Individuals%20as

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Individuals as Status-Occupants status-setsrole-s
ets norm-clusters
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Obligations and Responsibilities
Normative Expectations (Rules)
Social Status
Cognitive Attributes Beliefs, Values, Motivations
and Attitudes
Interests
Power Authority
Social Capital
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Obligations and Responsibilities What am I
supposed to do?
Where do these come from?
Social Status
How do they change over historical time? i.e.,
fathers and parenting.
Individuals who occupy a given status must take
these into account.
The extent to which individuals who occupy a
given status live up to the responsibilities and
obligations that are called for varies.
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Obligations and Responsibilities What am I
supposed to do?
Normative Expectations (Rules) How am I supposed
to do all this?
Social Status
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Normative Expectations (Rules) How am I supposed
to do all this?
Guidelines, rules for social conduct. They
indicate how one ought to act or behave in
social settings Prescribed -
Proscribed Permitted - Preferred
Social Status
Norms vary from one culture to another. Norms
vary from one sub-culture to another.
Norms vary over historical time.
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Normative Expectations (Rules) How am I supposed
to do all this?
Do not confuse norms with actual action or
behavior.
Social Status
The extent to which people consider norms
legitimate varies.
The extent to which people comply with norms
varies.
Norms vary in their importance Folkways -
norms for routine or casual interactions Mores -
norms derived from moral valuesTaboos - norms
that place behavior out of bounds Laws - norms
that are codified and are sanctioned
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S T A B I L I T Y
Obligations and Responsibilities What am I
supposed to do?
Normative Expectations (Rules) How am I supposed
to do all this?
Social Status
Cognitive Attributes Beliefs, Values, Motivations
and Attitudes
Mutually reinforcing and reciprocal Expectations.
Whether we recognize it or not, we possess a
vast storehouse of social knowledge and, to
varying degrees, know what is expected of us
what to expect of others.
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S T A B I L I T Y
Obligations and Responsibilities What am I
supposed to do?
Normative Expectations (Rules) How am I supposed
to do all this?
Social Status
Cognitive Attributes Beliefs, Values, Motivations
and Attitudes
Interests Conflict is built into society.
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Interests Conflict is built into society.
Conflict is built into the very fabric of
society. It is as normal - and healthy - as the
air we breathe and usually occurs in socially
patterned ways.
Social Status
By virtue of occupying different Positions,
people will have different sets of LEGITIMATE
interests, values and attitudes.
Thus a great deal of conflict in society is
structured it is the result of people -
status-occupants trying to live up to the
expectations placed upon them.
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Interests Conflict is built into society.
Social Status
If conflict is built into the very fabric of
society, how is it managed?
What are the patterns and functions of conflict?
How are conflicts - whether legitimate or not -
resolved?
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S T A B I L I T Y
Obligations and Responsibilities What am I
supposed to do?
Normative Expectations (Rules) How am I supposed
to do all this?
Social Status
Cognitive Attributes Beliefs, Values, Motivations
and Attitudes
Interests Conflict is built into society.
Power Authority
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Power Authority
Power the capacity to impose ones will over
others, even against the resistance of others
coercion.
Social Status
Authority the capacity to have others comply
with your wishes - even if they would prefer not
to - because they recognize the legitimacy of the
request.
Power and authority are usually not individual
attributes, they are located in the positions
people occupy i.e., U.S. President.
The extent to which power and authority are
exercised by status-occupants varies e.g.,
Eisenhower, Nixon, Kennedy.
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Power Authority
Power and authority are not equally distributed
in all social statuses
Social Status
employer - employee male - female professor -
student dean - professor wealthy - poor white -
non-white
As a result, we should expect to find different
outcomes in society examples
racial disparities in criminal sentencing
unequal pay for men and women
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S T A B I L I T Y
Obligations and Responsibilities What am I
supposed to do?
Normative Expectations (Rules) How am I supposed
to do all this?
Social Status
Cognitive Attributes Beliefs, Values, Motivations
and Attitudes
Interests Conflict is built into society.
Power Authority
Social Capital Access to Opportunities and
Resources Inequality is built into society
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Social Capital Access to Opportunities and
Resources Inequality is built into society
Social Status
Central or Controlling Statuses Different
statuses provide occupants different degrees of
access to resources and opportunities - some
more, some less. Examples the double
standard the opportunity structure
the glass ceiling
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S T A B I L I T Y
Obligations and Responsibilities What am I
supposed to do?
Normative Expectations (Rules) How am I supposed
to do all this?
Social Status
Cognitive Attributes Beliefs, Values, Motivations
and Attitudes
Interests Conflict is built into society.
Power Authority
Social Capital Access to Opportunities and
Resources Inequality is built into society
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Status-sets
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Status-sets identities
Age 54
Husband
Father
Race White
Professor
Friend
Executive Director
Status-Activation Salient Statuses
Since individuals occupy multiple statuses, which
specific status becomes activated at any given
time? How is this socially negotiated by
partners in interactions? How are
discrepant activations resolved?
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Status-sets identities
Age 54
Husband
Father
Race White
Professor
Friend
Executive Director
Since individuals occupy multiple statuses they
are subject to cross-pressures expectations to
comply with contending expectations of different
statuses.
Status-consistency - to what extent are the
beliefs, values attitudes, interests
and social standing attached to
different statuses in an
individuals status-set consistent?
and then how are the inevitable
inconsistencies that arise managed?
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Status-sets
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Master and Dominant Statuses
Master Status that status within an individuals
status-set that has special importance for
social identity, often shaping a persons
entire life.
Dominant Status that status within an
individuals status-set that is given priority
when the behavioral expectations associated
with two or more statuses come into
conflict. Salient Status that status within
an individuals status-set that is elicited in
a particular situation.
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Status-conflict Status-strain
Age 52
Husband
Father
Race White
Professor
Friend
Executive Director
Conflict living up to the demands and
obligations of one status precludes
fulfilling the demands and obligations of
another status.
Strain fulfilling all of the various status
demands and obligations, but at
less than peak effectiveness - having to
prioritize, make trade offs, cut corners.
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Social Status and corresponding Role-Set
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Role-set corresponding to the status of
Professor
Professor
Students
Colleagues
Deans
Support Staff
Community
(each with a variable person-set)
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Status-conflict or Status-strain
Role-conflict or Role-strain
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Mertons General Paradigm of Sociological /
Structural AmbivalenceStructurally created
Strain 

