Adam Smith (1723-1790)

•        Part of the ‘Scottish enlightenment’

•        Famously wrote ‘The Wealth of Nations’ in 1776

•        Laid the principles of the ‘division of labour’

•        Introduced the concept of the market through the ‘invisible hand’:

•        We can explain human behaviour through self-interest and the operation of ‘incentives’ plus supply and demand in ‘markets’

•        Supported the rights of individuals

Ontological Individualism

Social Atomism

•        Only individuals are real

•        ‘Social’ explanations are ‘constructions in the mind’ and don’t exist in reality

Emile Durkheim (1858 – 1917)

•        Believed that society was more than a collection of individuals making contracts

•        Societies provide the ‘pre-contractual’ basis for social order and ‘gentle commerce’

•        ‘Social integration’, the bonds between people provide ‘moral glue’

•        Societies are ‘moral collectivities’

•        ‘Collective effervescence’ in groups changes behaviours

•        The structure of social groups influences individual behaviour and collective outcomes

•        Durkheim understood that human’s are naturally inclined to identify with their groups

•        Groups create symbols and markers of belonging: whose is an ‘insider’, whose an ‘outsider’

Nationalism

•        Group identity creates partiality

•        Group develop shared beliefs (think religion) and sanction those with deviant views and behaviour

The Minimal Group Paradigm

Minimal group paradigm is a social psychology research methodology that proposes that the minimal condition for group biases is simply being a member of a group.

Henri Tajfel

•        Polish jew, but left for France for education

•        Fought for France in WW2

•        Captured and POW

•        Moved to London 1946

•        Fascinated by prejudice

•        Prof. in Bristol from ‘67

Group Identification & Self-Serving Bias experiment

•        Individual’s don’t just maximise their own interests

•        Group membership and identification matter as well

•        People are biased toward their group, even when that has costs!

•        Does this mean that people are not individually self-interested?

Group Beliefs & Conformity

The Bennington Studies

•        Theodore Newcomb

•        Bennington College, Vermont, USA

•        Newcomb studied the Senior intake of 1935-1939

•        Private College with affluent students & conservative views & voting habits

•        Liberal faculty with radical left beliefs

Pluralist Ignorance

•        Pluralistic ignorance occurs when people believe that their private attitudes and beliefs are different from the majority, even though their public behaviour is identical

Groups as Tension Systems

•        Individuals are always in tension between their own personal interests and group processes

•        Whilst group dynamics push people toward conformity, self-interest pulls urges them to be strategic

•        These tensions create ‘social dilemmas’

Private and Public Goods

Private Goods

products or purchases who consumption by one individual prevents others from using it

Public Goods

contributions that members of a group make which individuals cannot be excluded from and which is non-rivalrous

  Aldophe Quetelet (1796-1874)

•        introduced statistical methods to social science.

•        Promoted ‘social physics’

•        Consistent statistical patterns in societies

•        b Variation among societies

Social causation as probability

Emile Durkheim

•        Born April 15, 1858 in Alsace Lorraine, France

•        Father, Grandfather, and Great-Grandfather were all rabbis

•        Universally seen as one of the ‘found fathers’ of the discipline of sociology

•        Determined to develop a ‘science of society’ sui generis

•        Sociology should explain social patterns through ‘social facts’ and institutions

•        Believed empirical research was key

Became France’s first Professor of Sociology in 1913 at the Sorbonne 

The Rules of Sociological Method (1895)

Social Structure

“A social group’s institutions, relationships and patterned values, beliefs and practices”

•        Individual behaviour occurs within a social context

•        Not reducible to the characteristics of individuals

•        Structure has emergent properties

Social Facts

“Consists of ways of acting, thinking and feeling, external to the individual, and endowed with a power of coercion, by reason of which they control him”.

(Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Method 1895)

Social Solidarity

•        The forces that hold individuals and society together and that give society its sense of coherence and orderliness

•        Social norms, beliefs and obligations

•        Social practices and dependence: most importantly - the division of labour

The ‘Conscience Collective’

•        Collective representations taught to us through instruction or socialisation, by parents and teachers in the form of social norms

•        Within the mind of the individual, an inner critic.

