Groups

1
Groups
2
Recap Market theories

• Hold only under stringent conditions
• Games have clear, cardinal payoffs
• Payoffs are common knowledge
• Indefinite iterations of game with same players
• Even so, only in very small groups
• In large groups, it is too difficult to know what
  players did (either C or D) in previous
  interactions
• High monitoring costs

3
Market theories, contd

• Further, at least some of these theories suggest
  that market approaches are most likely to produce
  cooperation (instead of just coordination) when
  people are following rules (eg Schelling).
• Where might these rules come from? Is government
  the only source?

4
Groups

• In all societies people belong to a variety of
  groups
• Families, churches, athletic clubs, firms, etc.
• These groups are related to overall social order
  in complex ways.

5
Groups

• Social groups can be very powerful
• E.g. gender roles

6
Groups

• Groups can teach people values
• Groups can enforce norms

7
Social order via values

• Values are
• General and relatively durable internal criteria
  for evaluation
• General they apply in many different situations
• Relatively durable they dont change very often
• Internal they are inside our heads, and
  directly motivate action
• Do not require external incentives
• Evaluation they tell us what is good and bad

8
Sigmund Freud
9
Freud

• People try to maximize their happiness
• the pleasure principle
• Infants want their mothers breast, but it is not
  always available
• This perception ? distinction between self (ego)
  and the external world
• The reality principle you cant always get
  satisfaction

10
Freud, contd

• How the infant copes with the mothers absence or
  disapproval
• By taking the parent into the self (super-ego),
  and allowing that internal parent to monitor its
  behavior
• Evidence for the super-ego
• A sense of guilt

11
The fundamental aspect of civilization

• The replacement of the power of the individual
  with the power of the community
• Individual liberty was no gift of civilization
  it was greatest before civilization existed
• The urge for freedom is directed against
  civilization

12
The parallel between individual and social
development

• Just as the developing individual is led to
  renounce initial desires for sensual pleasures,
  so civilization depends on a renunciation of
  instinct
• Namely, the individual desire to maximize
  personal freedom

13
Human nature sexuality and aggressiveness

• Sexuality is a fundamental motivator of human
  behavior
• (derived from the pleasure principle)
• Sexuality threatens social order because
• Unregulated sex
• Leads to interpersonal conflict (over love
  objects) hence social disorder
• Drains energy from economic productivity

14
Man is instinctively aggressive
15
Human nature must be contained to attain social
order

• Society employs a variety of methods to regulate
  sexuality and aggressiveness
• The incest taboo common to all societies
• The sexual urges of children are discouraged, so
  that their adult lusts can be controlled later on
  
• Many societies outlaw anything but heterosexual
  genital love
• Religions implore people to love their neighbors,
  etc.
• But these methods are largely unsuccessful

16
Freuds solution

• The super-ego
• i.e. the conscience
• Solution strengthen the super-ego

17
Freud the price of social order

• The superego creates guilt therefore we are less
  happy.
• Trade-off between civilization and individual
  happiness

18
Freud Summary of causal relations and mechanisms

• Macro-level cause dependence
• Situational mechanisms people desire love, want
  to avoid punishment, transfer of aggression to
  the super-ego
• Individual internal state super-ego
• Behavioral mechanisms guilt
• Individual behavior prosocial behavior

19
Freud Draw the theory

• Dependence
• Super-ego Prosocial
• behavior

20
Freud

• How do we know if the theory has merit?
• Look at the empirical world
• Freuds argument suggests that children who
  receive unpredictable nurturing (for example,
  those in orphanages or with neglectful parents)
  will be poorly socialized, and in turn, behave in
  antisocial ways.

21
Emile Durkheim
22
Durkheim

• Wanted to understand suicide
• Existing solutions are inadequate
• Mental illness
• Heredity
• Environment (climate and temperature)
• Durkheim turned to social factors

23
Egoistic suicide

• Observation Higher rates of suicide among
• Protestants vs. Catholics
• Single males vs. married males
• Families with few children vs. families with many
  children
• Why?

