about social groups and types

1. Social Groups
Thasleem
Central University of Kerala
ibnismailmp@gmail.com

2. Contents
 Introduction
 Definition
 Types

3. 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.

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

5. 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.”

6. 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”.

7. 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

8. Types
 In-groups and Out-groups
 Primary and Secondary Groups
 Quasi Groups
 Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft
 Reference Groups

9. 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

10. “Birds of the same feather flock together’’

11. 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 behaviour with the members.

12. 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,
disqust, competition, suspicion and scorn towards
them.

13. 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

14. Primary and Secondary Groups
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.
according to Cooly

15.  E.A. Shills (1951) writes:
“By primary group we mean a group characterised by
a high degree of solidarity, informally in the code of
rules which regulate the behaviour 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.”

16. Quasi Groups
These groups stand in between the primary and
secondary groups
Quasi groups are collection of people which lack
organisation 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

17. 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

18. Gemeinschaft
“social relationship whatever function characterised
by relative smallness, cohesion, long duration and
emotional intensity”
Social control in gemeinschaft is maintained through informal means
such as moral persuasion, gossip, and even gestures

19. Gesellschaft
 characteristic of modern urban life
 a society based on relations or roles and consisting
of associational groups.
 It is characterised 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.

20.  Tonnies (1987) 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

21. 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”.

22.  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

23. Positive reference groups
These are the ones we want to be accepted by.
Thus, id we want to be a film actors, we might
carefully observe and imitate the behaviour of film
actors

24. Negative reference groups
 These groups we do not be identified with
 Try to avoid resembling members of a particular
group

25. The End