•        The ‘moral power’ of society is implemented through surveillance and sanctions to limit the extent of deviance

Have to adapt our behaviour to existing practices if we want to have a comfortable existence

Norms Values and Obligations

•        Durkheim viewed norms, beliefs and values as having a dual role:

•        Constraining and coercive

‒       Sanctions for not conforming

‒       ‘Narrowing’ perception and ‘priming’

•        Structuring and facilitating

‒       Providing certainty and coordinating

Absence of Norms: Anomie

“A state where norms and expectations on behaviours are confused, unclear or not present.”

•        Anomic division of labour’, referring to the lack of moral regulation in a society that celebrates individuality and refrains from telling people what to do

•        Interest in what happens if the links between individuals and society break down led to investigation of a dramatic consequence of breakdown in social contact – namely suicide

Le Suicide (1897)

Durkheim

•        Applied the methodological principals and treats the suicide rate as a social fact

•        Defines the social causes of suicide in terms of how individual well-being is regulated by the quality of social relationships

•        Study compared suicide rates in different sections of the population

•        Compared societies through institutions (particularly religions)

•        Social change and dislocation important

•        Important factor: degree of integration and support

What Explains Country Differences in Suicide Rates in Europe in 1866-78?

•        Durkheim hypothesised that differences in suicide rates were associated with the dominant religion in a country

•        More specifically, Durkheim speculated that suicide rates will be higher in Protestant countries than in Catholic countries. Countries with both religions will fall somewhere between the extremes (depending on population)

Durkheim’s Theory

•        Durkheim noted that Protestant and Catholic religions equally prohibit and condemn suicide

•        Durkheim argued that variation in suicide reflected variation in ‘social integration’

•        Protestant communities have fewer common beliefs and practices and are therefore less integrated

less Social Integration 

•        : where the individual feels that he or she is detached from the social group and sources of support and reassurance are weak.

too much Social Integration

excessive integration could also be problematic, and suicide caused by too ‘rudimentary individuation’

too little Normative Guidance & Constraint

•       a failure to regulate people’s behaviour and expectations; anomie expressed as disappointment, resentment and loss of a sense of emotional and personal security

too much Normative Guidance & Constraint

over regulation of individual life through norms and discipline and too little individualisation

The Division of Labour

•        Adam Smith (1723-90)

•        The separation of tasks in a system so individuals can specialise

•        Specialisation within and between nations and free trade increases overall wealth

•        Durkheim perceived specialisation to be a core process of industrial society

•        Small, homogenous groups; based on families, clan and tribal structure

•        Little specialisation and therefore low division of labour; low autonomy

•        Social integration through similarity – doing similar tasks

•        Collective rules and social practices predominantly religious in nature

•        More complex and specialised division of labour with occupations

•        Results from difference, because individuals have to rely on each other for their needs and so interdependent on one another

•        Emergence of ‘private life’

•        Falling away of ‘moral obligation’  and emergence of new social institutions (law) and contractual relationships

Social Solidarity and Law

Mechanical Solidarity----Repressive Law---Violent sanctions to punish the rule violator

(group policing)

Organic Solidarity---Restitutive Law---Judgement on damages done and fine to restore the loss of the innocent

Where Does Morality Come From?

•        Some moral rules invoke moral disgust in relation to health threats:

•        Biblical rules on food, sex and corpses

•        Durkheim realised in the 19^th Century that morality often serves a social purpose:

•        “The social order is a moral order”

    ‘totems’

Durkheim argued that human groups elevate some beliefs, objects or behaviours to sacred status 

•        Totems are an object that spiritually or symbolically represents a people and their common origin

KARL MARX

1818 - 1883

•        One of the most important thinkers in human history

•        His work developed a theory that linked the experience and needs of individual’s to the historical development of societies

•        Born Trier, Western Germany to Jewish family who converted to Lutheranism

•        Built on the economics of Smith, Ricardo and Mill

•        Developed a ‘materialist’ science of human societies

Georg Hegel (1770-1831)

