Social connections and social interaction. Social connections, actions and interactions What is social connection and social interaction
Social contacts.
Social action.
Social interactions.
Social relationships
1. Social connections - connections between the interaction of individuals and groups of individuals pursuing certain social goals in specific conditions of place and time.
Social connections can express the relationship between two or more social phenomena and the signs of these phenomena.
The starting point for the emergence of social ties is the interaction of individuals or their groups to meet certain needs. Social ties of individuals and their groups, based on a system of social statuses and social roles, social norms and values, form a social organization.
Social ties are different: from fleeting short-term contacts to persistent long-term relationships.
Circumstances confront each person with many individuals. In accordance with his needs and interests, a person selects from this multitude those with whom he then enters into complex interactions. This breeding work is a special type of fleeting short-term relationship called contacts. There are several types of contacts:
Spatial contacts. In order to interact with other individuals, each member of a society or social group, first of all, must determine where these individuals are and how many there are. Each of us every day encounters many people in transport, at the stadium, at work.
N.N. Obozov identified 2 types of spatial contacts:
supposed spatial contact, when a person's behavior changes due to the assumption of the presence of individuals in any place.
visual spatial contact, when the behavior of an individual changes under the influence of visual observation of other people.
Contacts of interest. Their essence lies in the choice of a social object that has certain values or traits that correspond to the needs of a given individual. The contact of interest can be interrupted or prolonged depending on many factors, but, first of all, on the strength and importance of the actualized motive for the personality and, accordingly, the strength of interest; the degree of reciprocity of interests, the degree of awareness of one's interest; environment. In contacts of interest, unique individual personality traits are manifested, as well as the characteristics of the social groups to which it belongs.
Exchange contact. Continuing to deepen and develop social ties, individuals begin to enter into short-term contacts, during which they exchange some values. Exchange contacts are a specific type of social relationship in which individuals exchange values without seeking to change the behavior of other individuals. Every day, a person has many exchange contacts: he buys tickets for transport, exchanges replicas with passengers on the metro, asks how to find any institution, etc. Social contacts are the basis of group-forming processes, the first step in the formation of social groups.
3. The concept of "social action" is one of the central concepts in sociology. For the first time in sociology, the concept of "social action" was introduced and substantiated by Max Weber. He called a social action "a person's action (regardless of whether it is external or internal, whether it comes down to non-intervention or patient acceptance), which, according to the supposed actor's meaning, correlates with the action of other people or is guided by it." In Weber's understanding, social action has 2 features: it must, firstly, be rational, conscious and, secondly, focused on the behavior of other people.
Any social action is preceded by social contacts, however, unlike them, social action is a rather complex phenomenon that includes:
actor;
the need to activate behavior;
the purpose of the action;
method of action;
another actor to whom the action is directed;
the result of the action.
Social actions, unlike reflexive, impulsive actions, are never performed instantly. Before they are committed, a sufficiently stable urge to be active must arise in the consciousness of any acting individual. This motivation is called motivation. Motivation is a set of factors, mechanisms and processes that ensure the emergence of an incentive to achieve the goals necessary for an individual, in other words, motivation is a force that pushes an individual to perform certain actions. Any social action begins with the emergence of a need in an individual. Every social action occurs as a result of some subjective activity that forms motivation.
4. The starting point for the emergence of a social connection is the interaction of individuals or groups of individuals to meet certain needs.
What is social interaction? It is obvious that, performing social actions, each person experiences the action of others. There is an exchange of actions, or social interaction. Social interaction is understood as a system of interdependent social actions linked by a cyclical causal dependence, in which the actions of one subject are both a cause and a consequence of the response actions of other subjects. This means that every social action is caused by a previous social action and at the same time is the cause of subsequent actions. Thus, social actions are links in an unbreakable chain called interaction.
The mechanism of social interaction includes: individuals who perform certain actions; changes in the outside world caused by these actions; the impact of these changes on other individuals; and, finally, the feedback from the affected individuals.
Interaction is a certain system of actions of one side in relation to the other and vice versa. The purpose of these actions is to somehow influence the behavior of the other party, which in turn responds in the same way, otherwise it would not be an interaction. Interaction is the real content of the life of the group, the basis of all group phenomena and processes. The interaction between individuals is one of the ways of manifestation of the functioning of society, the result of these interactions is society.
One of the models of interaction between individuals is social exchange. In the social field, behavior is exchanged, as it were. Behavioral events contain certain values that provide participants in social interaction with gain or loss in achieving desired material goals or desired status. In a fragmented society, people exchange the results of their labor with each other and thus enter into a lively social exchange.
