Social Structure, Groups, and Organizations
Status and Role
Social structure is the patterned arrangement of positions and relationships. A status is a social position; ascribed statuses are assigned (age, birth order) and achieved statuses are earned. The master status overrides others in how people are treated. Each status carries a role - expected behavior - and problems arise as role conflict (incompatible demands from different statuses), role strain (conflicting demands within one status), and role exit (leaving a role). Social institutions are enduring clusters of norms organized around needs like family, education, religion, and economy.
Groups
A group involves interaction and shared identity; a category is a statistical collection, and an aggregate is people co-present without interaction. Primary groups are small, intimate, and enduring (family, close friends); secondary groups are larger, formal, and goal-oriented. In-groups and out-groups generate loyalty and exclusion; a reference group supplies standards for self-evaluation. Dyads are fragile (one exit dissolves them), triads enable coalitions. Groupthink suppresses dissent in cohesive groups; social loafing reduces individual effort in groups; bureaucracy (Weber) is rational-legal organization marked by division of labor, hierarchy, written rules, and impersonality - efficient but prone to goal displacement and bureaucratic ritualism.
Traps
Questions often swap role conflict with role strain, or in-group with reference group. Remember that a crowd is an aggregate, not a group.
Rule of Thumb
Ask whether the tension comes from two statuses (conflict) or one status (strain), and whether the body is small and personal (primary) or large and goal-driven (secondary).