•        German idealist philosopher

•        Argued purpose of human existence was a search for a truthful understanding of human consciousness

•        Believed in the ‘progression’ of humanity

•        Societal development is guided by the ‘human spirit’ (Geist), or essential ‘human nature’

Marx: Feuerbach’s Inversion

•        : ideas are the products of social and economic structures, not the other way around

•        There is a real material world; in order to gain knowledge, we must participate in it, not just theorise about it

•        Marx argued that this ‘inversion’ allows us to study the world empirically – a social science

Marx and Materialism

•        The most fundamental aspect of human existence is the necessity to produce the means of existence (e.g. food, shelter)

•        The production of the means of existence is prior to all other activities

•        The way production is organised determines human existence in the last analysis

Ideas, consciousness, culture (the ‘spirit’) are all dependent upon the prior capacity to produce the material means of existence

The Base-Superstructure

•        Forces of production: use resources such as energy, raw materials, tools and machines(base)

•        Relations of production: people engage in economic relationships and cooperate to produce the goods(superstructure)

Relations of Domination

•        Worker sells labour power to the capitalist in return for wage; capitalist controls activities of the worker

•        Power relationship: bourgeoisie exercises power over proletariat

•        Capitalist system just one historical form of the relations of production; slavery another example

A Definition of Alienation

•        A sense of being cut-off or detached from ourselves, other people or our environment

•        A transfer of ownership from the individual to others

Four Key Dimensions of Alienation

1. The product of labour
2. The labouring activity itself
3. With human psychological needs (species being)
4. Relations between people

Alienation from the Product of Labour

•        When not alienated, people ‘own’ the results of their labours (private good) and consume it to satisfy their economic needs

•        But in capitalist society, most people will work for wages or to sell the product of work rather than to consume the product

 Alienation from Productive Activity

•        When a worker sells their labour in exchange for wages, it no longer belongs to them and is external

•        The workers movements are not directed by them (directed by management)

•        Toilet and refreshment breaks are rationed

•        Wage labour means that work is seen as a means to an end

Alienation from Species Being

•        Humans live in an ‘active’ relationship with the outside world, shaping the world and transforming it

•        This act of transformation is core to human identity

•        Wage labour alienates people from their species being as they cannot engage and shape production

•        People can’t express themselves when control of the process is held by others

Alienation from Other People

•        The dominance of economic transaction in capitalist society changes the nature of relationships:

•        Just as people are estranged from the product of their labour and themselves, they are also estranged from each other

Emotional Work

•        Post-industrialisation and the rise of the ‘knowledge’ economy puts an increasing premium on ‘soft skills’

•        Management of self and others now an integral part of employment

•        Particularly important in ‘personal service’ jobs

•        Individuals need to inact a ‘social role’

•        BUT, employers expect that the performance will be more than skin deep

Employees need to intentionally elicit an emotion: they must do ‘emotion work’ 

Emotional Labour

•        The act of expressing socially desired emotions during service transactions

•        Three approaches used by employees:

•        Surface acting – simulate emotions they don’t feel

•        Deep acting – psych themselves into experiencing the desired emotion

Spontaneous response

Max Weber 1864-1920

•        Born 1864 in Prussia, to wealthy, senior public servant

•        Prof. of economics in Freiburg

•        Working during a debate about the appropriate approach of the social sciences

•        Important work on the nature of the social sciences

•        Work often a response to Marx

“by social action we mean behaviour which takes account of the behaviour of others and is thereby orientated in its course”

Studying Social Protest

Marxist approach

•        What social class do people belong to?

•        What are the person’s characteristics?

•        Sex

•        Age

•        Ethnicity

•        How poor is the person?

•        What interests do protestors share?

Studying Social Protest

Weberian approach

•        Does the person regard themselves as deprived?

•        Does the person regard their economic position as unfair?

•        Do the person’s friend’s believe the situation is unfair?

•        Do they believe that protest can change their situation?