With winning social exchange in mind, people are happy to come into contact with those individuals or groups who can be helpful in achieving their goals. According to the theory of social exchange, attraction to a person or group increases to the extent that it contributes to the achievement of the goal. The phenomenon of social comparability can also serve as an important motive for interaction: a person tries to analyze and evaluate his abilities and successes in comparison with others. The motives of interaction, of course, can be attraction and sympathy for another.
For social exchange, good preconditions are created by competence, which means the possession of resources, that is, power reserves. In this aspect, interaction can be understood as a social ability, determined by social intelligence and social competence. Observing the situation and responding is an important part of the interaction: the analysis of the previous situation determines the subsequent stages of progress in the interaction process.
The most obvious form of social interaction is communication using a socially accepted system of symbols. One of the most important systems of symbols that allows communication is, of course, language. There is an opinion that people do not react to each other's actions and deeds as such, but only to their meaning; in the same way, in the course of communication, a person weighs the statements of the interlocutor concerning his own activities, qualities, etc., and evaluates them in the light of his own. expectations.
5. Social relations are various interactions, regulated by social norms, between two or more people, each of whom has a social position and carries out a social role.
Sociologists consider social relations to be the highest form of social phenomena in comparison with behavior, action, social behavior, social action and social interaction.
It can be argued that social relations arise:
Between people as part of a social group;
Between groups of people;
Between individuals and groups of people.
Despite the fact that the term "social relations" is widely used, but scientists have not yet come to a common conclusion about the concept of social relations. There are such definitions:
Social relations (social relations) - the relationship of people to each other, developing in historically defined social forms, in specific conditions of place and time.
Social relations (social relations) - relations between social subjects regarding their equality and social justice in the distribution of life benefits, conditions for the formation and development of a personality, satisfaction of material, social and spiritual needs.
There are several classifications of social relations. In particular, a distinction is made between:
Class relations;
National relations;
Ethnic relations;
Group relationships;
Personal social relations;
Social relations develop in all spheres public life.
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Sociologists have been looking for those protozoa for a long time social elements, with the help of which they could describe and study social life as a set of infinitely diverse events, actions, facts, phenomena and relationships. It was necessary to find the phenomena of social life in the simplest form, indicate an elementary case of their manifestation, construct and recreate their simplified model, by studying which, the sociologist would be able to consider increasingly complex facts as a combination of these simple cases or as an infinitely complicated example of this model. The sociologist must find, in the words of P.A. Sorokin, "social cell", studying which, he would receive knowledge of the basic properties of social phenomena. This simplest "social cell" is the concept of "interaction", or "interaction", which refers to the basic concepts of sociology as a science of the development of society. An interaction that ultimately manifests itself as social behavior individuals in society, has become the subject of analysis in the works of such outstanding sociologists of the 20th century as P.A. Sorokin, G. Simmel, E. Durkheim, T. Parsons, R. Merton, D. Homans and others.
Social interactions of people in society
Social contacts
Problems of the formation of relationships in society from the simplest to the most complex, the mechanism of social action, the specifics of social interaction, the very concept of “ social system»Developed and studied in detail at two main levels of sociological research - micro and macro levels.
At the micro level, social interaction (interaction) is any behavior of an individual, group, society as a whole, both at the moment and in the future. Each action is caused by the previous action and at the same time acts as the cause of the subsequent action. It is a system of interdependent social actions linked by a cyclical causal dependence, in which the actions of one subject are both a cause and a consequence of the response actions of other subjects. Interpersonal interaction can be called interaction at the level of two or more units of interpersonal communication (for example, a father praising his son for a good study). On the basis of experiments and observations, sociologists analyze and try to explain some of the types of behavior that characterize the interaction between individuals.
At the macro level, the study of interaction is carried out on the example of such large structures as classes, strata, army, economy, etc. But the elements of both levels of interaction are intertwined. Thus, the everyday communication of soldiers of one company is carried out at the micro level. But the army is a social institution that is studied at the macro level. For example, if a sociologist studies the reasons for the existence of hazing in a company, then he cannot adequately investigate the issue without referring to the state of affairs in the army, in the country as a whole.
The simple, rudimentary level of interaction is spatial contacts. We constantly encounter people and build our behavior in transport, shop, at work, taking into account their interests and behavior. So, when we see an elderly person, we usually give way to him at the entrance to the store, freeing him up a place in public transport. In sociology, this is called “ visual spatial contact»(The behavior of the individual changes under the influence of the passive presence of other people).
