Читать книгу Essentials of Sociology - George Ritzer - Страница 165

Several key concepts in sociology relate to groups. Consider the traditional distinction between the primary group and the secondary group (Cooley 1909). Primary groups are small, are close-knit, and have intimate face-to-face interaction. Relationships in primary groups are personal, and people identify strongly with the groups. In contrast, secondary groups are generally large and impersonal; ties are relatively weak, members do not know one another very well, and members’ impacts on one another are typically not very powerful. Members of a local parent–teacher association would be a good example of a secondary group.

Reference groups are those that you consider in evaluating yourself. Your reference group can be one to which you belong, or it can be another group to which you do not belong but nevertheless often relate (Merton and Kitt 1950). People often have many reference groups, and those groups can and do change over time. Knowing people’s reference groups, and how they change, tells us a great deal about their behavior, attitudes, and values. We often think of reference groups in positive terms. An example would be a group of people whose success you would like to emulate. They also can be negative if they represent values or ways of life that you reject (say, neo-Nazis). The reference group to which one belongs is not necessarily the most powerful group in one’s life.

Reference groups can be illustrated by the case of immigrants. Newly arrived immigrants are more likely to take those belonging to the immigrant culture, or even those in the country from which they came, as their reference group. In contrast, their children, second-generation immigrants, are much more likely to take as their reference group those associated with the new culture in the country to which they have immigrated (Kosic et al. 2004).

One final set of concepts that can help us understand the sociological importance of groups is the distinction between in-groups and out-groups (Sumner [1906] 1940). An in-group is one to which people belong and with which they identify, perhaps strongly. An out-group is one to which outsiders, at least from the perspective of the in-group, belong. Thus, from your perspective, the group you sit with at your regular table in the college dining hall or fast-food court would be the in-group, while other groups at other tables might be the out-groups. The differences between these groups may be insignificant (e.g., whether they get their food in the food court from McDonald’s or Pizza Hut). However, they can also come to be so important (“jocks” versus “geeks”) that each group not only accepts its own ways but also rejects those of the others. In extreme cases this can lead to conflict between the in-group and the out-group. Research suggests that hostility often arises when members of the in-group perceive the out-group as constituting a threat to their self-interest (Rosenstein 2008). This is particularly evident in research on immigration (Schlueter and Scheepers 2010; Schneider 2008). In that case, native-born individuals (representing the in-group) may maintain discriminatory attitudes toward a growing population of foreign-born individuals (representing the out-group). In a more specific study, it was found that religious fundamentalists in western Europe, especially Muslims, have very high levels of hostility toward out-groups.