Learning outcomes
- Describe the functions of a variety of groups (i.e. primary/secondary, in-groups/out-groups, and reference groups)
- Describe how size influences group dynamics
- Explain how conformity is impacted by groups
- Compare different styles of leadership
Most of us feel comfortable using the word “group” without giving it much thought. In everyday use, it can be a generic term, although it carries important clinical and scientific meanings. Moreover, the concept of a group is central to much of how we think about society and human interaction. Often, we might mean different things by using that word. We might say that a group of kids all saw the dog, and it could mean 250 students in a lecture hall or four siblings playing on a front lawn. In everyday conversation, there isn’t a clear distinguishing use. So how can we more precisely focus the meaning for sociological purposes?
Types of Groups
The term group is an amorphous one and can refer to a wide variety of gatherings, from just two people (think about a “group project” in school when you partnered with another student), a club, a regular gathering of friends, or people who work together or share a hobby. In short, the term refers to any collection of at least two people who interact with some frequency and who share a sense that their identity is somehow aligned with the group. Of course, every time people are gathered it is not necessarily a group. A rally is usually a one-time event, for instance, and belonging to a political party doesn’t imply interaction with others. People who exist in the same place at the same time but who do not interact or share a sense of identity—such as a bunch of people standing in line at Starbucks—are considered an aggregate, or a crowd. Another example of a non-group is people who share similar characteristics but are not tied to one another in any way. These people are considered a category, and as an example all children born from approximately 1980–2000 are referred to as “Millennials.” Why are Millennials a category and not a group? Because while some of them may share a sense of identity, they do not, as a whole, interact frequently with each other.
Interestingly, people within an aggregate or category can become a group. During disasters, people in a neighborhood (an aggregate) who did not know each other might become friendly and depend on each other at the local shelter. After the disaster ends and the people go back to simply living near each other, the feeling of cohesiveness may last since they have all shared an experience. They might remain a group, practicing emergency readiness, coordinating supplies for next time, or taking turns caring for neighbors who need extra help. Similarly, there may be many groups within a single category. Consider teachers, for example. Within this category, groups may exist like teachers’ unions, teachers who coach, or staff members who are involved with the PTA.
Sociologist Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929) suggested that groups can broadly be divided into two categories: primary groups and secondary groups (Cooley, 1909). According to Cooley, primary groups play the most critical role in our lives. The primary group is usually fairly small and is made up of individuals who generally engage face-to-face in long-term, emotionally significant ways. These interactions occurring within the primary group and which serve emotional needs are called expressive functions, which differ from merely pragmatic ones. The primary group is usually made up of significant others, those individuals who have the most impact on our socialization. The best example of a primary group is the family.
Secondary groups are often larger and impersonal. They may also be task-focused and time-limited. These groups serve an instrumental function rather than an expressive one, meaning that their role is more goal- or task-oriented than emotional. One’s fellow students or coworkers can be examples of a secondary group. Neither primary nor secondary groups are bound by strict definitions or set limits. In fact, people can move from one group to another. A graduate seminar, for example, can start as a secondary group focused on the class at hand, but as the students work together throughout their program, they may find common interests and strong ties that transform them into a more durable primary group.
Best Friends She’s Never Met
Writer Allison Levy worked alone. While she liked the freedom and flexibility of working from home, she sometimes missed having a community of coworkers, both for the practical purpose of brainstorming and the more social “water cooler” aspect. Levy did what many do in the Internet age: she found a group of other writers online through a web forum. Over time, a group of approximately twenty writers, who all wrote for a similar audience, broke off from the larger forum and started a private invitation-only forum. While writers in general represent all genders, ages, and interests, it ended up being a collection of twenty- and thirty-something women who comprised the new forum; they all wrote fiction for children and young adults.
At first, the writers’ forum was clearly a secondary group united by the members’ professions and work situations. As Levy explained, “On the Internet, you can be present or absent as often as you want. No one is expecting you to show up.” It was a useful place to research information about different publishers and about who had recently sold what and to track industry trends. But as time passed, Levy found it served a different purpose. Since the group shared other characteristics beyond their writing (such as age and gender), the online conversation naturally turned to matters such as child-rearing, aging parents, health, and exercise. Levy found it was a sympathetic place to talk about any number of subjects, not just writing. Further, when people didn’t post for several days, others expressed concern, asking whether anyone had heard from the missing writers. It reached a point where most members would tell the group if they were traveling or needed to be offline for awhile.