Concept "Putative spatial contact" is used to refer to a situation in which a person does not visually collide with other people, but assumes that they are present in some other place. So, if it gets cold in the apartment in winter, we call the housing office and ask them to check the hot water supply; entering the elevator, we know for sure that if the attendant's help is needed, we must press a button on the control panel and our voice will be heard, although we do not see the attendant.
As civilization develops, society shows more and more attention to a person, so that in any situations he feels the presence of other people who are ready to help. Ambulance, fire brigade, police, traffic police, sanitary epidemiological stations, helplines, rescue services, mobile operator services, computer network technical support departments and other organizations are created to provide and support social order in society to instill in a person the confidence of safety and a sense of social comfort. From the point of view of sociology, all of these are forms of manifestation of supposed spatial contacts.
Interest-related contacts people are a more complex level of interaction. These contacts are conditioned by the clearly “targeted” needs of individuals. If you are visiting an outstanding football player, then you can experience a sense of simple curiosity about how to famous person... But if there is a business representative in the company, and you are looking for a job with a diploma in economics, then in your mind there immediately arises a need for a contact where there is interest. Here, the actualized motive and interest is caused by the presence of a need - to make an acquaintance and, perhaps, find a good job with its help. This contact can continue, or it can suddenly break off if you lose interest in it.
If motive - this is a direct incentive to activity associated with the need to satisfy a need, then interest - it is a conscious form of manifestation of a need, which ensures the orientation of the individual to a certain activity. Before you went to visit, you asked a friend to help you find a job: introduce you to a businessman, give good performance, vouch for your reputation, etc. It is possible that in the future this friend, in turn, will ask you to help him in something.
V exchange contacts social interaction becomes more complex. This is a kind of contact, during which individuals are interested not so much in people as in objects of exchange - information, money, etc. For example, when you buy a movie ticket, you are not interested in the cashier, you are interested in the ticket. On the street, you stop the first person you meet in order to figure out how to get to the station, and least of all you pay attention to whether this person is old or young, handsome or not very, the main thing is to get an answer to your question. The life of a modern person is filled with such exchange contacts: he buys goods in the store and in the market; pays tuition fees, goes to a disco, after having done a haircut in a hairdresser; a taxi takes him to the specified address. In modern society, exchange contacts are becoming more and more complicated. For example, wealthy parents send their daughter to a prestigious educational institution in Europe, believing that in exchange for the money they pay, workers educational institution will take upon themselves all the worries associated with the socialization, upbringing and education of their daughter.
Thus, under social contact the short-term initial stage of interaction between individuals or social groups is understood. Social contact, as a rule, appears in the forms of spatial contact, psychic contact and exchange contact. Social contacts are the first step in the formation of social groups. The study of social contacts makes it possible to find out the place of each individual in the system of social ties, his group status. By measuring the number and direction of social contacts, the sociologist can determine the structure of social interactions and their nature.
Social actions
- the next level of complex social relationships after contacts. The concept of "social action" is considered one of the central in sociology and is the simplest unit of any kind of human behavior. The concept of "social action" was introduced into sociology and scientifically substantiated by M. Weber. He considered a social action “a person's action (regardless of whether it is external or internal, whether it comes down to non-intervention or patient acceptance) ... which, according to the supposed actor, or actors meaning corresponds to action others people and focuses on him. "
Weber proceeded from the fact that social action is a deliberate action and clearly oriented towards others. For example, a collision of two cars may be nothing more than an accident, but an attempt to avoid this collision, abuse that followed, an escalating conflict between drivers or a peaceful settlement of the situation, the involvement of new parties (traffic police, emergency commissioner, insurance agent) is already a social action.
A well-known difficulty is the drawing of a clear boundary between social actions and asocial (natural, natural). According to Weber, suicide will not be a social action if its consequences do not influence the behavior of acquaintances or relatives of the suicide.
Fishing and hunting are not social activities in themselves, if they do not correlate with the behavior of other people. This interpretation of actions - some as non-social and others as social - is not always justified. So, suicide, even if we are talking about a lonely person living outside social contacts, is a social fact. If we follow the theory of social interaction by P.A. Sorokin, then any phenomenon that occurs in society cannot be isolated from it and characterizes, first of all, the given society (in this case, suicide acts as a social indicator of the society's disadvantage). It is very difficult to determine the presence or absence of awareness in a particular act of an individual. According to Weber's theory, actions cannot be considered social if the individual acted under the influence of affect - in a state of anger, irritation, fear. However, as studies of psychologists show, a person never acts fully consciously, his behavior is influenced by various emotions (likes, dislikes), physical condition (fatigue or, conversely, a feeling of uplift), character and mental organization (temperament, optimistic mood of the choleric or phlegmatic pessimism), culture and intelligence, etc.
