Social Interaction and Social Processes Notes

Social Interaction

• Social interaction involves interpersonal contact and the adjustment of behavior to others. It assumes a repetitive pattern and can be defined as "respective forms of behavior commonly found in social life."
• Social interactions are reciprocal relationships that influence both the individuals involved and the quality of their relationships.
• Eldredge and Merrill: Social interaction is a general process where two or more persons are in meaningful contact, resulting in a modification of behavior, however slight.

Elements of Social Interaction

• Two or more persons.
• Reciprocal relationship among them.
• Influence on the event, behavior, or brain of the persons.
• These conditions interrelate people and convert them into social groups.

Types of Social Interaction (Young and Mack)

• Direct or Physical Interaction: Involves physical action among individuals.
  • Examples: Beating, biting, thrashing, pulling, pushing, killing, scratching, boxing, wrestling.
  • Examples: Two teams playing a match, war between countries. This type influences others through physical action in different ways.
• Symbolic Interaction: Involves the use of language and symbols.
  • Communication through a common language is a symbolic process.
  • This is the most common method in human societies.
  • Humans convey ideas through language with reciprocal response.
  • Without language, no culture can survive.
  • Gestures are also symbolic.

Forms of Social Interaction

• Between individual and individual:
  • Interaction between at least two persons.
  • Examples: Doctor and patient, mother and child, customer and shopkeeper.
• Between individual and group:
  • Operates between one person and more.
  • Examples: Teacher teaching a class, speaker addressing an audience, Imam leading prayers.
• Between group and group:
  • Found between two groups of people.
  • Examples: Two teams playing a match, two forces fighting, two delegates discussing an issue.
• Between individuals and culture:
  • Found when people listen to the radio, watch television, read newspapers, enjoy pictures, and observe exhibitions.
  • Radio, TV, cinema, newspapers, books, exhibitions, theatre, drama, circus, fairs, and other socio-cultural activities are included in the culture of a society.
  • People have social interaction and relationships with media of mass communication, leading to social change.
  • A reciprocal process occurs between people and culture.

Social Processes

• Social process refers to general and recurrent forms that social interaction may take.
• Interaction or mutual activity is the essence of social life.
• Interaction between individuals and groups occurs in the form of social processes.
• Social processes are forms of social interaction that occur repeatedly.
• Social processes are the ways individuals and groups interact and establish social relationships.
• Examples of social interaction include cooperation, conflict, competition, and accommodation.

Types of Social Processes

• Classified into two broad categories:
  • Conjunctive and Disjunctive.
  • Associative and Dissociative.
• Associative or conjunctive social processes are positive.
• They work for the solidarity and benefit of society.
• This category includes cooperation, accommodation, assimilation, and acculturation.

Associative Social Processes

Cooperation

• Derived from Latin words 'Co' (together) and 'Operary' (to work).
• Cooperation means working together for the achievement of a common goal or goals.
• When two or more persons work together to gain a common goal, it is called cooperation.
• It is a fundamental process of social life.
• Cooperation is a form of social process in which two or more individuals or groups work together jointly to achieve common goals.
• Cooperation is a form of social interaction in which all participants benefit by attaining their goals.
• Merrill and Eldredge: “Cooperation is a form of social interaction wherein two or more persons work together to gain a common end”.

Characteristics of Cooperation

1. Associative process of social interaction between two or more individuals or groups.
2. Conscious process in which individuals or groups have to work consciously.
3. Personal process in which individuals and groups personally meet and work together for a common objective.
4. Continuous process; there is continuity in the collective efforts in cooperation.
5. Universal process found in all groups, societies, and nations.
6. Based upon two elements such as common end and organised effort.
7. Common ends can be better achieved by cooperation, and it is necessary for the progress of individuals as well as society.

Types of Cooperation

• Direct Cooperation:
  • Activities in which people do the identical function.
  • Examples: Plowing together, working together, carrying a load together, pulling a car out of mud together.
• Indirect Cooperation:
  • Activities in which people do unlike tasks together towards a common end.
  • Examples: Carpenters, plumbers, and masons cooperate to build a house.
  • Based on the principle of the division of labor.
• Primary Cooperation:
  • Found in primary groups such as the family.
  • There is an identity of interests between individuals and the group.
• Secondary Cooperation:
  • Found in secondary groups such as Government, industry, trade union, and church.
  • In an industry, each may work in cooperation with others for wages, salaries, promotion, profits, and prestige.
• Tertiary Cooperation:
  • Found in the interaction between various big and small groups to meet a particular situation.
  • Attitudes of cooperating parties are purely opportunistic.
  • Organization of cooperation is loose and fragile.
  • Example: Two political parties with different ideologies may unite to defeat their rival party in an election.

