SOC101: Introduction to Sociology

Figure 6.1 The Tea Party Express national tour visited Minnesota and held a rally outside the state capitol building. Tarana Burke, who originated the term "me too" in the context of supporting or acknowledging sexual harassment or assault victims, has spoken frequently on the evolution and issues regarding the MeToo movement.

Throughout the history of the United States, individuals have formed groups in order to achieve goals and bring about change. Some groups are loosely defined, while others have highly organized structures and missions. And in some cases, groups can have significant influence on culture, society, the economy, and government.

In 2009, people protesting government spending held a series of "tea parties," referencing the Boston Tea Party, an anti-taxation event that led up to the Revolutionary War. Tea Party activists also opposed big government, high taxes, and political corruption, supporting gun rights and traditional family values. They called for "awareness of any issue which challenges the security, sovereignty, or domestic tranquility of our beloved nation, the United States of America." The movement grew into a major political force, with chapters popping up in nearly every community across the country.

By 2010, Tea Party candidates had won seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, demonstrating the political power of the group and its message. As grassroots activism faded, the Tea Party gained influence within the Republican Party. Many of its ideas have been assimilated into the mainstream conservative movement and Republican Party platform.

In 2016, highly successful Fox News host Gretchen Carlson filed a lawsuit against Fox chairman Roger Ailes for sexual harassment. The suit led other women to come forward with similar allegations against Ailes and others in the entertainment industry. Soon after, actress Alyssa Milano posted this statement on Twitter: "If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote 'Me too' as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem."

The phrase "Me Too" was first used in this context in 2006 by activist Tarana Burke in an effort to empower women of color. Within a day of Milano's post, the "Me Too" phrase or hashtag was used over 500,000 times on Twitter and was used in over 12 million posts by 4.7 million people on Facebook. Thousands of people, including other celebrities, shared their own stories of sexual harassment, abuse, or assault. (MeTooMvmt.org, 2020) The "MeToo" movement became the lead story on many newscasts and talk shows. Over the months that followed, the movement sparked reforms within companies and governments to combat sexual harassment and better support women. The movement inspired abuse victims to come forward. It led to sanctioning or removing prominent individuals accused of serial harassment or abuse in academia, media, government, and other industries.

The Tea Party evolved into an organization. From a loosely associated set of local chapters, it developed into several closely affiliated nonprofits (filed with the IRS), a political faction within the Republican Party, and a caucus within Congress. What about the MeToo movement? Burke started it in 2006 and was working to enact change long before the hashtag sparked more awareness and new policies. MeToo has brought together people to work in groups but has yet to form a permanent MeToo organization.

As enduring social units, groups help foster shared value systems and are key to the structure of society as we know it. There are three primary sociological perspectives for studying groups: Functionalist, Conflict, and Interactionist. We can look at the Tea Party and the MeToo movements through the lenses of these methods to better understand the roles and challenges that they offer.

The Functionalist perspective is a big-picture, macro-level view that looks at how different aspects of society are intertwined. This perspective is based on the idea that society is a well-balanced system with all parts necessary to the whole, and it studies the roles these parts play in relation to the whole. A Functionalist might look at the macro-level needs that each movement serves. For example, a Structural Functionalist might ask how the Tea Party arose to voice the concerns of a large sector of society that felt politically underrepresented or how MeToo drove people to pay attention to sexual harassment and gender inequality. This approach might look at how each group enabled the voicing of discontent and stabilized society.

The Conflict perspective is another macroanalytical view, one that focuses on the genesis and growth of inequality. A conflict theorist studying the Tea Party Movement might look at how it checked interests that have manipulated the political system over the last 30 years. Or this perspective might explore how MeToo challenged organizations that have allowed sexual harassment to persist in order to protect those in power.

A third perspective is the Symbolic Interaction or Interactionist perspective. This method of analyzing groups takes a micro-level view. Instead of studying the big picture, these researchers look at the day-to-day interactions of groups. Studying these details, the Interactionist looks at issues like leadership style and group dynamics. In the case of the Tea Party Movement, Interactionists might ask, "How does the Tea Party dynamic in New York differ from that in Atlanta?" Or, in the case of the MeToo, researchers may seek to learn about who defines the agenda and approach within the movement.

Types of Groups

Most of us feel comfortable using the word "group" without giving it much thought. Often, we mean different things when using that word. We might say that a group of kids saw the dog, meaning 250 students in a lecture hall or four siblings playing on a front lawn. It can be a generic term in everyday use, although it carries important clinical and scientific meanings. Moreover, the concept of a group is central to much of how we think about society and human interaction. So, how can we hone the meaning more precisely for sociological purposes?