Unlike social contacts, social action is a complex phenomenon. The following components are distinguished in the structure of social action:
- individual who acts
- the individual's need for specific action
- purpose of action
- action method,
- another individual to whom the action is directed
- the result of the action.
The mechanism of social action was most fully developed by the American sociologist T. Parsons ("The Structure of Social Action"). Like Sorokin, Parsons considered interaction to be the basic process that makes possible the development of culture at the level of an individual. The result of interaction is social behavior. A person, joining a certain community, follows the cultural patterns accepted in this community. The mechanism of social action includes need, motivation and action itself. As a rule, the beginning of a social action is the emergence of a need that has a certain direction.
For example, a young man wants to learn how to water a car. The motivation to take an action is called motivation. The motives of social action can be different: in this case, the young man either wants to distract his girlfriend from a rival who drives a good car, or he likes to take his parents to the country, or he wants to get additional income as a “cab”.
In performing social actions, the individual experiences the influence of others and himself, in turn, wants to influence others. This is how the exchange of actions takes place, which acts as a social interaction. In this process, an important role belongs to the system of mutual expectations, which makes it possible to evaluate the behavior of a given individual from the point of view of generally accepted norms.
Imagine that, being in a company, a young man met a girl and they made an appointment. Each of them has a system of expectations of behavior accepted in society or a given group. A girl can consider a young man as a potential groom, so it is important for her to establish a strong relationship, consolidate an acquaintance, find out everything about his views on life, interests and affections, his profession, material opportunities. The young man, in turn, also thinks about the upcoming meeting, either seriously, or as another adventure.
The meeting can take place in different ways. One will drive up in a foreign car and invite you to a restaurant, followed by a check-in at an empty dacha. Another will suggest going to the movies or just walking in the park. But it is possible that the first young man will soon disappear, and the timid young man will receive a diploma, enter the service, and become a respectable husband.
Forms of social interactions
Mutual expectations are often not met, and the resulting relationships are destroyed. If mutual expectations are justified, they take on a predictable, and most importantly, stable form, such interactions are called social relations. Sociology distinguishes between three most general types of interactions - cooperation, rivalry, and conflict.
Cooperation- a type of interaction in which people carry out interrelated actions to achieve common goals. Typically, cooperation is beneficial for the interacting parties. Common interests unite people, evoke feelings of sympathy and gratitude in them. Mutual benefit encourages people to communicate in an informal setting, contributes to the emergence of an atmosphere of trust, moral comfort, the desire to yield in a dispute, to suffer some inconvenience for oneself personally, if it is necessary for the case. Cooperative relationships have many benefits and rewards for doing business together, fighting off competitors, increasing productivity, keeping employees in an organization, and preventing employee turnover.
However, over time, cooperative interaction begins to acquire a conservative character. People, having studied each other's capabilities, character traits, imagine what should be expected in a particular situation from each. Elements of routine appear, the stability of relations becomes stagnant, gives rise to the need to maintain the status quo. Group members become fearful of change and do not want it. They already have a set of standard, time-tested solutions in almost any situation, have established relationships with the entire system of multilateral relations in society, know their suppliers of raw materials, informants, designers, representatives of government agencies. There is no way for newcomers to the group, new ideas do not penetrate this blocked social space. The group begins to degrade.
Rivalry Interaction(competition) is one of the most common types of interaction, the opposite of cooperation. The peculiarity of rivalry is that people have the same goals, but pursue different interests. For example, several companies are applying for an order for the construction of a large bridge across the Volga. They have the same goal - to get an order, but their interests are different. Two young people love one girl, they have one goal - to achieve her favor, but the interests are opposite.
Rivalry, or competition, is the basis of market relations. In this struggle for income, feelings of hostility, anger towards the opponent, hatred, fear arise, as well as a desire to get ahead of him at all costs. The victory of one person often means a disaster for the other, the loss of prestige, good work, and welfare. Envy of a successful rival can be so strong that a person commits a crime - he hires killers to eliminate a rival, steals Required documents, i.e. goes to the conflict. Such cases are quite common, they are widely represented in the literature (T. Dreiser, J. Galsworthy, V. Ya. Shishkov and other writers), they are written about in newspapers, they are discussed on television. The most effective means of limiting this kind of competition is the adoption and implementation of relevant laws and the appropriate upbringing of a person. In economics, this is the adoption of a series of antitrust laws; in politics - the principle of separation of powers and the presence of opposition, free press; in the sphere of spiritual life - the dissemination in society of the ideals of goodness and mercy, universal human moral values. However, the spirit of rivalry is an incentive in business and, in general, in any work, which does not allow a person to calm down on what has been achieved.