24
Egoistic suicide

• Individualism ? suicide
• Single people are more individualistic than
  people with spouses and children
• Families act as
• Support structures
• Rationales for living when times get tough
• Social integration ? low suicide, conformity to
  norms, social order

25
Mechanisms for egoistic suicide

• People want to be attached to something greater
  than themselves
• They want a purpose
• If the individual is sufficiently integrated, the
  social group provides that purpose.

26
Altruistic suicide

• Results from too little individualism too much
  social integration
• Evidence
• Tribal societies have high suicide
• Armies have higher suicide than civilian
  populations
• Within armies, officers are higher than enlisted
  men

27
Altruistic suicide, contd

• Too much social integration encourages people to
  sacrifice themselves for their groups/societies
• Individual life loses value

28
Effects of social integration on suicide

• Egoistic and altruistic suicide at opposite poles
  of social integration dimension
• Too little integration ( too much individualism)
  ?egoistic suicide
• Too much integration ( too little individualism)
  ? altruistic suicide

29
Egoistic/Altruistic suicide Summary of causal
relations and mechanisms

• Macro-level cause group integration
• Situational mechanisms
• Individuals need a sense of purpose that can only
  be provided by the group
• Attachment to the group increases attachment to
  group values
• Individual internal state individualism
• Behavioral mechanism people behave in accordance
  with internalized values if weak, one is
  vulnerable to discouragement if strong, one has
  little sense of self-preservation
• Individual behavior suicide
• Transformational mechanism aggregation
• Macro-level outcome suicide rates

30
Egoistic/Altruistic Suicide Draw the theory
Suicide rates

Integration
Individualism/ purpose
Individual suicide
31
Anomic suicide

• Evidence
• Suicide higher in economic depressions
• Suicide higher in economic booms
• Suicide rates correlated with divorce rates

32
Anomic suicide, contd

• Explanation
• Crises inhibit social regulation
• Lack of social regulation leads to individual
  anomie
• Anomie erosion of values
• Anomie leads to suicide

33
Situational mechanisms/assumptions

• Human needs/desires are unlimited. Individuals
  cannot create their own limits
• Thus, the passions must be limited by some
  exterior, moral force
• This force is society
• Society is the only moral power superior to the
  individual, the authority of which he accepts
• Without societal regulation, individual desires
  are infinite. Individuals are in a state of
  anomie.

34
Situational mechanisms, contd

• Society determines the rewards offered for every
  type of human activity
• There is social consensus about the relative
  values of different occupations
• Everyone realizes the limits of his ambitions and
  strives for nothing more
• This limits the passions

35
Behavioral mechanisms/assumptions

• People are content when they get the socially
  appropriate (just) rewards
• No one can be happy without limits
• Anomie is an unhappy condition
• Anomie ? Suicide

36
Durkheim

• In sum
• Social crises erode consensus about appropriate
  expectations and rewards
• Without regulation, desires are infinite.
  Infinite desires produce misery.
• Misery ? suicide

37
Effects of Regulation on Suicide

• Anomic and fatalistic suicide are at opposite
  poles of the regulation dimension.
• Too little regulation ? anomic suicide
• Too much regulation ? fatalistic suicide

38
Anomic Suicide Summary of causal relations and
mechanisms

• Macro-level cause social crisis/lack of
  regulation
• Situational mechanism
• Individuals have limitless desires
• Can only be limited by society
• Individual internal state Anomie
• Behavioral mechanism Anomie makes one miserable
• Individual behavior suicide
• Transformational mechanism aggregation
• Macro-level outcome suicide rates

39
Anomic Suicide Draw the theory
Social crisis/lack of regulation
Suicide rates

Individual anomie
Individual suicide
40
Suicide rates an indicator of social disorder

• Two causes of suicide
• Social integration
• Egoistic suicide
• Altruistic suicide
• Social regulation
• Anomic suicide
• Fatalistic suicide

41
A schematic view of Suicide
High incidence of suicide
Fatalistic suicide
Social regulation
Egoistic suicide
Altruistic suicide
Social integration
Anomic suicide
High incidence of suicide
42
What can be done to increase social order?