The group continued to share. One member on the site who was going through a difficult family illness wrote, “I don’t know where I’d be without you women. It is so great to have a place to vent that I know isn’t hurting anyone.” Others shared similar sentiments.
So is this a primary group? Most of these people have never met each other. They live in Hawaii, Australia, Minnesota, and across the world. They may never meet. Levy wrote recently to the group, saying, “Most of my ‘real-life’ friends and even my husband don’t really get the writing thing. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Despite the distance and the lack of physical contact, the group clearly provides an expressive function.
In-Groups and Out-Groups
Figure 3. This driver and Yankees fan makes a clear statement about his or her in-group.
One of the ways that groups can be powerful is through inclusion, and its inverse, exclusion. The feeling that we belong in an elite or select group is a heady one, while the feeling of not being allowed in, or of being in competition with a group, can be motivating in a different way. Sociologist William Sumner (1840–1910) developed the concepts of in-group and out-group to explain this phenomenon (Sumner 1906). In short, an in-group is the group that an individual feels she belongs to, and which she believes to be an integral part of who she is. An out-group, conversely, is a group someone doesn’t belong to. Often we may feel disdain or competition in relationship to an out-group. Sports teams, unions, and sororities are examples of in-groups and out-groups. People may belong to, or be an outsider to, any of these. Primary groups consist of both in-groups and out-groups, as do secondary groups.
College: A World of In-Groups, Out-Groups, and Reference Groups
For a student entering college, the sociological study of groups takes on an immediate and practical meaning. After all, when we arrive someplace new, most of us glance around to see how well we fit in or stand out in the ways we want. This is a natural response to a reference group, and on a large campus, there can be many competing groups. Say you are a strong athlete who wants to play intramural sports, and your favorite musicians are a local punk band. You may find yourself engaged with two very different reference groups.
These reference groups can also become your in-groups or out-groups. For instance, different groups on campus might solicit you to join. Are there fraternities and sororities at your school? If so, chances are they will try to convince students—that is, students they deem worthy—to join them. And if you love playing soccer and want to play on a campus team, but you’re wearing shredded jeans, combat boots, and a local band T-shirt, you might have a hard time convincing the soccer team to give you a chance. While most campus groups refrain from insulting competing groups, there is a definite sense of an in-group versus an out-group. “Them?” a member might say. “They’re all right, but their parties are nowhere near as cool as ours.” Or, “Only serious engineering geeks join that group.” This immediate categorization into in-groups and out-groups means that students must choose carefully, since whatever group they associate with won’t just define their friends—it may also define their enemies.
While group affiliations can be neutral or even positive, such as the case of a team-based sporting competition, the concept of in-groups and out-groups can also explain some negative human behavior, such as white supremacist movements like the Ku Klux Klan, or the bullying of gay or lesbian students. By defining others as “not like us” and/or inferior, in-groups can end up practicing ethnocentrism, racism, sexism, ageism, and heterosexism—manners of judging others negatively based on their culture, race, sex, age, or sexuality. Often, in-groups can form within a secondary group. For instance, a workplace can have cliques of people, from senior executives who play golf together, to engineers who write code together, to young singles who socialize after hours. While these in-groups might show favoritism and affinity for other in-group members, the overall organization may be unable or unwilling to acknowledge it. Therefore, it pays to be wary of the politics of in-groups, since members may exclude others as a means of gaining status within the group.
CYBERBULLYING
In January of 2018, 12-year-old Gabriella Green (“Gabby”) committed suicide by hanging in her home in Panama City, Florida. Two 12-year-old students were charged with cyberstalking once the investigation delved into her social media accounts and cell phone texts. Cyberbullying is the use of interactive media by one person to torment another, and it is on the rise. Cyberbullying can mean sending threatening texts, harassing someone in a public forum (such as Facebook), hacking someone’s account and pretending to be him or her, posting embarrassing images online, and so on. Cyberbullying might have contributed to Gabby’s suicide, and her case is among those that have led to nationwide conversations about the need for education, prevention, and effective responses to young people who are actively being cyberbullied.