- open, direct confrontation, sometimes armed. In the latter case, we can talk about a revolution, an armed uprising, riot, mass riots. For example, after the riots that engulfed Chisinau in 2009 and Bishkek in 2010, there was a change of government in Moldova and Kyrgyzstan. It is the responsibility of the state to prevent violent conflicts, struggles that harm humans and disrupt public order. Studying the problem of social interaction, sociologists, in particular T. Parsons, developed the theory of equilibrium of the social system, which acts as a decisive condition for the preservation of the system, its viability. A system is stable or is in relative equilibrium if the relationship between its structure and the processes occurring within it, and between it and the environment, are such that the properties and relationships remain unchanged.
However, there is another view that explains the conflict not only as a negative, but also as a positive element of social life.
Thus, social action is such a human action that correlates with the actions of other people and focuses on them. Social action is a constituent element, a "unit" of social reality. Many sociologists (for example, M. Weber, T. Parsons) saw in him the starting point of the entire system of social relations. Sustained and systematic performance of actions, implying feedback, is called social interaction. Social interaction is usually expressed in the form of cooperation, rivalry, or conflict.
Social interaction
The starting point for the emergence of a social connection is the interaction of individuals or groups of individuals to meet certain needs.
Interaction - it is any behavior of an individual or a group of individuals that is important for other individuals and groups of individuals or society as a whole at the moment and in the future. The category "interaction" expresses the content and nature of relations between individuals and social groups as permanent carriers of qualitatively different types of activity, differing in social positions (statuses) and roles (functions). Regardless of in which sphere of society's life (economic, political, etc.) the interaction takes place, it is always social in nature, since it expresses connections between individuals and groups of individuals, connections mediated by goals that each of the interacting parties haunts.
Social interaction has an objective and a subjective side. Objective side of interaction- these are connections that are independent of individuals, but mediate and control the content and nature of their interaction. The subjective side of interaction - it is a conscious relationship of individuals to each other, based on mutual expectations (expectations) of the corresponding behavior. These are interpersonal (or, more broadly, socio-psychological) relations, which are direct connections and relationships between individuals that develop in specific conditions of place and time.
The mechanism of social interaction includes: individuals who perform certain actions; changes in the outside world caused by these actions; the impact of these changes on other individuals; the backlash of the affected individuals.
Under the influence of Simmel and especially Sorokin, interaction in his subjective interpretation was accepted as the initial concept of group theory, and then became the initial concept of American sociology. As Sorokin wrote: “The interaction of two or more individuals is a generic concept of a social phenomenon: it can serve as a model for the latter. Studying the structure of this model, we can learn the structure of all social phenomena. Having decomposed interaction into its component parts, we will thus decompose the most complex social phenomena into parts ”. "The subject of sociology," says one of the American teaching aids in sociology, - is direct verbal and non-verbal interaction. The main task of sociology is to achieve a systematic knowledge of social rhetoric. Interview as a form of rhetoric is not just a sociological tool, but part of its subject of study. "
However, social interaction by itself still explains absolutely nothing. To understand the interaction, it is necessary to clarify the properties of the interacting forces, and these properties cannot be explained in the fact of interactions, no matter how they change due to it. The very fact of the interaction of knowledge does not add. It all depends on the individual and social properties and qualities of the interacting parties. That is why the main thing in social interaction is content side. In modern Western European and American sociology, this aspect of social interaction is considered mainly from the standpoint of symbolic interactionism and ethnomstodology. In the first case, any social phenomenon appears as a direct interaction of people, carried out on the basis of the perception and use of common symbols, meanings, etc .; as a result, the object of social cognition is considered as a set of symbols of the human environment included in a certain "behavioral situation". In the second case, social reality is viewed as "a process of interaction based on everyday experience."
Everyday experience, meanings and symbols that guide the interacting individuals give their interaction, and it cannot be otherwise, a certain quality. But in this case, the main qualitative aspect of interaction remains aside - those real social phenomena and processes that appear for people in the form of meanings, symbols, and everyday experience.
As a result, social reality and its constituent social objects act as a chaos of mutual actions based on the “interpreting role” of the individual in “determining the situation” or on everyday consciousness. Without denying the semantic, symbolic and other aspects of the process of social interaction, we must admit that its genetic source is labor, material production, and the economy. In turn, everything derived from the basis can and does have an opposite effect on the basis.
Interaction method
The way the individual interacts with other individuals and the social environment as a whole determines the "refraction" of social norms and values through the individual's consciousness and his real actions on the basis of understanding these norms and values.
