Chapter 5
Society and Social Interaction
Chapter Outline
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Understanding Social Interaction
Types of Social Interaction
Elements of Social Interaction
Institutions and Social Organizations
Societies
Social Distance Zones
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Intimate
Varies from direct physical
contact with another person to
a distance of 6 to 18 inches.
 Used for private activities with
another close acquaintance.
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Social Distance Zones
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Personal
Varies from 2 ½ to 4 feet.
 Is the most common spacing
used by people in conversation.
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Social Distance Zones
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Social
Varies between between 4 and
12 feet.
 Employed during business
transactions or interactions with
a clerk or salesperson.
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Social Distance Zones
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Public
Varies from 12 to 25 feet or
more.
 Used by teachers in
classrooms or speakers at
public gatherings.
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Understanding Social
Interaction
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Social Action - Anything people are
conscious of doing because of other
people.
Social interaction - Two or more people
taking each other into account.
Question
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Most of the time you can be sure that
other people want the best for you.
A. Strongly agree
B. Agree somewhat
C. Unsure
D. Disagree somewhat
E. Strongly disagree
The Context of a Social
Interaction
Three Elements:
 The physical setting or place.
 The social environment.
 The activities surrounding the
interaction—preceding it, happening
simultaneously with it, and coming after it.
Ethnomethodology
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The study of the rules or guidelines
individuals use to initiate behavior,
respond to behavior, and modify behavior
in social settings.
Ethnomethodologists view all social
interactions as equally important because
they provide information about a society’s
unwritten rules for social behavior.
Dramaturgy
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Erving Goffman believed that human
interaction can be studied on the basis of
principles derived from the theater.
In order to create an impression, people
play roles, and their performance is
judged by others who are alert to any
slips that might reveal the actor’s true
character.
Types of Social Interactions
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Nonverbal Behavior
Exchange
Cooperation
Conflict
Competition
Eye Contact in the United
States
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We make eye contact more when we listen than
when we talk.
The more rewarding we find the speaker, the
more we make eye contact.
The amount of eye contact we try to establish
with other people is determined in part by our
perception of their status.
We feel uncomfortable if someone gazes at us
for longer than 10 seconds at a time.
Exchange
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When people do something for each other
with the express purpose of receiving a
reward or return, they are involved in an
exchange interaction.
Most employer-employee relationships
are exchange relationships.
 The employee does the job and is
rewarded with a salary.
Question
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People who are better off should help
friends who are less well off.
A. Strongly agree
B. Agree somewhat
C. Unsure
D. Disagree somewhat
E. Strongly disagree
Cooperation Interaction
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Occurs when people act together for common
interests or shared goals:
 Members of a team assist one another to
achieve a common goal—winning the game.
 Family members cooperate to promote their
interests as a family.
 College students cooperate by studying
together for tests.
Question
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Suppose you had the flu and had to stay in
bed for a few days and needed help around
the house, with shopping and so on. How
likely is that that you would ask an
acquaintance for help?
A. Very likely
B. Somewhat likely
C. Unsure
D. Somewhat unlikely
E. Very unlikely
Conflict
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Conflict appears to be inevitable in human
society.
Conflict always involves an attempt to
gain or use power.
Competition is a form of conflict in which
individuals or groups confine their conflict
within agreed-upon rules.
Competition
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A form of conflict in which individuals or
groups confine their conflict within agreed
upon rules.
Marriage and Social
Interactions
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Husbands and wives cooperate in
household chores and responsibilities.
They engage in exchange interactions.
Married people experience conflicts in
their relationship.
The husband and wife whose marriage is
damaged may find themselves in
competition.
Statuses
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Socially defined positions that people occupy.
Master status - One of the multiple statuses a
person occupies that seems to dominate the
others in patterning a person’s life.
Ascribed statuses - Statues conferred by factors not
controlled by our own actions or decisions.
Achieved status - Statuses occupied as a result of an
individual’s actions.
Statuses
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Common status:
 Protestant, college graduate, African
American, and teacher.
Occupational status:
 Doctor, computer analyst, bank teller, police
officer, butcher, insurance adjuster, thief, and
prostitute
Nonoccupational status:
 Son, daughter, jogger, friend, Little League
coach, neighbor, gang leader, and mental
patient.
Statuses
Question
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Family position, gender and racial
identity are examples of:
A. achieved statuses.
B. a role set.
C. normative statuses.
D. ascribed statuses.
Answer: D
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Family position, gender and racial identity
are examples of ascribed statuses.
Roles
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The culturally defined rules for proper behavior
that are associated with every status.
Role set - All the roles attached to a single
status.
Role strain - Conflicting demands attached to
the same role.
Role conflict - An inability to enact the roles of
one status without violating those of another
status.
Roles
Question
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A mother is torn between going to her
son's soccer game or attending her
daughter's ballet recital. This would be
an example of:
A. role conflict.
B. role strain.
C. role playing.
D. her role set.
Answer: B
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A mother is torn between going to her
son's soccer game or attending her
daughter's ballet recital. This would be an
example of role strain.