• opposing normative tendencies in the social
  definition of a role or status

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The Paradigm in General

• Most extended incompatible normative
  expectations of attitudes, beliefs, and
  behavior assigned to a status or to a set of
  statuses.
• Most restricted incompatible normative
  expectations incorporated within a single
  role of a single status.

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Specific Conflicts Contradictions

• Conflict among statuses within a status-set a
  pattern of conflict of interests or of values
  within the status-set.
• Conflict between several roles associated with a
  particular status.
• Contradictions among general cultural values held
  by all members of society, i.e., not specific to
  a particular status.

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Specific Conflicts Contradictionscontinued

• Conflict or disjunction between culturally
  prescribed aspirations and socially structured
  avenues for realizing these aspirations (the
  opportunity structure).
• Contradiction or conflict between cross-cultural
  statuses.
• Contradiction or conflict between reference group
  anchors or identifications.

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Anomie Mertons Reconceptualization

• Reconceptualizes Durkheim's concept of Anomie.
• Not an overall, or even localized breakdown in
  normative structure.
• The cultural system and social structure of
  society is basically intact, workable,
  functional.
• In fact, to a certain extent, Deviance
  represents the functionality of the system.
• Statement A disjuncture within the cultural
  system between the Goals (values) which define
  our lives and the culturally determined,
  institutionalized, legitimate Means for achieving
  them.

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Mertons Typology of Individual Adaptation
explanation of deviant behavior
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Mertons Typology of Individual Adaptation
explanation of deviant behavior
Modes of Adaptation Institutionalized Means Cultural Goals
Conformity
Innovation -
Ritualism -
Retreatism - -
Rebellion -/ -/