Читать книгу Our Social World - Kathleen Odell Korgen - Страница 53

A focus on individual or small-group interaction in specific situations is called micro-level analysis. The micro level is important because one-to-one and small-group interaction form the basic foundation of all social groups and organizations to which we belong, from families to corporations to societies. We are members of many groups at the micro level.

To understand micro-level analysis, consider the problem of spousal abuse. Why does a person remain in an abusive relationship, knowing that each year thousands of people are killed by their partners and millions more are severely and repeatedly battered? To answer this question, several possible micro-level explanations can be considered. One view is that the abusive partner has convinced the abused person that she or he is powerless in the relationship or “deserves” the abuse. Therefore, the abused person gives up in despair of ever being able to alter the situation. The abuse is viewed as part of the interaction—of action and reaction—and some partners come to see abuse as what composes normal interaction.

Another explanation for remaining in the abusive relationship is that battering is a familiar part of the person’s everyday life. However unpleasant and unnatural this may seem to outsiders, it may be seen by the abused as a “normal” and acceptable part of intimate relationships, especially if she or he grew up in an abusive family.

Another possibility is that an abused woman may fear that her children would be harmed or that she would be harshly judged by her family or religious group if she “abandoned” her mate. She may have few resources to make leaving the abusive situation possible. To study each of these possible explanations involves analysis at the micro level because each issue posed here focuses on interpersonal interaction factors rather than on large society-wide trends or forces. Moving to the next level, meso-level analysis leads to different explanations for abuse.