A study by the Cyberbullying Research Center found that 20 percent of middle school students admitted to “seriously thinking about committing suicide” as a result of online bullying (Hinduja and Patchin, 2010). Whereas bullying face-to-face requires willingness to directly interact with your victim, cyberbullying allows bullies to harass others from the privacy of their homes without witnessing the damage firsthand. This form of bullying is particularly dangerous because it’s widely accessible and therefore easier to accomplish.
According to a report released in 2013 by the National Center for Educational Statistics, close to 1 in every 3 (27.8 percent) students report being bullied by their school peers. Seventeen percent of students reported being the victims of cyberbullying.
Measuring cyberbullying and its targets is quite difficult. Researchers have shown the way the questions are asked can lead to gender-specific responses. For example, if a survey asks about “rumor spreading or hurtful commenting behaviors,” females are more likely to be involved, but if the survey asks about “mistreatment in videos or via online gaming,” males are more likely to be involved. [1] In a survey of 5,000 respondents, cyberbullying in the past 30 days occurred most to multiracial high school females, then middle school multiracial females, and white middle school females as number three (Patchin, 2019). Groups least likely to be victims of cyberbullying were Asian middle school males, Black female high schoolers, and Asian female high schoolers.
Figure 2. This chart shows the number of people from each group who reported cyberbullying.
Examining this issue is an area ripe for sociological research and has clear policy implications. When we consider demographic variables like race/ ethnicity, gender, and age, how does that help us understand this phenomenon? How does an understanding of groups reveal the behavior of the cyberbullies (who also report being more likely to commit suicide) and those who experience cyberbullying? Other than survey research, what other sociological research methods could be employed?
Further Research
For more information about cyberbullying causes and statistics, check out cyberbullying.org.
Reference Groups
Figure 4. Athletes are often viewed as a reference group for young people. (Photo courtesy of Johnny Bivera/U.S. Navy/Wikimedia Commons)
A reference group is a group that people compare themselves to—it provides a standard of measurement. In U.S. society, peer groups are common reference groups. Kids and adults pay attention to what their peers wear, what music they like, what they do with their free time—and they compare themselves to what they see. Most people have more than one reference group, so a middle school boy might look not just at his classmates but also at his older brother’s friends and see a different set of norms. And he might observe the antics of his favorite athletes for yet another set of behaviors.
Some other examples of reference groups can be one’s cultural center, workplace, family gathering, and even parents. Often, reference groups convey competing messages. For instance, on television and in movies, young adults often have wonderful apartments and cars and active social lives despite not holding a job. In music videos, young women might dance and sing in a sexually aggressive way that suggests experience beyond their years. At all ages, we use reference groups to help guide our behavior and show us social norms. So, how important is it to surround yourself with positive reference groups? You may not recognize a reference group, but it still influences the way you act. Identifying your reference groups can help you understand the source of the social identities you aspire to or want to distance yourself from.
Watch this video to review the different types of groups and to preview what you will learn about next pages—group dynamics and leadership:
Think It Over
- Make a list of all of the different groups in your social world. Then label each group making sure you have at least one example of a primary group, secondary group, in-group, out-group, and a reference group. Now write the instrumental and expressive functions of each group next to the group. Finally, after looking at this list and the functions of each group, which are most important to you? Why?
- How has technology changed your primary groups and secondary groups? Do you have more (and separate) primary groups due to online connectivity? Do you believe that someone, like Levy, can have a true primary group made up of people she has never met? Why, or why not?
- Groups can be formed based on exclusionary criteria and/or can transform into an in-group with clearly defined out-groups. Street gangs and motorcycle clubs are extreme examples, but what about fraternities and sororities or sports rivalries (i.e. Yankees/ Red Sox, Celtics/ Lakers, Real Madrid/ Barcelona, Duke/ North Carolina)? What are the instrumental and expressive functions of such in-group groups? What are the dysfunctions? How does this build upon Durkheim’s theory of society based on social solidarity?