The interaction method includes six aspects: 1) information transfer; 2) obtaining information; 3) reaction to the information received; 4) processed information; 5) receiving processed information; 6) reaction to this information.
Social relationships
Interaction leads to the establishment of social relationships. Social relations are relatively stable ties between individuals (as a result of which they are institutionalized into social groups) and social groups as permanent carriers of qualitatively different types of activity, differing in social status and roles in social structures.
Social communities
Social communities are characterized by: the presence of living conditions (socio-economic, social status, vocational training and education, interests and needs, etc.) common to a given group of interacting individuals (social categories); the way of interaction of a given set of individuals (nation, social classes, social and professional groups, etc.), i.e., a social group; belonging to historically established territorial associations (city, village, town), that is, territorial communities; the degree of restriction of the functioning of social groups by a strictly defined system of social norms and values, the belonging of the studied group of interacting individuals to certain social institutions (family, education, science, etc.).
Formation of social relationships
Social interaction is an invariable and constant companion of a person who lives among people and is forced to constantly enter into a complex network of relationships with them. Gradually emerging connections take the form of permanent ones and turn into social relations- conscious and perceptible sets of repetitive interactions, correlated in their meaning with each other and characterized by appropriate behavior. Social relations, as it were, are refracted through the inner content (or state) of a person and are expressed in his activities as personal relationships.
Social relationships are extremely diverse in form and content. Each person knows from personal experience that relationships with others develop in different ways, that this world of relationships contains a variegated palette of feelings - from love and irresistible sympathy to hatred, contempt, and hostility. Fiction, as a good assistant to the sociologist, reflects in its works the inexhaustible wealth of the world of social relations.
When classifying social relations, they are primarily divided into one-sided and mutual. One-sided social relations exist when partners perceive and evaluate each other differently.
One-sided relationships are common. A person experiences a feeling of love for another and assumes that his partner also experiences a similar feeling, and orients his behavior towards this expectation. However, when, for example, a young man marries a girl, he may unexpectedly receive a refusal. A classic example of one-sided social relations is the relationship between Christ and the Apostle Judas, who betrayed the teacher. World and domestic fiction will give us many examples of tragic situations associated with one-sided relations: Othello - Iago, Mozart - Salieri, etc.
Social relations that arise and exist in human society are so diverse that it is advisable to consider any one aspect of them, proceeding from a certain system of values and the activity of individuals aimed at achieving it. Recall that in sociology under values understand shared views and beliefs about the goals people strive for. Social interactions become social relationships precisely because of the values that individuals and groups of people would like to achieve. Thus, values are a necessary condition for social relations.
To determine the relationship of individuals, two indicators are used:
- value expectations (expectations), which characterize satisfaction with a value model;
- value requirements that the individual puts forward in the process of distributing values.
The real possibility of achieving a particular value position is value potential. Often it remains only an opportunity, since the individual or group does not take active steps to take value-wise more attractive positions.
All values are conventionally subdivided as follows:
- the values of well-being, which include material and spiritual benefits, without which it is impossible to maintain the normal life of individuals - wealth, health, safety, professional skill;
- all others - power as the most universal value, since the possession of it allows you to acquire other values (respect, status, prestige, fame, reputation), moral values (justice, kindness, decency, etc.); love and friendship; also distinguish national values, ideological, etc.
Among social relationships, relationships stand out social dependence, because they are present to one degree or another in all other respects. Social dependence is a social relation in which the social system S 1, (an individual, group or social institution) cannot perform the social actions necessary for her d 1 if the social system S 2 take no action d 2... In this case, the system S 2 is called dominant, and the system S 1 - addicted.
Suppose the mayor of Los Angeles is unable to pay wages utilities until the governor of California, who manages these funds, allocates money to him. In this case, the mayor's office is a dependent system, and the governor's administration is seen as the dominant system. In practice, dual interdependent relationships often arise. Thus, the population of an American city depends on the leader for the distribution of funds, but the mayor also depends on voters, who may not elect him for a new term. The line of behavior of the dependent system must be predictable for the dominant system in the area that concerns the relationship of dependence.
Social dependence is also based on the difference in status in the group, which is typical for organizations. Thus, individuals with a low status are dependent on individuals or groups that have a higher status; subordinates depend on the leader. Addiction arises from differences in the possession of meaningful values regardless of official status. For example, a manager may be financially dependent on a subordinate from whom he borrowed a large amount of money. Latent, i.e. hidden, dependencies play an important role in the life of organizations, teams, groups.