Accommodation

• Adjustment is the way of life; it can take place in two ways: adaptation and accommodation.
• Adaptation refers to the process of biological adjustment.
• Accommodation implies the process of social adjustment.
• Maclver and Page: “The term accommodation refers particularly to the process in which man attains a sense of harmony with his environment”.
• Horton and Hunt: “Accommodation is a process of developing temporary working agreements between conflicting individuals or groups”.

Characteristics of Accommodation

• It is the End-result of Conflict.
• It is both Conscious and Unconscious Process.
• It is a Universal Activity.
• It is a Continuous Process.
• It is a Mixture of both Love and Hatred.

Forms or Methods of Accommodation

• Compromise: Parties are equal in power.
• Arbitration and Conciliation: Involves attempts of the third party to resolve the conflict between the contending parties.
  • Arbitration: The decision of the third party is binding on both parties.
  • Mediation: Neutral agent – but advisory only.
  • Conciliation: Attempt to persuade the parties to come to an agreement.
• Toleration: ‘Live & let Live policy’
• Conversion: Rejection of one’s beliefs and adoption of others.
• Sublimation: Substitution of non-aggressive attitudes for aggressive ones.
• Rationalisation: Explanation for one’s behavior.

Importance of Accommodation

• Accommodation enables people to work together whether they like it or not.
• Society can hardly go on without accommodation.
• Since conflict disturbs social integration, disrupts social order, and damages social stability, accommodation is essentially essential to check conflict and to maintain cooperation, which is the sine qua non of social life.

Assimilation

• It is that process by which individuals belonging to different cultures are united into one.
• This implies the complete merging and fusion of two or more bodies into a single common body, a process analogous to digestion, in which we say that food is assimilated.
• Assimilation in social relationships means that the cultural differences between divergent groupings of people disappear.
• Ogburn and Nimkoff: “Assimilation is the process whereby individuals or groups once dissimilar become similar, that it becomes identified in the interests and outlook”.

Characteristics of Assimilation

• Associative process.
• Universal process: It is found in every place and at all times.
• Slow and gradual process.
• Unconscious process.
• Two-way process: It is based on the principle of give and take.

Factors Favoring Assimilation

• Toleration
• Education
• Cultural similarity
• Equal social and economic opportunity

Factors Hindering Assimilation

• Isolation
• Physical and racial differences
• Cultural differences
• Dominance and subordinance

Dissociative or Disjunctive Social Processes

• Dissociative social processes are also called the disintegrative or disjunctive social processes.
• These processes hinder the growth and development of society; their absence results in stagnation of society.

Competition

• Competition is the most fundamental form of social struggle.
• Biesanz and Biesanz: “Competition is the striving of two or more persons for the same goal with is limited so that all cannot share it”.
• Park and Burgess: “Competition is an interaction without social contact”.
• It occurs whenever there is an insufficient supply of anything that human beings desire.

Characteristics of Competition

• It is universal
• It is impersonal
• Always governed by norms
• Continuous
• Cause of social change
• Constructive or destructive
• Unconscious

Forms of Competition

• Economic competition
• Cultural competition
• Social competition
• Racial competition
• Political competition

Economic Competition

• Found in the field of economic activities.
• A race betweenhe individuals and groups to achieve certain material goods.
• Takes place in the field of production, consumption, distribution, and exchange of wealth.
• Example: Competition between two industrial sectors for the production of goods.
• In modern industrial society, the materialistic tendency of people has led to economic competition to a great extent.

Cultural Competition

• Found among different cultures.
• Occurs when two or more cultures try to establish their superiority over others.
• Leads to cultural diversities in society.
• When one culture tries to establish its supremacy over other cultures, it gives birth to cultural competition.

Social Competition

• Mainly found in modern societies.
• A basic feature of present-day world.
• For acquiring a high status, popularity, name, and fame in society, people compete with each other.
• Plays a vital role in the determination of individual’s status in society.