Group Dynamics
Figure 5. Cadets illustrate how strongly conformity can define groups. (Photo courtesy David Spender/flickr)
Dyads, Triads, and Large Groups
A small group is typically one where the collection of people is small enough that all members of the group know each other and share simultaneous interaction, such as a nuclear family, a dyad, or a triad. Georg Simmel (1858–1915) wrote extensively about the difference between a dyad, or two-member group, and a triad, which is a three-member group (Simmel, 1902). In the former, if one person withdraws, the group can no longer exist. The intensity is high but stability is low because the dyad is dependent upon both people being committed to the group of two. We can think of a divorce, which effectively ends the “group” of the married couple, or of two best friends never speaking again. In a triad, however, the dynamic is quite different. Intensity is lower but stability is higher because if one person withdraws, the group lives on. A triad has a different set of relationships. If there are three in the group, two-against-one dynamics can develop, and there exists the potential for a majority opinion on any issue. Consider a dyad (couple) that becomes a triad (new baby). We can often see a lessening of the intensity between parents as attention is diverted to a newborn who requires a lot of time and care. Often, the partner who does less care giving (perhaps the male) feels left out and is less clear about their role in the group (family) and the person who does more care giving (perhaps the female) might feel pulled too thin and find it difficult to give their partner and the new baby enough time and attention without feeling depleted. Similarly, when couples see their children off to college and experience an “empty nest,” the dyad might feel like a new group with the intensity of a group of two resurfacing and stability decreasing now that children are no longer living in the home.
Small groups generally have strong internal cohesiveness and a sense of connection. The challenge, however, is for small groups to achieve large goals. They can struggle to be heard or to be a force for change if they are pushing against larger groups. In short, they are easier to ignore. It is difficult to define exactly when a small group becomes a large group. Perhaps it occurs when there are too many people to join in a simultaneous discussion. Or perhaps a group joins with other groups as part of a movement that unites them. These larger groups may share a geographic space, such as a fraternity or sorority on the same campus, or they might be spread out around the globe. The larger the group, the more attention it can garner, and the more pressure members can exert in the pursuit of goals the group wishes to achieve. At the same time, the larger the group becomes, the more the risk grows for division and lack of cohesion.
Conformity
Sociologists study human behavior and social groups, but how do humans behave within these various groups? What social dynamics are at work within them? Most individuals see themselves as their own person, as unique, and as relatively uninfluenced by the outside. In the ongoing “nature versus nurture” debate, sociologists tend toward the nurture explanatory framework, and thus examine the forces around us that shape our behavior. A difficult concept, then, is conformity, which refers to the extent to which an individual complies with group norms or expectations.
Most people will agree that we all like to fit in to some degree. Likewise, when we want to stand out, we want to choose how we stand out and for what reasons. Since societal norms change over time, what was once non-conformist (i.e., tattoos, piercings, leather jackets, and even blue jeans) are now social norms. What was conformist (i.e., smoking cigarettes) is no longer an acceptable social norm in many places. Formal norms have relegated smoking to remote areas, whereas smoking on airplanes, in restaurants, and even in college classrooms was permissible until the 1980s and 1990s in some places (all domestic and international flights first became smoke-free in 2000).
As you might recall, we use reference groups to assess and understand how to act, to dress, and to behave. Not surprisingly, young people are particularly aware of who conforms and who does not. A high school boy whose mother makes him wear ironed button-down shirts might protest that he will look stupid––because everyone else wears T-shirts. Another high school boy might like wearing those shirts as a way of standing out. How much do you enjoy being noticed? Do you consciously prefer to conform to group norms so as not to be singled out? Are there people in your class who immediately come to mind when you think about those who don’t want to conform?
Psychologist Solomon Asch (1907–1996) conducted experiments that illustrated how great the pressure to conform is, specifically within a small group (1956). After reading about his work in the following feature, ask yourself what you would do in Asch’s experiment. Would you speak up? What would help you speak up and what would discourage it?
Conforming to Expectations
In 1951, psychologist Solomon Asch sat a small group of about eight people around a table. Only one of the people sitting there was the true subject; the rest were associates of the experimenter. However, the subject was led to believe that the others were all, like him, people brought in for an experiment in visual judgments. The group was shown two cards, the first card with a single vertical line, and the second card with three vertical lines differing in length. The experimenter polled the group and asked each participant one at a time which line on the second card matched up with the line on the first card.
