Social integration is the degree to which an individual
feels connected to the other people in his or her group or community.
Durkheim’s Study of Suicide
The term social integration first came into use in the work
of French sociologist Émile Durkheim. Durkheim wanted to understand why some
people were more likely than others to take their own lives.
Durkheim’s term for a lack of social integration was anomie.
He concluded that three characteristics put some people at a higher risk of
suicide than others, and that anomie was partly to blame:
Gender (male): In most societies, men have more freedom and
are more independent than women. While this might sound like a good thing, it
can lead some men to feel that they have few significant relationships with
other people and that it would be an admission of weakness to seek advice or
comfort from others. This can lead to feelings of being cut off from a group or
community.
Religion (Protestant): Durkheim felt that Protestants were
more likely to commit suicide than Catholics or Jews because the religious
practices of the latter two religions emphasize the development of closer ties
among their members. People who do not develop close ties with others are more
likely to commit suicide.
Marital status (single): Durkheim used the idea of social
integration to explain the higher suicide rate among unmarried people. He
concluded that people who were not married had fewer connections to other
people and were less likely to feel part of the larger community.
Durkheim’s connection of social integration to the suicide
rate is still relevant today. People who attempt suicide are much more likely
to say they feel lonely and isolated from others and claim to have few
significant relationships, confirming what Durkheim hypothesized over one
hundred years ago.
Group Dynamics
The term group dynamics implies that our thoughts and
behaviors are influenced by the groups to which we belong and that, in turn, we
influence how the group as a whole thinks and behaves.
Example: Children’s behavior is influenced by the behavior
of other children. Clothing styles, speech patterns, and mannerisms spread
quickly among groups of children. When a few children in a classroom begin
using a particular expression, soon all the kids in the class will be using the
same expression.
This example illustrates two ways in which group dynamics
work. First, one or two children adopt a mannerism and it spreads to the group.
After the majority of the group has adopted it, it is very likely that other
individual children will adopt it. Groups influence individuals, and
individuals influence groups.
Adults are also influenced by the behavior of others. When
adults voluntarily join a new group, they usually want to fit in and show
others that they are worthy of membership. New members of a group are even more
likely to be influenced by group dynamics because they don’t want to seem
obstinate or contrary. It usually takes a while before the new member is able
to influence the thoughts and behavior of the group.
Group Size and Member Interaction
Georg Simmel was one of the first sociologists to look at
how the size of a group affects interactions among its members. Simmel believed
that in a dyad, a group of two people, interactions were intense and very
personal. He also believed that a dyad was the least stable category of groups.
A marriage is an example of a dyad. Simmel further said that a triad, a group
of three people, was much more stable because conflicts between two of its
members could be mediated by the third person. In general, Simmel believed that
larger groups were more stable than smaller groups, but that in smaller groups
the interactions between members were more intense and more intimate.
In the early 1950s, Solomon Asch conducted an experiment
that illustrated how strongly group membership can influence behavior. He found
that one-third of the subjects he tested were influenced by the group’s
consensus, even though the group was obviously incorrect.
Social Pressure
To analyze the power of groups, Asch solicited students for
a study of visual perception. Before the experiment began, he told all but one
of the group of eight that the real purpose was to pressure the remaining
person into going along with the group’s decision. He showed the group two
cards—one with one line, another with three lines of varying heights. The
students were supposed to identify the line on the second card that was the
same length as the line on the first card. The correct choice was easy to
identify. Most students made the appropriate choice until Asch’s accomplices
began answering incorrectly. One third of all participants conformed to the
group and answered incorrectly.
Groupthink
The sociologist Irving Janis coined the term groupthink to
refer to the tendency of people in positions of power to follow the opinions of
the group to the point that there is a narrow view of the issue at hand. When
groupthink operates, the emerging viewpoint is that there is only one correct
course of action and anyone who disagrees is labeled as disloyal.
Example: President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his advisors
concluded that the Japanese would never attack a U.S. installation. Some
members of Roosevelt’s inner circle felt differently but were not assertive in
voicing their opinions, since they did not want to contradict the group
consensus and appear disloyal. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on
December 7, 1941, the general consensus was revealed to be incorrect.
Article Credit: http://www.sparknotes.com/sociology/social-groups-and-organizations/section3.rhtml
No comments:
Post a Comment