Often in an organization, a leader relies on the opinion of a relative working here in everything; to please him, erroneous decisions are often made in terms of the interests of the organization, for which the entire team then pays. In the old vaudeville "Lev Gurych Sinichkin" the question of who will play the main role in the premiere performance instead of the sick actress can only be decided by the main "patron" of the theater (Count Zefirov). Cardinal Richelieu actually ruled France instead of the king. Sometimes a sociologist, in order to sort out a conflict situation in a team where he was invited as an expert, must start by looking for a “gray cardinal” - an informal leader who actually has real influence in the organization.
Power relations cause the greatest interest among researchers of social addiction. Power as the ability of some to control the actions of others is of decisive importance in the life of a person and society, but until now scientists have not developed a consensus on how power relations are carried out. Some (M. Weber) believe that power is primarily associated with the ability to control the actions of others and overcome their resistance to this control. Others (T. Parsons) proceed from the fact that power must first of all be legalized, then the personal position of the leader makes others obey him, despite personal qualities leader and subordinates. Both points of view have a right to exist. Thus, the emergence of a new political party begins with the emergence of a leader with the ability to unite people, create an organization and begin to lead it.
If the power is legalized (legitimate), people obey it as a force to resist which is useless and unsafe.
In society, there are other, not legalized aspects of the manifestation of power dependence. The interaction of people at the personal level often leads to the emergence of power relations, paradoxical and inexplicable from the point of view of common sense. A person of his own free will, not prompted by anyone, becomes a supporter of exotic sects, sometimes a real slave to his passions, which make him break the law, decide to kill or commit suicide. An irresistible attraction to gambling can deprive a person of his livelihood, but he returns again and again to roulette or cards.
Thus, in a number of spheres of life, constantly repeating interactions gradually acquire a stable, ordered, predictable character. In the process of this ordering, special connections are formed, called social relations. Social relations - these are stable ties that arise between social groups and within them in the process of material (economic) and spiritual (legal, cultural) activities.
The problem of social interactions is most thoroughly considered in symbolic interactionism, the theory of social exchange and phenomenology. The main provisions of the theory of social interactions are as follows.
Social interaction is one of the types of social connection - a mutually directed process of exchange of social actions between two or more individuals.
The connection is always mutual, present and feasible (at least in the imagination).
There is two types of ties: direct (usually visual, interpersonal) and mediated (when communication is carried out through intermediaries; in this case, the phenomenon of deindividualization arises - the illusion that all social relations exist independently of the will and desire of people).
Relationship types:
1) social contact (single or regular) - a connection of a superficial, fleeting nature in the absence of conjugate (interdependent, interdependent) actions of partners in relation to each other (you asked a passerby: "How to get to the pharmacy?"; You regularly go to the bakery and contact the seller);
2) social interaction (interactionism) - systematic, fairly regular social actions of individuals, directed at each other and with the goal of causing a well-defined response from the partner. In this case, the response gives rise to a new reaction of the influencing person (that is, a system of partners' actions in relation to each other arises).
Social interaction traits:
1) the conjugation of the actions of both partners;
2) renewability of actions;
3) sustained interest in the partner's response;
4) coordination of partners' actions.
Types of social interactions:
1) rigid exchange (exchange on the basis of certain agreements (most often in the economic sphere, in the manager-subordinate relationship, in political life));
2) diffuse (non-rigid) exchange (mainly in moral and ethical interactions: friendship, neighborhood, parent-child relationship, partnership);
3) direct-indirect interactions (direct - direct (bilateral) interactions between individuals, indirect - complex, mediated through 3-4 persons (in modern society, indirect interactions prevail));
4) individual-group interactions (individual-individual, individual-group, group-group).
I. Goffman, within the framework of a phenomenological perspective, offers a slightly different view of social interactions. To analyze them, he uses a "dramatic approach" based on the premise that individuals are actors playing social roles. Accordingly, interaction is a "performance", "acting", constructed by the actor with the aim of "making an impression" in accordance with his goals. The actions of the actor, according to I. Goffman, correspond to the concept of "presenting oneself and managing the impression." "Presentation of oneself" includes gestures, intonations, clothing, with the help of which an individual seeks to make a certain impression on a partner, to evoke one or another reaction from him. At the same time, the individual in the process of interaction, as a rule, provides only selected, partial information about himself, seeking to control the impression he makes on others.
P. Blau, relying on the theory of exchange and structural functionalism, argues that not all social interactions can be considered as processes of exchange. The latter include only those that are focused on achieving goals, the implementation of which is possible only in the process of interacting with other people and for the achievement of which means available to other people are needed. That part of human behavior that is governed by the rules of exchange lies at the basis of education social structures but the rules of exchange themselves are insufficient to explain the complex structures of human society.