Social Institutions
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The ordered social relationships that grow
out of the values, norms, statuses, and
roles that organize those activities that
fulfill society’s fundamental needs.
Society
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A grouping of people who share the same
territory and participate in a common culture.
Organized societies are rare among mammals
with the exception of the wolf pack, the prairie
dog town, and the baboon troop.
Society is universal among humans and must
have performed major adaptive functions that
increased the chances of human survival.
Types of Societies
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Hunting and food-gathering
Horticultural
Pastoral
Agricultural
Industrial and postindustrial
Hunting and Food Gathering
Societies
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Early societies foraged for vegetables and small
game, fished, collected shellfish, and hunted
larger animals.
They subsisted on whatever was at hand and
when the food in an area was exhausted they
moved on.
Anthropologists estimate that humans hunted
for 1 million years, but it has been only 10,000
years since people began to experiment with
the possibilities of organized agriculture.
Horticultural Societies
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12-15,000 years ago, a drying trend took place
in what had been subtropical climates, and the
deserts of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East
developed.
Some groups began to cultivate gardens and
fields.
It appears women invented horticulture by
planting seeds with the goal of having a sure
source of food later, by observing the
relationship between seeds and plant growth.
Pastoral Societies
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Rely on herding and the domestication and
breeding of animals for food and clothing.
Pastoral societies appear in many regions that
are not suitable for agriculture such as semiarid
desert regions and the northern tundra plains of
Europe and Asia.
Pastoralism almost never occurs in forests or
jungles.
Agricultural Societies
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Societies that use the plow in food production.
Plowing turns the topsoil deeper, allowing for
better fertilization and producing more food.
By 5500 B.C. farmers in the Middle East were
using the plow and irrigation.
Reliance on agriculture had dramatic
consequences for society.
 Populations came together and gave rise to
cities and new social arrangements.
Agricultural Societies
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For the first time society was not organized
principally in terms of kinship.
As cities developed, the need arose for some
central authority that could serve the interests of
the leaders by enabling them to collect taxes
and create a military to protect the new centers
of population.
These developments led to the emergence of
the centralized state.
Industrial Revolution
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Developed in the mid-18th century and gained
momentum by the turn of the 19th century.
 In 1798, Eli Whitney built the first American
factory for the mass production of guns.
 By the mid-1800s the invention of the steam
locomotive and Henry Besemer’s
development of large-scale production
techniques at his steelworks in England,
brought the industrial revolution into full
swing.
Industrial Societies
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Industrial societies use mechanical means of
production instead of human or animal power.
They require an immense, mobile, specialized,
skilled and well-coordinated labor force.
Industrial societies usually have an educational
system open to all.
They require an organized system of exchange
between the suppliers of raw materials and
industrial manufacturers and between
manufacturers and consumers.
Industrial Societies
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All industrial societies have at least two
social classes:
 A large labor force that produces goods
and services but has little or no
influence on what is done with them.
 A much smaller class that determines
what will be produced and how it will be
distributed.
Postindustrial Society
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Postindustrial societies depend on specialized
knowledge to bring about continuing progress in
technology.
The computer and biotech industries are
integral parts of postindustrial society.
Postindustrial societies depend on a welleducated population.
The economies of postindustrial societies are
service oriented and more than half of the
United States work is involved in service
occupations.
Question
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An educational system open to all is a
hallmark of ________ societies.
A. hunting and gathering
B. pastoral
C. agricultural
D. industrial
Answer: D
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An educational system open to all is a
hallmark of industrial societies.
Quick Quiz
1. According to Hall, which of the following is not a
part of the context of social interaction?
A. The physical setting.
B. The social environment.
C. The relative power of each of the
participants.
D. The activities surrounding the
interaction.
Answer: C
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According to Hall, the relative power of
each of the participants is not a part of
the context of social interaction.
2. When people get together to promote
common interests or achieve shared
goals it is known as:
A. exchange.
B. cooperation.
C. conflict.
D. competition.
Answer : B
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When people get together to promote
common interests or achieve shared
goals it is known as cooperation.
3. Role conflict is likely to occur when an
individual:
A. is unable to accomplish the tasks of
the different roles.
B. is having difficulty accomplishing
the tasks of different roles.
C. has a number of statuses that have
different goals.
D. is not able to meet the demands of
a single status.
Answer : c
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Role conflict is likely to occur when an
individual has a number of statuses
that have different goals.
4. The primary difference between conflict
and competition is that:
A. conflict has negative effects on
individuals.
B. no one benefits in a conflict.
C. competition is regulated by agreed
upon rules.
D. competition results in change.
Answer: C
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The primary difference between conflict
and competition is that competition is
regulated by agreed upon rules.
5. _________________ is anything
people are conscious of doing because of
other people. _________________
involves two or more people taking one
another into account.
Answer: social action, social
interaction
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Social action is anything people are
conscious of doing because of other
people. Social interaction involves two
or more people taking one another into
account.