• Marx/Engels say
• Private property ? conflict thus abolish private
  property
• Freud responds
• Aggressiveness was not created by property it
  reigned without limit in primitive times
• Durkheim says
• Strengthen religion and common values (the
  conscience collective)
• Freud social regulation ?guilt
• Durkheim social regulation ? contentment

43
Alexis de Tocqueville
44
Tocqueville

• What is the connection between groups and other
  institutions such as government?
• Groups exist in societies with governments
• Do groups complement government or undermine it?

45
Tocquevilles Democracy in America

• A French aristocrat visits the U. S. A. in the
  1830s
• Compares American democracy to European
  aristocracy
• Focuses on the role of voluntary associations
• Freedom of association restricted in
  aristocracies believed to cause social disorder

46
Tocqueville

• Social isolation ? despotism

47
In democracies

• To obtain political support, each person must
  lend his neighbors his cooperation
• People seek to attract the esteem and affection
  of those in the midst of whom they must live
• Self-interested action declines

48
If equality ? individualism, then how to produce
social order?

• When people are involved with trying to address
  local problems, they realize how interdependent
  they are.

49
Role of associations in combating individualism

• In aristocratic societies, individual nobles can
  accomplish great things because they can call on
  the aid of their dependents. In democratic
  societies, where all are roughly equal and weak,
  collective action is more problematic and for
  that reason, more important. A principal basis
  for this collective action occurs in voluntary
  associations (321).
• If government replaces voluntary associations,
  then people will need to turn to government more.

50
Role of associations, contd

• When people are involved in voluntary
  associations, they learn to bend their will to
  the common good.
• This suggests that freedom of association
  contributes to order, rather than threatens it.

51
Tocquevilles conclusion

• Americans learn how to be good citizens through
  their experience in political associations.
• Cf. Banfield on Montegrano
• Cf. Putnam on social capital

52
Tocqueville Summary of causal relations and
mechanisms

• Macro-level cause voluntary associations
• Situational mechanism learn to cooperate
• Individual internal state enjoy cooperating
• Behavioral mechanism act accordingly
• Individual action cooperative behavior
• Transformational mechanism aggregation
• Macro-level outcome social order

53
Tocqueville Draw the theory

Social order
Voluntary associations
Enjoy cooperating
Cooperate
54
Tocqueville

• How do we know if the theory has merit?
• Look at the empirical world
• E.g. Robert Putnams study of Italy (Making
  Democracy Work, 1994)

55

• One way that groups affect individuals is by
  helping them internalize cooperative values.
• Another way that groups facilitate cooperation is
  through norms.

56
Norms

• Norms
• Cultural phenomena that prescribe and proscribe
  behavior in specific circumstances
• Thus external criteria for evaluation
• Unlike values, norms
• Require sanctioning if they are to be effective
• an external solution to the problem of social
  order

57
Norms some examples

• Books of etiquette tell us how to behave at
• Weddings
• Funerals
• Baseball games
• Birthdays
• Classrooms
• When we are visitors to other countries

58
Violations have consequences

• Coach George OLeary
• Historian Joseph Ellis
• These people are very good at their jobs -- but
  they lied
• Implication there is a norm of truth-telling at
  American universities
• Sanctions are strong

59
How norms ? order

• To the degree that people comply with prosocial
  norms
• Their behavior will be predictable
• They will act cooperatively

60
Where do norms come from?
61
Michael Hechter
62
Hechter The Theory of Group Solidarity

• Addresses two questions
• Under what conditions do groups form?
• Under what conditions are existing groups more or
  less solidary (e.g. ordered)?

