Social Structure and Social
Interaction
Starter
• In your notes, write down 5 descriptions for
yourself. Try to keep these to nouns and not
adjectives.
• Example: Ms. Manning is a teacher. NOT: Ms.
Manning is knowledgeable about social studies.
• We will come back to these descriptions a little
later, so don’t lose them!
Social Structure
• Society is a set of interrelated parts (which
sociologists believe that?)
• Social structure: interrelated statuses and
roles that guide human interaction.
• Sociologists describe a given social structure
using two components:
- Status
- Role
Describing One’s Status
• Status: socially defined position in a group or in
a society.
• Various types of statuses:
- Ascribed status: a status assigned based on quality’s
beyond someone’s control. Based on inherited traits or
age (i.e. race, heritage, gender).
- Achieved status: have control over and reached
through effort; based on skills, ability or knowledge (i.e.
basketball player, salutatorian).
- Master status: the one status that tends to rank above
the others and has the greatest role in determining one’s
social identity.
Changes in Status
• Can add to an individual’s achieved status. Other
achieved statuses do not go away, though, so
possibilities are endless.
• An individual’s master status can change over
time. What defines you now may not define you
in 10-15 years.
▫ For example, was Albert Einstein always known as
a Nobel Price winner? What could be an example
of his master status when he was 12?
Roles
• Role: the behavior, rights and obligations
expected of someone occupying a given status.
▫ Ralph Linton: “You occupy a status, but you play
a role.”
• Reciprocal roles: corresponding roles that define the
patterns of interaction between related statuses (i.e.
husband and wife).
• Role expectations: socially determined behaviors
expected of a person performing a role.
• Role performance: actual role behavior; may not
match with the expectation.
Roles (cont’d)
• With a single status, there can be many roles to
perform. The many roles attached to a single
status are known as a role set.
• Sometimes these role sets are contradictory to
the many statuses we occupy. The difficulty
associated with trying to fulfill many role sets is
known as role conflict.
• Role strain: happens when an individual has
difficulty meeting the expectations of a single
status.
Social Institutions
• When statuses and roles are organized to meet
the basic needs for society it becomes known as
a social institution.
• Examples of social institutions include: family,
friends, education, religion, the economy, etc.
Social Interactions
• Interactions take many forms. These forms are:
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Exchange
Competition
Conflict
Cooperation
Accomodation
Methods of Interaction
• Exchange: interactions based on return for
actions.
▫ All have reciprocity: idea that there is a given
take in all relationships.
• Exchange Theory: people are motivated by
self-interest; this self-interest determines
interactions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahDxg3hc5p
M&feature=related
Interaction (cont’d)
• Competition: two or more people or groups
oppose one another to achieve a goal.
• Conflict: deliberate attempt to control via force,
opposition or harm.
• Cooperation: two or more people or groups
work to achieve a goal that benefits more than
one.
• Accommodation: state of balance between
conflict and cooperation.
▫ Four forms: compromise, truce, mediation and
arbitration.