Social structures are organized through statuses and roles. Statuses are positions in society, while roles are expectations for how people in a status should behave. Statuses can be achieved through individual accomplishments or ascribed at birth. Socialization is the lifelong process through which individuals learn cultural norms and develop a self-identity. It occurs through various social agents like family, schools, peers and the workplace. The self develops through interactions with others and internalizing their perspectives. Power and influence take various forms, from force which treats people as objects, to authority which can be based on competence, legitimacy or personal appeal. Manipulation aims to influence without open communication, while persuasion involves evaluating arguments independently. Social institutions like family and

1. Social Structures, Institutions,
and Socialization
Notes to chapters 8, 9, 10

2. SOCIAL STRUCTURE
STATUSES ROLES
Social Structure
Ascribed
Achieved
• Social structure refers to the way society is organized.
• Status = is a position in a social structure.
• Role = how we (generally) expect members of a status to
behave.
– Statuses and Roles exist independently of their ‘incumbents’ or
‘occupants’
Expectation Performance

3. Statuses
• You can think of (sets of) statuses as different
ways of categorizing people in different
situations.
– Examples: Family statuses, occupational statuses ,
social class statuses, demographic statuses, etc.
1. Achieved statuses – positions that are achieved
by the individuals for themselves (but not
always on purpose); these statuses can change.
2. Ascribed statuses – statuses given to individuals
generally at birth, and from which they cannot
escape; these statuses are fixed.

4. Statuses
• Master Status- the most important status
someone occupies (as perceived by others)
• Status Symbol- material sign that indicates
someone’s status.

5. Roles
• Roles- how we expect occupants of a social
status to behave and their attempt to meet
those expectations in role performances.
– Role = the common denominator among all
occupants of a status; (i.e. what they all have in
common)
• Role Conflict- a situation in which
incompatible role demands are placed on a
person by two or more statuses at the same
time.

6. Primary and Secondary Groups
• Primary group: the people we spend the most time with; a
common whole, a “WE.” (George Horton Cooley)
• Secondary group: a larger, more specialized group in which
members engage in impersonal, goal-oriented relationships.
PRIMARY GROUP SECONDARY GROUP
Relationships are ends in themselves Relationships are viewed as means to
an end (e.g. money)
Tend to be small in size; intimate
association
Tend to be larger in size
Personal or individual qualities are
most important
Your status, rather than personal
attributes are most important
The family is typically the first and the
most enduring source of influence on
the individual
The most important secondary group
is the formal organization (e.g.
bureaucracy)

7. Social Structures
• Social structure is made up of statuses and
roles. A status is a position in a social
structure, and the role is how we (generally)
expect members of a status to behave.
• Statuses and Roles exist independently of
their ‘incumbents’ or ‘occupants’

8. Status
• A social status is a ‘position that a person
occupies in a social structure’
– You can think of these are different ways of
categorizing people in different situations.
– Examples: Family statuses, occupational statuses ,
social class statuses, demographic statuses, etc.
1. Achieved statuses – positions that are achieved by
the individuals for themselves (but not always on
purpose); these statuses can change.
2. Ascribed statuses – statuses given to individuals
generally at birth, and from which they cannot
escape; these statuses are fixed.

9. Role
• A role is the ‘sum total of expectations about
behavior attached to a particular social status’;
how we expect occupants of a social status to
behave.
– ‘Occupants of a social status are expected to perform
certain roles’
– Role = the common denominator among all occupants
of a status; (i.e. removing all idiosyncracies, what they
all have in common)
– Example: I have the status of ‘teacher’; My role is to
teach.

10. Three Problems
1. Role Strain
– Overwhelm, Stress with a single role
2. Status Inconsistency
– Ascribed vs. Achieved statuses
3. Role Conflict
– Conflict of interest; clashing expectations
between many roles

11. Society and Social Institutions
• Society = the totality of people and social
relations in a given geographic space.
– Societies, unlike groups, are self-sufficient: ‘no
group, no matter how large, qualifies as a society
unless it provides the resources to answer all of its
members’ basic needs’ (p. 140)
• Social Institutions = An institution is an
accepted and persistent constellation of
statuses, roles, values, and norms that
respond to important societal needs.

12. The Family as a Social Institution
Statuses Mother, father, son, daughter
Role expectations Wives and husbands must be sexually faithful to one
another
Values ‘All for one, and one for all’;
Norms Help one another; children treat parents with respect;
parents treat children equally

13. Basic Needs and Social Institutions
Societal Needs Social Institutions
Have continual supply of new
members
The family
Socialize new members The family, Education, Religion
Deal with health and sickness Medicine
Assign jobs and tasks Education, labor market
Create knowledge Science, religion
Control its members Law enforcement, judicial system, religion
Defend against enemies Government, military
Produce and exchange goods Economic system

14. Nature of Social Institutions
1. Institutions generally unplanned, and develop
gradually
2. Institutions are inherently conservative and
change slowly
3. Society’s institutions are interdependent: a
change in one leads to changes in the others
4. The statuses, roles, values, and norms
associated with an institution in one society may
be very different from those in another society.