63
Group formation

• People form groups only when there is a net
  benefit
• The principal benefit of groups
• The concentration or pooling of
  individually-held resources, such as
• Security
• Insurance from natural disaster and disease
• Greater access to mates and information
• Resource pooling ? specialization ? greater
  efficiency of production (Smith)

64
Group formation (contd)

• People form groups to attain these private
  (excludable) goods
• Either they cannot provide these goods at all via
  their own efforts
• Or they cannot provide them efficiently (e.g. at
  reasonable cost)
• Motive of group formation
• Access to jointly-produced goods

65
Group production

• These joint goods must be produced
• Members must comply with rules assuring
  production of joint goods
• Compliance with these rules is costly
• Members have an incentive to free ride
• Compliance is the principal cost of group
  formation

66
Insurance groups

• Group formation motivated by desire to insure
  against uncertainties of physical and economic
  security
• Friendly societies and fraternal organizations
• Mutual benefit associations
• Rotating credit associations

67
Group solidarity

• If members free ride, then few joint goods are
  produced
• Rationale for group formation
• to gain access to joint goods
• If too few joint goods are produced
• then group will dissolve
• Groups have varying levels of solidarity
• The greater the proportion of each members
  resources contributed to the groups ends, the
  greater the solidarity

68
Solidarity increases when

• Members are dependent on the group for access to
  the good
• Dependence varies to the degree that
• Members value the joint good
• They cannot obtain it elsewhere
• Members are subject to control
• Monitored to detect if they contribute
• Sanctioned
• to punish them for not contributing, or rewarded
  for exceptional contribution

69
The theory of group solidarity
Efficiency of Monitoring


Visibility of members
Probability of compliance

Efficiency of Sanctioning
Group solidarity


Extensiveness Extent of normative obligations
Dependence of members


70
How to overcome 2nd order free rider problem?

• Group survival requires compliance with rules
• Dont skip town with all the money
• Compliance requires control apparatus
• Control apparatus a collective good
• Why will it be produced?
• People invest only if there is control
• Members have an incentive to enforce the rules
  (this protects their private goods)
• Conclusion rational egoists establish control in
  small groups providing private goods

71
Summary

• Solidarity is a positive function of
• Members dependence on group
• Groups control (monitoring and sanctioning)
  capacity

72
Theory of group solidarity

• How do we know if the theory has merit?
• Look at the empirical world
• E.g. The Amish
• Witness
• E.g. Kibbutz versus Moshav (Schwartz 1954, Yale
  Law Journal)

73
Theory of group solidarity

• Hechter argues that when people are visible to
  each other, norms are more likely to be enforced
• But why do people want to enforce norms?

74
James S. Coleman
75
Coleman

• One possibility is that people want the resulting
  benefits
• E.g. When others cheat, the individual loses. If
  the individual can punish cheating, so that
  cheating declines, the individual is better off
• E.g. Smoking. When people realized that
  second-hand smoke caused health problems, they
  wanted smoking to be regulated

76
Coleman

• So, when behavior produces harms for others,
  those others have an interest in regulating it
• In turn, they are more likely to punish it

77
Coleman Draw the theory

• Externality Norms
• Producing
• Behaviors
• Regulatory Punish
• interest deviance

78
Christine Horne
79
Horne

• But presumably, any individual would prefer to
  let others make the effort to sanction rather
  than bear the costs themselves
• Sanctioning can take time and energy. It can be
  embarrassing. It can result in retaliation.
• So, why sanction?