Does the person feel part of a group who share an aim

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

•        Traced impact of the Protestant faith, particularly Calvinism, on the rise of the spirit of capitalism

•        Capitalism did not emerge from technical change or the development of greed

The ‘Affinity’ Between Protestantism and Capitalism

Weber

•        Not arguing that Protestantism ‘caused’ capitalism but that there was an ‘elective affinity’ between the two

•        Actually, two hypotheses:

•        H1: The ethical and doctrinal principles of Protestantism were conducive to capitalism

•        H2: A ‘spirit of capitalism’ – ‘rationalisation’ was one of a number of factors that contributed

•        Prof. of economics in Freiburg

•        Working during a debate about the appropriate approach of the social sciences

•        Sought to rebalance the materialism of Karl Marx

•        Interested in the ‘rationality’ of capitalist society and its implications for social development

•        The sources of ‘legitimacy’ and ‘authority’ in society

How bureaucracy shapes behaviour

“An organization founded for a religious, educational, professional or social purpose”

•        Patriarchialism with an administrative staff bound by bonds of personal allegiance

Charismatic Authority

“a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is considered extraordinary and treated as endowed with supernatural powers or qualities” Weber 1968, pp241-2

•        Not necessary that they have powers, attribution is enough

•        Legitimacy based on belief in leader’s mission

•        Potentially revolutionary force

Rational-Legal Authority

•        The development of the nation-state and industrialization is synonymous with this form of authority

•         Requires a legal code & a consistent system of abstract rules

•        A far reaching process where traditional modes of thinking are replaced by an ends/means analysis concerned with efficiency and formalized social control

•        A large formal organization characterized by a hierarchical authority structure, well established division of labour, written rules and regulations, impersonality and a concern for technical competence

Bureaucracy

Three Related Causes

•        Competition among capitalist firms in the market place

•        Competition among states increasing governments/rulers need to control staff and citizenry

•        The demands of the emerging middle class for equal protection before the law

Weber’s ‘Ideal Type’ Bureaucracy

•        The division of labour (specialisation)

•        Hierarchy of offices and roles

•        Set rules and regulations

•        Technical competence through training and credentials

•        Purposely impersonal

•        Organizing force representing and extending rationalization into everyday life and interaction, facilitated by, and driving technology

•        Evidences the proliferation of non-human technologies into the realms of production and consumption on a global scale

McDonaldization

Ritzer Identifies Four Dimensions

•        Efficiency

•        Calculability

•        Predictability

•        Control

•        Ascribed groups

•        Status groups

•        Common-interest groups

Ascribed Groups

•        Characteristics defined at birth:

•        Race

•        Gender

•        Ethnicity

•        Religion

Status Groups

•        Social class

•        Educational level

•        Caste

•        Income and lifestyle?

Common Interest Groups

•        People are members of groups by choice:

•        Church

•        Unions

•        Hobbies

•        Activism

Structural Opportunity

•        Group segregation occurs because of meeting opportunities

“There is no mating without meeting”

“One cannot marry an eskimo if no eskimo is around”

•        The higher the population %, the greater the chance of meeting

Homophily

•        Homophily is the preference to mix with those of like characteristics:

•        Mixing with like-others can be more rewarding because of similarity in beliefs, norms and values

•        It requires less effort and reduces the chance of conflict

Testing Social Identity Theory

Conclusions

•        All of us are members of multiple groups providing a complex patchwork of social identity

•        Affiliation can be assigned both subjectively and objectively

•        The test of group existence is ties and cohesion

•        Human beings evolved in groups and evolved group identity and bias as a result

•        Individual self-esteem is bound up with group identity

•        Threats to group individual status can result in out group prejudice

Economic Integration

•        Similarity and difference between minority and majority groups in realising valued goals:

•        Education

•        Employment

•        Income

Cultural Integration

•        Degree of similarity and difference between minority and majority groups in cultural beliefs, norms and practices:

•        Language use

•        Religion

•        Values

•        Behaviours (e.g. diet)

Social Integration

•        The extent of social ties and connections between minority and majority group members:

•        Inter-marriage

•        Friendship ties

•        Membership of similar organisation

What Determines Integration
Ethnic Group Effects

•        Ethnic origin conditions, e.g

•        Gender role attitudes

•        Religious practices

•        Migration motives

•        Language

•        Ethnic community conditions, e.g interactions with host society, e.g.

