William graham sumner argued that distinguishing between our ingroups and our outgroups helps us:

Groups and Organizations Chapter 6.

6-1Social Groups

LO 1

Explain what constitutes a social group as opposed to an aggregate or a category.

If you see three strangers standing at a street corner waiting for a traffic light to change, do they constitute a group? Five hundred women and men are first-year graduate students at a university. Do they constitute a group? In everyday usage, we use the word group to mean any collection of people. According to sociologists, however, the answer to these questions is no; individuals who happen to share a common feature or to be in the same place at the same time do not constitute6-1aGroups, Aggregates, and Categories

As you will recall from Chapter 5, a social group is a collection of two or more people who interact frequently with one another, share a sense of belonging, and have a feeling of interdependence. Several people waiting for a traffic light to change constitute an aggregate —a collection of people who happen to be in the same place at the same time but share little else in common. Shoppers in a department store and passengers on an airplane flight are also examples of aggregates. People in aggregates share a common purpose (such as purchasing items or arriving at their destination) but generally do not interact with one another, except perhaps briefly. The first-year graduate students, at least initially, constitute a category —a number of people who may never have met one another but share a similar characteristic, such as education level, age, race, or gender. Men and women make up categories, as do Native Americans and Latinos/as, and victims of sexual or racial harassment. Categories are not social groups because the people in them do not usually create a social structure or have anything in common other than a particular trait.

Occasionally, people in aggregates and categories form social groups. For instance, people within the category known as “graduate students” may become an aggregate when they get together for an orientation to graduate school. Some of them may form social groups as they interact with one another in classes and seminars, find that they have mutual interests and concerns, and develop a sense of belonging to the group. Information technology raises new and interesting questions about what constitutes a group.

Where do our social media “friends” fit into these categories? Some social scientists believe that virtual communities established on the Internet constitute true communities (see Wellman, 2001), but others do not. According to sociologists Robyn Bateman Driskell and Larry Lyon, although the Internet provides us with the opportunity to share interests with others whom we have not met and to communicate with people whom we already know, the original concept of community, which “emphasized local place, common ties, and social interaction that is intimate, holistic, and all-encompassing,” is lacking in social media (Driskell and Lyon, 2002: 6). Why? Because virtual communities on the Internet do not have geographic and social boundaries, are limited in their scope to specific areas of interest, are psychologically detached from close interpersonal ties, and have only limited concern for their members. In fact, people who spend hours in isolation on social media may reduce community rather than enhance it, or there is a chance that they will create a weak replacement for people based on specialized ties they develop through extended, remote interaction with others (Driskell and Lyon, 2002). What do you think?

Types of Groups

LO 2

Distinguish among ingroups, outgroups, and reference groups, and give an example of each.

As you will recall from Chapter 5, groups have varying degrees of social solidarity and structure. This structure is flexible in some groups and more rigid in others. Some groups are small and personal; others are large and impersonal. We more closely identify with the members of some groups than we do with others.

Cooley’s Primary and Secondary Groups

Sociologist Charles H. Cooley (1963/1909) used the term primary group to describe a small, less specialized group in which members engage in face-to-face, emotion-based interactions over an extended period of time. We have primary relationships with other individuals in our primary groups—that is, with our significant others, who frequently serve as role models.

In contrast, as you will recall, a secondary group is a larger, more specialized group in which the members engage in more-impersonal, goal-oriented relationships for a limited period of time. The size of a secondary group may vary. Twelve students in a graduate seminar may start out as a secondary group but eventually become a primary group as they get to know one another and communicate on a more personal basis. Formal organizations are secondary groups, but they also contain many primary groups within them. For example, how many primary groups do you think there are within the secondary-group setting of your college?