80
Horne

• People care about their relationships with
  others, and they care about how others treat them
• So, when they make decisions about reacting to
  deviance, they consider how their actions will be
  viewed by others
• They consider how others are likely to react
• Such reactions are called metanorms

81
Horne

• People are more likely to get support for
  sanctioning in tight-knit groups
• That is, metanorms are stronger in tight-knit
  groups

82
Horne

• Cohesive groups therefore have more norm
  enforcement than noncohesive groups
• E.g. fraternities

83
Horne Draw the theory

• Group Norms
• Cohesion
• Interest in maintaining Individuals
• relationships and evoking sanction
• positive responses support others
• sanctioning efforts

84
Macy

85
Centola, Willer, and Macy

• This concern with social relations can lead
  people to punish behavior even if the behavior
  produces no harm.
• E.g. fashion, music

86

• If groups control their members, then group
  solidarity will be high. But how is order within
  a group connected to order in the larger society
  especially when the society is diverse?

87
Hechter, Friedman, and Kanazawa Attaining order
in heterogeneous societies

• Chapter contrasts two explanations of social
  order
• Order via coercion
• Critique need for legitimacy
• Order via values and norms
• Critique if order is a product of common values
  and norms, how to explain order in societies with
  discrete subcultures, like the U.S.A?

88
Thesis

• The members of groups produce local order (e.g.
  solidarity) to satisfy their own private ends
• Once produced, local order contributes to the
  production of social order

89
Local order and social order

• States free-ride on the production of local order
• Local order contributes to global order,
  regardless of the norms of local groups
• A counterintuitive implication of this argument
• The more deviant the normative content of the
  local order, the greater its relative
  contribution to social order

90
Why deviant groups contribute more to social order

• All groups control members behavior (to variable
  degrees)
• Members are consumed by the demands of the group,
  and although the group explicitly intends to
  provide an alternative to mainstream norms, the
  fact that their members are compelled to satisfy
  corporate obligations limits their ability to
  engage in other, potentially antisocial,
  activities
• Members of deviant groups more likely to behave
  anti-socially than members of the Rotary Club
• Hence there is a bigger payoff for regulating
  the behavior of deviant than straight individuals

91
The exception counterproductive groups

• Exception
• This proposition is not true if this local order
  causes the state to expend its resources on
  control
• This occurs with the prevalence of
  counterproductive groups, which
• Require their members not to comply with at least
  some important social norms, e.g.
• Street gangs
• Separatist militias
• Terrorist cells (Al Qaeda, etc.)
• The more solidarity counterproductive groups
  have, the less the social order

92
Hechter, Friedman, Kanazawa Drawing the theory

Solidarity productivity of groups
Social order
Costs for non-group members/ government
Sanctioning by the state
93
Sanctioning varies among deviant groups

• Sanctioning reserved for counterproductive groups
• Little sanctioning of deviant groups that are not
  counterproductive
• Example
• Hare Krishna and Rajneesh are both deviant groups
• Hare Krishna not sanctioned by the state
• Rajneesh sanctioned
• Conclusion deviance of the group doesnt explain
  differential sanctioning

94
Evidence

• Because the state has limited control capacity,
  it can only enforce the legal code selectively
• Differential treatment of the Saints vs.
  Roughnecks
• Tolerance of the Guardian Angels

95
American inner-city street gangs

• The most successful urban gangs regulate their
  members' behavior by punishing those who engage
  in random violence that is unsanctioned by the
  leadership
• Gangs who fail to keep their members from preying
  on the community are denied the community's safe
  haven and soon unravel (Jankowski)

96
State tolerance of vice

• The police are more likely to turn a blind eye to
  illegal activities of groups that contribute to
  global order (like gambling parlors in New York's
  Chinatown prostitution everywhere) than those
  that threaten it (like crack-dealing gangs in
  Watts)

97
Conclusion

• Order in heterogeneous societies enhanced by the
  existence of large numbers of relatively small
  solidary groups unable to command control over
  resources that threaten the unique position of
  the state
• Social order is enhanced by the freedom of
  association, especially at the margins of
  society. The most efficacious way to produce
  global order is to strengthen the conditions for
  the production of local solidarity.