•        Muslim migrants to muslim countries fair well, but face discrimination in non-muslim societies

What Determines Integration?
Destination Effects

•        Integration varies by the characteristics of the receiving country, irrespective of the migrants ethnic origins

•        Integration or ‘multicultural’ policies

•        May promote acceptance by also impede integration

•        Institutional conditions, e.g.

•        Education transition timing:

•        Early transition hinders children of migrants

•        Credentialist labour markets:

•        Strong self-regulation of professions hinders entry  

Social Norms

•        Usually viewed as ‘exogenous’ constraint on behaviour

2 types convention and moral norms

Convention Norms

“A preference for behaviour which is conditional upon observing (or believing) how others act”

Examples of  Convention Norms

•        Kissing twice on greeting

Moral Norms

A preference for behaviour which is unconditional on the observed or expected behaviour of others

Have a moral force and breaking them can provoke an emotional reaction:

•        Crossing roads on green man

Types of moral norms

•        Proscriptive – discourage or proscribe actions

•         Prescriptive – encourage and provide positive feedback

•        Conjoint norms – apply to all

•         Disjoint – Apply to one group

Where do Norms Come From?

The Consequentialist theory

Social norms emerge to reduce harm and increase well-being in social groups 

•        Maintaining common and public goods, e.g

•        Clearing snow/leaves from outside your house

The Durkheimian Theory

Two Models of Moral Norms

•        Internal

•        External

The Internal Model of Norms

•        Socialisation and internalization

•         Personally accepted ‘value’

The External Model of Social Norms

•        ‘Rational choice’ model

•        Follow norm because of the costs and benefits of doing so

•        Not morally concerned

•        Morally ambiguous at best

•        Not all knowing (easily tricked)

•        Morally concerned

•        All knowing

Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft

•         Gemeinschaft characterised pre-industrial society:

•         small scale communities

•         social ascription of roles and status

•         local attachment and values

•         Gesellschaft characterised industrial, market societies:

•         urban, impersonal

•         market relationships and judgements not personal

•         loss of community

A Random Network

•        The network is ‘random’ because each one person has the same chance of meeting and associating with every other

•        The more that the network departs from randomness, the more clustering there is

The Strength of Weak Ties

'Are Weak Links More Likely to Get You a Job'

•        Valery Yakubovich

•        Usually assumed that job mobility is process of matching

•        Yet, employers have little information of individuals

•        Individual search costs are high

•        Employers look for maximum candidates

     Propinquity

•        the state of being close to someone; proximity

Georg Simmel (1858 – 1918)

•        Conflict and the Web of Group Affiliations 1908

•        In traditional, feudal societies, affiliations are concentric ‘social circles’,  compulsory and set

•          In modern, urban society, affiliations are voluntary, multiple and overlapping

•          People are simultaneously members of different groups and become more tolerant of difference

•          The ‘multiplex’ nature of networks lowers conflict between groups

Ernest Gellner (1925-1995)

Saints and the Atlas Tribes (1969)

Little Division of Labour
and High Social Cohesion

•        High military participation:

•        all fight

•        High political participation:

•        All household heads take part

•        High trust within clans

•        Cultural life similarly diffused

What is Social Capital

“Social Capital is the sum of the resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalised relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition”

Access to Resources

Brokerage

cohesion

Four Basic Components

of social capital

1. Networks
2. Norms, values and expectations (trust)
3. Sanctions
4. Institutions

•        Embedded community or neighbourhood

•         Simple recognition to deep friendship

•         Network density (friends who know friends)

•         Network clustering (ratio intra/inter links)

Norms, Values & Expectations

•        Values, attitudes

•         Moral norms and expectations

•         Trust

Sanctions

•        Informal and formal (legal) rules

•         Informal policing through confrontation, ‘looks’, reputation and gossip