Nevertheless, it is social exchange that largely determines the interactions of each individual. The success or failure of our interactions ultimately depends on knowledge and ability (or ignorance and inability) to practically use the principles of their regulation, formulated within the framework of the theory of exchange.
A social action involving at least two participants influencing each other is calledsocial interaction. The mechanism of social interaction includes the following components:
a) individuals who perform certain actions;
b) changes in the social community or society as a whole caused by these actions;
c) the impact of these changes on other individuals that make up this community;
d) the reverse reaction of these individuals.
Social interaction is considered by various sociological theories. The problem of social interaction was developed most deeply by D. Homans and T. Parsons. In the study of social interaction, Homans relied on such terms of the exchange of actions as "actor" and "other", and argued that in this kind of interaction, each of its participants seeks to minimize their own costs and receive the maximum reward for their actions. He considered social approval to be one of the most important rewards. When in social interaction the rewards become mutual, the very social interaction takes shape in a relationship based on a system of mutual expectations. A situation that does not meet the expectations of one of the participants in the interaction can lead to aggressiveness, which itself can become a means of obtaining satisfaction. In social interaction, which includes many individuals, a regulatory role is played by social norms and values. An important feature of social interaction between two actors is the desire for a certain ordering of its character - rewarding or punishing.
Parsons noted the fundamental uncertainty of social interaction, in conditions when each participant in the interaction seeks to achieve their own goals. Although it is not possible to completely eliminate uncertainties, they can be reduced by using an action system. Parsons built the principle of social interaction on such concepts as motivational orientation, satisfaction and dissatisfaction of needs, role expectations, attitudes, sanctions, assessments, etc. Using these concepts, he strove to solve the problem of social order.
Social interaction includes social connection and social relations. The starting point for the formation of social connection is social contact, that is, a shallow, superficial social action of a single nature.
A social action that expresses the dependence and compatibility of people and social groups is called social connection. Social connections are established to achieve a specific goal, at a specific time and place. Their establishment is associated with the social conditions in which individuals live and act. Sociology distinguishes between different types of connections:
Interactions;
Relationships;
Control;
Institutional links.
The concept of social connection was introduced into sociology by E. Durkheim. By social connection, he meant any socio-cultural obligations of individuals or groups of individuals in relation to each other. Durkheim believed that social connections exist in a group, an organization, and society as a whole.
The main elements of social connection are:
Subjects (individuals and groups);
Subject (travel in transport, going to the theater);
The mechanism of social communication and its regulation (payment for needs).
The purpose of social connection is to satisfy any need of an individual or group. With the development of society, social ties become more complicated.
Quite often, social connections are considered when characterizing small groups. Social connections allow individuals
identify oneself with a given social group and a sense of the importance of belonging to this group.
Social relationships Is a long-term, systemic, stable form of social interaction with extensive social connections, which requires social motivation.
Social motivation - internal motivation of behavior (activity and activity) of a person or a social group, caused by their needs and determining behavior. The main needs are physiological (hunger) and emotional (love), but a cognitive assessment of the situation is also possible. Motivation happens internal- aimed at meeting a personal need, and external- seeking to receive remuneration that is not personally necessary. Allocate motivations that induce activity, and motivations due to the influence of existing stereotypes on individuals.
D.K. McClelland introduced the concept - achievement motivation, which involves the assessment of individual and cultural differences in the pursuit of achievement. According to his hypothesis, the need for achievement is stimulated by close relationships with relatives who establish high standards behavior.
Exists various forms interactions.
Cooperation - it is a joint activity of individuals, groups and organizations to achieve a set goal. Cooperation is closely related to conflict and competition. It is in some ways paradoxical, since the parties to the conflict cooperate to some extent to maintain the conflict. Therefore, the question of what exactly is the decisive social bond of society - cooperation or competition, remains open.
Under competition refers to an activity in which an individual or group competes with another individual or group to achieve a goal. Competition can be direct or indirect. It may be normatively or socially regulated, but it may not be regulated.
Many branches of social thought (eg social Darwinism, utilitarianism) emphasized the social benefits of competition and perceived competition as a universal and productive element in society. Representatives of Marxism, on the contrary, considered competition to be a specific need of capitalism, in which insignificant manifestations of justice and efficiency on the surface are refuted by the real asymmetry of power, basic contradictions and conflicts.
The existence of different ideas about competition does not make it possible to consider it unambiguously positively or negatively. The most rational approach is M. Weber, who proposed to evaluate competition as a private aspect of social relations, the consequences of which must be individually analyzed in each a separate case... The concept of "competition" overlaps with the concept of "conflict".