Sumner’s Ingroups and Outgroups

All groups set boundaries by distinguishing between insiders who are members and outsiders who are not members (Figure 6.1). Sociologist William Graham Sumner (1959/1906) coined the terms ingroup and outgroup to describe people’s feelings toward members of their own and other groups. An ingroup is a group to which a person belongs and with which the person feels a sense of identity. An outgroup is a group to which a person does not belong and toward which the person may feel a sense of competitiveness or hostility. Distinguishing between our ingroups and our outgroups helps us establish our individual identity and self-worth. Likewise, groups are solidified by ingroup and outgroup distinctions; the presence of an enemy or a hostile group binds members more closely together (Coser, 1956).

Figure 6.1

Sometimes, the distinction between what constitutes an ingroup and an outgroup is subtle. Other times, it is not subtle at all. Would you feel comfortable entering or joining this club?

Sometimes, the distinction between what constitutes an ingroup and an outgroup is subtle. Other times, it is not subtle at all. Would you feel comfortable entering or joining this club?

Jeff Greenberg/Alamy; Jim West/Alamy

Group boundaries may be formal, with clearly defined criteria for membership. For example, a private city club or country club that requires an applicant for membership to be recommended by four current members and to pay a $100,000 initiation fee has clearly set requirements for its members and established “ingroup” and “outgroup” distinctions. Formal group boundaries are reinforced by “invitation-only” policies for membership and the privacy and exclusivity of life inside the club. Many clubs have “Members Only” signs to indicate that the organization does not welcome outsiders within club walls. As a result, club members develop a consciousness of kind—the awareness that individuals have when they believe that they share important commonalities with certain other people. Consciousness of kind is strengthened by membership in clubs ranging from country clubs to college sororities, fraternities, and other by-invitation-only college or university social clubs (Kendall, 2008).

In our own lives, most of us are aware that our ingroups provide us with a unique sense of identity. But sometimes we are less aware that they also give us the ability to exclude individuals whom we do not want to be in our inner circle of friends. The early sociologist Max Weber captured this idea in his description of the closed relationship—a setting in which the “participation of certain persons is excluded, limited, or subjected to conditions” (Gerth and Mills, 1946: 139). Ingroup and outgroup distinctions may encourage social cohesion among members, but they may also promote classism, racism, sexism, and ageism. Ingroup members typically view themselves positively and members of outgroups negatively. These feelings of group superiority, or ethnocentrism, are somewhat inevitable. Some group members may never act on these beliefs of superiority and inferiority because the larger organization of which they are a part actively discourages ethnocentric beliefs and discriminatory actions. However, other organizations may covertly foster ethnocentrism and negative ingroup/outgroup distinctions by denying that these beliefs exist among group members or by failing to take action when misconduct occurs that is rooted in racism, sexism, and/or ageism. An example is a college Greek letter organization in which the fraternity’s or sorority’s national leadership strongly opposes theme parties with racist or sexist overtones sponsored on local campuses, but its affiliates continue to hold social gatherings with decorations, clothing, music, and slogans that ridicule subordinate-group members such as persons of color, older individuals, persons with a disability, or women who have been turned into sex objects. Although campus social organizations often promote social cohesion among members by making them feel like they are the “in group” and everyone else is the “out group,” such beliefs and practices may also promote classism, racism, sexism, and/or ageism.

Reference Groups

Ingroups provide us not only with a source of identity but also with a point of reference. A reference group is a group that strongly influences a person’s behavior and social attitudes, regardless of whether that individual is an actual member. When we attempt to evaluate our appearance, ideas, or goals, we automatically refer to the standards of some group. Sometimes, we will refer to our membership groups, such as family or friends. Other times, we will rely on groups to which we do not currently belong but that we might wish to join in the future, such as a social club or a profession.

Reference groups help explain why our behavior and attitudes sometimes differ from those of our membership groups. We may accept the values and norms of a group with which we identify rather than one to which we belong. We may also act more like members of a group that we want to join than members of groups to which we already belong. In this case, reference groups are a source of anticipatory socialization. For most of us, our reference-group attachments change many times during our life course, especially when we acquire a new status in a formal organization.