•         Formal legal redress

Institutions

•        Organisation founded for a specific purpose

•         Depersonalized roles and expectations

•         Regulated by impartial  and stable rules and procedures

•         Associations and mutual organizations

Bonding and Bridging

•        Bonding social capital is inward looking and tends to reinforce exclusive identities:

•        ethnic fraternal organizations

•        Bridging social capital is outward looking and encompass people across diverse social cleavages:

•        Civil rights movements

1. The Cultural Explanation:      High levels of civic community in terms of membership of sports clubs, cultural and recreational groups promotes better norms of altruism and civic mindedness

2. The Political Explanation:

•        High levels of civic community promote involvement in local politics including electoral turnout leading to better councillors being elected and elected officials being held to account

“the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope, and the distinction between justified belief and opinion

1. Social world is external to people, acting upon and influencing their behaviour, beliefs and values
2. The aim is to develop generalisations that could become ‘laws of social science’
3. Knowledge is generated by developing hypotheses about the world which are then tested against evidence using deductive reasoning

Karl Popper, Falsification and Deduction

•        Your theory should generate predictions, known as a hypothesis

•        Design a test of this hypothesis:

•        if the hypothesis is wrong, we should see X

•        Both X and the theory cannot simultaneously be correct

•        If original hypothesis is supported, your theory stands (for now)

•        If your hypothesis is not supported, modify the theory that generated it

Quantitative Study Designs

•        Because of the emphasis on measurement, deductive research is often associated with quantitative study designs:

•         Structured observation of behaviour

•         Social surveys

•         Experimental and control trials

•         Analysis of administrative or secondary data

Interpretivism

•        Some are critical of the application of the scientific model to sociological research

•        They believe that the subject matter of the social sciences – people and their institutions – are fundamentally different from the natural sciences

•        Rather than trying to explain people’s behaviour  we should be trying to understand it

Qualitative Study Designs

      Ethnographic methods:

•         Understanding actors meanings and intentions ‘seeing through their eyes

•         Semi or unstructured interviews:

•         Focus groups

•        ‘Pure’ Observation

•        Participant observation

•        Content or discourse analysis

The Domestic Division of Labour

•        Domestic labour is perceived as ‘gendered’

•        ‘Lagged’ adaption of men and women (particularly men) to the changing reality of women’s employment

This produces negotiation, conflict and increasingly, divorce

•        Structured values and beliefs about gender roles and the justifications for these 

•        Application of gender ideologies in real life

•        Conscious or unconscious plan of action

•        Esteem between partners in their roles

The family myth

•        A version of reality agreed between partners to avoid conflict

The Ideology of Liberalism

•        Equality

•        Civil rights

•        Democracy

•        Secularism

•        Freedom of expression

•        Industrial society has ‘functional needs’ leading convergence:

•         Technical and economic rationality

•         High productivity & living standards

•         Social mobility & falling status differences

•         Pluralist democracy

1. The large service economy
2. Rise of professions and technicals
3. Primacy of theoretical knowledge
4. Planning of technology
5. Rise of new intellectual technology

•        ‘Scientific management’ splits job into tasks

Disempowers, ‘deskills’ and makes work ‘alienating

Increasing Skills

•        Modern technology requires more skilled workers to maximize value

•         Technical innovations also usually need analytical, communication and ‘soft’ skills

Social Stratification & Inequality in Human Societies

•        Social stratification is a ‘structural process’ and is not just a reflection of individual differences

•        Has a tendency to carry over from generation to generation

•        Is almost universal in human societies but variable in form and extent

•        Involves beliefs as well as inequalities

Sexual Dimorphism

•        Driven by mate competition based on male aggression

•        Leads to high rates of polygamy

Class

•        Social relations of economic life

Relationships in labour markets and production units (organisations)

Status or Prestige

•        Structure of perceived and accepted social superiority, inferiority and equality

•        At least to some degree accepted but often contested

types of Social Mobility

•        Absolute mobility:

•        Proportion of people who are mobile (usually upward) between generations

•         Relative Mobility:

•        The Proportion of one group who are mobile relative to another