However, this was not really a test of visual judgment. Rather, it was Asch’s study on the pressures of conformity. He was curious to see what the effect of multiple wrong answers would be on the subject, who presumably was able to tell which lines matched. In order to test this, Asch had each planted respondent answer in a specific way. The subject was seated in such a way that he had to hear almost everyone else’s answers before it was his turn. Sometimes the non-subject members would unanimously choose an answer that was clearly wrong.
So what was the conclusion? Asch found that thirty-seven out of fifty test subjects responded with an “obviously erroneous” answer at least once. When faced by a unanimous wrong answer from the rest of the group, the subject conformed to a mean of four of the staged answers. Asch revised the study and repeated it, wherein the subject still heard the staged wrong answers, but was allowed to write down his answer rather than speak it aloud. In this version, the number of examples of conformity––giving an incorrect answer so as not to contradict the group––fell by two thirds. He also found that group size had an impact on how much pressure the subject felt to conform.
The results showed that speaking up when only one other person gave an erroneous answer was far more common than when five or six people defended the incorrect position. Finally, Asch discovered that people were far more likely to give the correct answer in the face of near-unanimous consent if they had a single ally. If even one person in the group also dissented, the subject conformed only a quarter as often. Clearly, it was easier to be a minority of two than a minority of one.
Watch a clip from the experiment here:
Asch concluded that there are two main causes for conformity: people want to be liked by the group or they believe the group is better informed than they are. He found his study results disturbing. To him, they revealed that intelligent, well-educated people would, with very little coaxing, go along with an untruth. He believed this result highlighted real problems with the education system and values in our society (Asch, 1956).
Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, had similar results in his experiment that is now known simply as the Milgram Experiment. In 1962, Milgram found that research subjects were overwhelmingly willing to perform acts that directly conflicted with their consciences when directed by a person of authority. In the experiment, subjects were willing to administer painful, even supposedly deadly, electrical shocks to invisible others who answered questions incorrectly.
Think It Over
- Imagine you are in Asch’s study. Would you find it difficult to give the correct answer in that scenario? Why or why not? How would you change the study now to improve it?
Group Leadership
Often, larger groups require some kind of leadership. In small, primary groups, leadership tends to be informal. After all, most families don’t take a vote on who will rule the group, nor do most groups of friends. This is not to say that de facto leaders don’t emerge, but formal leadership is rare. In secondary groups, leadership is usually more overt. There are often clearly outlined roles and responsibilities, with a chain of command to follow. Some secondary groups, like the military, have highly structured and clearly understood chains of command, and many lives depend on those. After all, how well could soldiers function in a battle if they had no idea whom to listen to or if different people were calling out orders? Other secondary groups, like co-workers or fellow students, also have formal leaders, but the styles and functions of leadership can vary significantly.
Leadership Function
What types of functions do leaders fulfill for a group or formal organization? An instrumental leader is one who is goal-oriented and largely concerned with accomplishing set tasks. We can imagine that an army general or a Fortune 500 CEO would be an instrumental leader. In contrast, expressive leaders are more concerned with promoting emotional strength and health, and ensuring that people feel supported. Social and religious leaders—rabbis, priests, imams, directors of youth homes and social service programs—are often perceived as expressive leaders.
There is a longstanding stereotype that men are more instrumental leaders, and women are more expressive leaders. And although gender roles have changed, even today many women and men who exhibit the opposite-gender manner can be seen as deviants and can encounter resistance. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s experiences provide an example of the way society reacts to a high-profile woman who is an instrumental leader. Despite the stereotype, Boatwright and Forrest (2000) have found that both men and women prefer leaders who use a combination of expressive and instrumental leadership.
Leadership Styles
In addition to these leadership functions, there are three different leadership styles. Democratic leaders encourage group participation in all decision making. They work hard to build consensus before choosing a course of action and moving forward. This type of leader is particularly common, for example, in a club where the members vote on which activities or projects to pursue. Democratic leaders can be well liked, but there is often a danger that the input-gathering process will proceed slowly since consensus building is so labor intensive. A further risk is that group members might pick sides and entrench themselves into opposing factions rather than reaching a solution.