15. Socialization
• Socialization = the lifelong process of social
interaction through which individuals acquire
a self-identity and the skills necessary to
achieve cultural competency.
– Agents of Socialization include the Family,
Schools, Mass Media, Peer Groups, and the
Workplace
• Social self = the relatively organized complex
of attitudes, beliefs, values, and behaviors
associated with an individual

16. What is REAL?
• Thomas theorem: "If people define
situations as real, they are real in their
consequences“
– To understand human inter-actions and
relations, sociologists have to understand
both reality, and perceived reality.
– ‘There is always a conflict between
spontaneous definitions of the situation
made by members of a society, and the
definitions which this society provides for
him’
W. I. Thomas
1863 - 1947

17. Irving Goffman
• Social roles and the ‘Definition of the
Situation’
– We are always performing social roles –
social roles are the expectations about the
behavior attached to our social status, i.e.
how we are expected to behave.
– Roles are scripted; content of roles provided
to us by society, but roles are not necessarily
fake or insincere!
– Most effective way to ensure a convincing
role performance is to influence the
definition of the situation: how things are
defined initially will influence enormously
people’s subsequent behaviors and
expectations…

18. Irving Goffman
• Rituals: refers to all those simplified,
exaggerated, stereotyped behaviors
that signal or display particular
emotions or social statuses in a
situation
• Interaction rituals: are the
institutionalized, frequently
unspoken, ways of behaving in a
society.
– Example: how to say ‘hello’ and
‘goodbye’ in a culture.

19. Play and Games
• Play: in play, there are no rules; the child makes
it up as he or she goes along.
– Play is the first step toward constructing a “Me”
• Games: games have rules and specific roles (e.g.
batter, pitcher, catcher, outfielder); the rules
specify how the person in each role participates
– In Mead’s view, the roles and the rules of games are
‘impersonal’.
– Participating in games enhances the ability of
children for role-taking, to see other people’s points
of view, and to acquire a generalized other (pg. 161)

20. PART II. SOCIALIZATION AND THE
SELF

21. Feral (‘Wild’) Children

22. Charles H. Cooley
“The looking-glass self”
• The individual internalizes the attitudes
of others toward him/her (“Me”) and
responds or reacts to those attitudes
(“I”)
• The self emerges out of social
interaction: selves can only exist in
definite relationships to others selves
• ‘Generalized Other’: we internalize or
anticipate how others we don’t know
will expect us to behave;
– “the community and society in which we
live” (p.261)
– The collectively shared consensual
meanings in society

23. Charles H. Cooley
“The looking-glass self”
1. We imagine how we look to the
other person
2. We imagine the other person’s
reaction to our appearance
3. In response, we have some
feeling, such as pride or shame

24. George Herbert Mead
• Influenced by Pragmatism, school of
American philosophy
• Focus on practical conditions and
consequences of action
 The Self
• Self = Dynamic interaction between the
“I” (subject) and the “Me” (object).
• The ‘ME’ sees myself as an object, as
others see me; the ‘I’ is my response to
my perception of how I think others see
me in this situation.
• Children are not born with an I and a
ME!

25. George Herbert Mead
• Play: in play, there are no rules; the child makes
it up as he or she goes along.
– Play is the first step toward constructing a “Me”
• Games: games have rules and specific roles (e.g.
batter, pitcher, catcher, outfielder); the rules
specify how the person in each role participates
– In Mead’s view, the roles and the rules of games are
‘impersonal’.
– Participating in games enhances the ability of
children for role-taking, to see other people’s points
of view, and to acquire a generalized other (pg. 161)

26. PART III. TYPES OF INFLUENCE
(POWER)

27. INFLUENCE
UNINTENDED
(unconscious)
EMERGENCE
1.FORCE 2.MANIPULATION 3.PERSUASION 4.AUTHORITY
Coercive
Induced
Legitimate
Competent
Personal
Types of Influence

28. Definitions of Power
1. Dennis Wrong: power is the
capacity to intentionally influence
others.
2. Bertrand Russell: “power is the
actual production of intended
effects”
3. Max Weber: ‘the chance of a man
or a number of men to realize their
own will even against the resistance
of others...’
Russell
(1872-1970)
Weber
(1864-1920)

29. Forms of Power (intended influence)
I. Force
II. Manipulation
III. Persuasion
IV. Authority:
– Coercion, Induced, Legitimate, Competent, and
Personal
• * Note: all forms of power except ‘force’
must be communicated.

30. 1. Force
• Force = treating a human as an object. Note: this only refers
to the application of force, not to the threat of force.
• Violence is the ultimate form of force: assaulting the body to
inflict pain, injury, suffering, or even death.
Depiction of slave whippingMedieval torture

31. 2. Manipulation
(aka ‘Fraud’)
• Definition: any deliberate
attempt to influence or elicit a
desired response from another
person, *where the desired
response is not explicitly
communicated to the other
person*
– Spontaneous, informal interaction
depends on the shared belief that
manipulation isn’t taking place.
Shamwow!

32. 3. Persuasion
• Persuasion occurs whenever
someone agrees with someone
else’s arguments or appeals after
evaluating them independently in
light of his/her own interests.
• Persuasion implies a context of
open and free communication,
with no anticipation of
punishments or rewards, i.e.
without any felt need to do what
the other wants.

33. 4. Authority
• Authority is successful ordering or forbidding
– A relationship of command and obedience.
– Persuasion = tested acceptance; Authority = untested
acceptance.
• 5 types (based on motivations for obeying):
1. Coercion (punishments, threat of force)
2. Induced (rewards such as money)
3. Legitimate (rights to command, obligations to obey)
4. Competent (based on perceived expertise)
5. Personal (based on desire to please)

34. Personal authority
• Personal authority is usually
low in extensiveness (# of people
it influences): e.g. a lover who
declares ‘your wish is my
command!’
• But charismatic leaders use
personal authority to
generate mass followings
that challenge the traditional
order.
Mussolini and Hitler are
(negative) examples
of charismatic leaders