Racial Competition

• Found among different races of the world.
• Takes place when one race tries to establish its superiority over the other.
• The whole human society is divided into a number of races, and there always arises an intense competition among them.

Political Competition

• Found in the political field.
• Example: During elections, each and every political party competes for getting a majority.
• Found not only at the national level but at the international level.

Role of Competition

• Assignment of right individual to proper place:
  • Assigns the right individual to a place in the social system.
  • Provides individuals better opportunities to satisfy their desires for new experiences and recognition.
  • Believes in achieved status.
• Source of motivation:
  • Motivates others to excel or to obtain recognition or to win an award.
  • Stimulates achievement by lifting the levels of aspiration for which some individuals work harder for success.
• Conducive to progress:
  • Healthy and fair competition is considered essential for economic, social, technological, and scientific progress.
  • Through competition, a proper man is selected and placed in the proper place.
  • When a proper man is in the proper place, the technological and general progress of the society cannot be hampered.

Conflict

• Conflict is one of the dissociative or disintegrative social processes.
• It is a universal and fundamental social process in human relations.
• Arises only when the attention of the competitors is diverted from the object of competition to themselves.
• As a process, it is the anti-thesis of cooperation.
• It is a process of seeking to obtain rewards by eliminating or weakening the competitors.
• It is a deliberate attempt to oppose, resist, or coerce the will of another or others.
• Conflict is a competition in its occasional, personal, and hostile forms.
• A.W. Green: “Conflict is the deliberate attempt to oppose, resist, or coerce the will of another or others”.

Characteristics of Conflict

• Universal Process: Conflict is an ever-present process. It exists at all places and all times. It has been in existence since time immemorial.
• Personal Activity: Conflict is personal, and its aim is to eliminate the opposite party. The defeat of the opponent is the main objective in conflict. When competition is personalized, it becomes conflict.
• Conscious Activity: Conflict is a deliberate attempt to oppose or resist the will of another. It aims at causing loss or injury to persons or groups.
• Intermittent Process: There is no continuity in conflict. It is occasional and lacks continuity. It is not as continuous as competition and cooperation. It may take place all of a sudden and may come to an end after some time.
• Emotional: The basis of conflict is emotion. Moved by excessive emotion, people get involved in conflict, and in this process, they use fair as well as unfair means to achieve their goal.

Types of Conflict (MacIver and Page)

• Direct Conflict: When a person or a group injures, thwarts, or destroys the opponent in order to secure a goal or reward.
  • Examples: litigation, revolution, and war.
• Indirect Conflict: Attempts are made by individuals or groups to frustrate the efforts of their opponents in an indirect manner.
  • Example: When two manufacturers go on lowering the prices of their commodities until both of them are declared insolvent.

Gillin and Gillin (1948) Classification

• Personal conflict
• Racial conflict
• Class conflict
• Political conflict
• International conflict

Simmel (1955) Classification

• War: Attributed to a deep-seated antagonistic impulse in man. For him, antagonistic impulse is a foundation of all conflicts.
• Feud: An intra-group form of conflict arising because of injustice alleged to have been done by one group to the other.
• Litigation: A judicial form of conflict when an individual or group asserts its claims to certain rights on the basis of objective factors.
• Conflict of impersonal ideals: A conflict carried on by the individuals not for themselves but for an ideal. In such a conflict, each party attempts to justify the truthfulness of its own ideals.

Role (Functions) of Conflict

Positive

• Conflict determines the status of the individual in the social organization.
• Chief means of group contact, and it has played an important role in the development and spread of culture.
• Eventuate in peace through victory of one contestant over others.
• Keeps groups alert to members’ interests.
• Helps to define social issues and brings about a new equilibrium of contending forces.
• Tends to stiffen the morale, promotes unity and cohesion within the group, and may lead to expanding alliances with other groups.
• Generates new norms and new institutions. It happens mostly in economic and technological realms.
  It leads to redefinition of value systems.

Dysfunctions of Conflict

• Conflicts disrupt social unity. It is highly disturbing way of settling issues.
• Conflict within a group makes it hard for members to agree on group goals or to co- operate in pursuit of them.
• It often results in group tension. It increases bitterness and leads to destruction and bloodshed.
• Conflict disrupts normal channels of co-operation.
• It diverts members’ attention from group objectives.

Distinction Between Competition and Conflict