In contrast, a laissez-faire leader (French for “leave it alone”) is hands-off, allowing group members to self-manage and make their own decisions. An example of this kind of leader might be an art teacher who opens the art cupboard, leaves materials on the shelves, and tells students to help themselves and make some art. While this style can work well with highly motivated and mature participants who have clear goals and guidelines, it risks group dissolution and a lack of progress.
As the name suggests, authoritarian leaders issue orders and assigns tasks. These leaders are clear instrumental leaders with a strong focus on meeting goals. Often, entrepreneurs fall into this mold, like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Not surprisingly, the authoritarian leader risks alienating the workers. There are times, however, when this style of leadership can be required. In different circumstances, each of these leadership styles can be effective and successful. Consider what leadership style you prefer. Why? Do you like the same style in different areas of your life, such as a classroom, a workplace, and a sports team?
Further Research
What is your leadership style? Take this Leadership Styles Quiz to help you find out!
are we ready for a female potus?
Figure 6. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton drew fire for her leadership style. (Photo courtesy marcn/flickr)
The 2008 presidential election marked a dynamic change when two female politicians entered the race to become the next President of the United States (POTUS). Of the 200 people who have run for president during the country’s history, fewer than thirty have been women.
Democratic presidential candidate and former First Lady Hillary Clinton was both famously polarizing and popular. With an impressive resume as an experienced global diplomat, Clinton was attacked for being elitist, intellectual, abrasive, and wealthy. Consider that Hillary Clinton’s popularity surged in her 2008 campaign after she cried on the campaign trail. It was enough for the New York Times to publish an editorial, “Can Hillary Cry Her Way Back to the White House?” (Dowd, 2008). Harsh, but her approval ratings soared afterward. In fact, many compared it to how politically likable she was in the aftermath of President Bill Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Figure 7. This gag gift demonstrates how female leaders may be viewed if they violate social norms. (Photo courtesy of istolethetv/flickr)
On the other side of the aisle was Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The former governor of Alaska, Palin was, to some, the perfect example of the modern woman. She juggled her political career with raising a growing family and relied heavily on the use of social media to spread her message. Palin was the opposite of Clinton in many ways–she had no national or international political experience and came across as friendly, upbeat, and even silly at times. Sarah Palin’s expressive qualities were promoted to a greater degree. While she has benefited from the efforts of feminists before her, she self-identified as a traditional woman with traditional values, a point she illustrated by frequently bringing her young children up on stage with her.
When Clinton ran again in 2016, her lengthy political career worked against her as a number of actions she took as Secretary of State were used to criticize her. Her opponent, the reality-TV personality and real estate heir Donald Trump, had no political experience, but he positioned himself as an instrumental leader who demonstrated leadership in global business.
As we look to the 2020 election, a number of female candidates have entered the field. So what light have these candidates’ emerging campaigns shed so far on the possibilities of a female presidency? According to some political analysts, women candidates face a paradox: they must be as tough as their male opponents on issues such as foreign policy, or they risk appearing weak. However, the stereotypical expectation of women as expressive leaders is still prevalent. How much of the rhetoric is about the female candidate’s appearance (What is she wearing? Is she attractive?)? Compare this to the field of male candidates. In the workforce, being a mother can often limit a woman’s upward mobility as we will see while being a father has the opposite effect for men. Do we see any evidence of this gender disparity in the 2020 Presidential Election?
Think It Over
- Compare and contrast the leadership styles of former President Obama and President Trump. What leadership style (democratic, laissez-faire, or authoritarian) do you see as being the best suited for the position? Why?
- Think of a scenario where an authoritarian leadership style would be beneficial. Explain. What are the reasons it would work well? What are the risks?
- Describe a time you were led by a leader using, in your opinion, a leadership style that didn’t suit the situation. When and where was it? What could she or he have done better?
- What kind of leader do you tend to be? Do you embrace different leadership styles and functions as the situation changes? Give an example of a time you were in a position of leadership and what function and style you expressed.
- Patchin, J. 2019. "Cyberbullying victimization rates by race, sex, and age." Cyberbullying Research Center. https://cyberbullying.org/cyberbullying-victimization-rates-2016 ↵