Defining a Group

The term group is an amorphous one and can refer to a wide variety of gatherings, from just two people (think about a "group project" in school when you partner with another student), a club, a regular gathering of friends, or people who work together or share a hobby. In short, the term refers to any collection of at least two people who interact with some frequency and who share a sense that their identity is somehow aligned with the group. Of course, every time people are gathered, it is not necessarily a group. For instance, a rally is usually a one-time event, and belonging to a political party does not imply interaction with others. People who happen to be in the same place at the same time but who do not interact or share a sense of identity – such as a bunch of people standing in line at Starbucks – are considered an aggregate or a crowd.

Another example of a nongroup is people who share similar characteristics but are not tied to one another in any way. These people are considered a category; for example, all children born from approximately 1980–2000 are referred to as "Millennials." Why are Millennials a category and not a group? Because while some of them may share a sense of identity, they do not, as a whole, interact frequently with each other.

Interestingly, people within an aggregate or category can become a group. During disasters, people in a neighborhood (an aggregate) who do not know each other might become friendly and depend on each other at the local shelter. After the disaster, when people go back to simply living near each other, the feeling of cohesiveness may last since they have all shared an experience. They might remain a group, practicing emergency readiness, coordinating supplies for next time, or taking turns caring for neighbors who need extra help.

Similarly, there may be many groups within a single category. Consider teachers, for example. Within this category, groups like teachers' unions, teachers who coach, or staff members involved with the PTA may exist.

Types of Groups

Sociologist Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929) suggested that groups can broadly be divided into two categories: primary groups and secondary groups. According to Cooley, primary groups play the most critical role in our lives. The primary group is usually fairly small and is made up of individuals who generally engage face-to-face in long-term emotional ways. This group serves emotional needs: expressive functions rather than pragmatic ones. The primary group is usually made up of significant others who have the most impact on our socialization. The best example of a primary group is the family.

Secondary groups are often larger and impersonal. They may also be task-focused and time-limited. These groups serve an instrumental function rather than an expressive one, meaning that their role is more goal- or task-oriented than emotional. A classroom or office can be an example of a secondary group.

Strict definitions or set limits bind neither primary nor secondary groups. In fact, people can move from one group to another. A group of coworkers, for example, can start as a secondary group. Still, as the employees work together over the years, they may find common interests and strong ties that transform them into a primary group. As we will discuss in the chapter on Media and Technology, even online networks of people with common interests can sometimes move from secondary to primary group status.

Figure 6.2 Engineering and construction students gather around a job site. How do your academic interests define your in- and out-groups?

In-Groups and Out-Groups

One of the ways that groups can be powerful is through inclusion and its inverse, exclusion. The feeling that we belong in an elite or select group is heady, while the feeling of not being allowed in or of being in competition with a group can be motivating in a different way. Sociologist William Sumner (1840–1910) developed the concepts of in-group and out-group to explain this phenomenon (Sumner 1906). In short, an in-group is the group that an individual feels she belongs to, and she believes it to be an integral part of who she is. An out-group, conversely, is a group someone does not belong to; often, we may feel disdain or competition in relation to an out-group. Sports teams, unions, and sororities are examples of in-groups and out-groups. Primary groups consist of both in-groups and out-groups, as do secondary groups.

While group affiliations can be neutral or positive, the concept of in-groups and out-groups can also explain some negative human behavior, such as white supremacist movements. By defining others as "not like us" and inferior, in-groups can end up practicing ethnocentrism, racism, sexism, ageism, and heterosexism – manners of judging others negatively based on their culture, race, sex, age, or sexuality.

Often, in-groups can form within a secondary group. For instance, a workplace can have cliques of people, from senior executives who play golf together to engineers who write code together to young singles who socialize after hours. While these in-groups might show favoritism and affinity for other in-group members, the overall organization may be unable or unwilling to acknowledge it. Therefore, it pays to be wary of the politics of in-groups since members may exclude others to gain status within the group.

Reference Groups

Figure 6.3 Athletes are often viewed as a reference group for young people.

A reference group is a group that people compare themselves to – it provides a standard of measurement. In U.S. society, peer groups are common reference groups. Kids and adults pay attention to what their peers wear, what music they like, and what they do with their free time – and they compare themselves to what they see. Most people have more than one reference group, so a middle school boy might look at his classmates and his older brother's friends and see a different set of norms. And he might observe the behaviors of his favorite athletes for yet another point of reference.

Other reference group examples include your cultural center, workplace, family gathering, and parents. Often, reference groups convey competing messages. For instance, on television and in movies, young adults often have wonderful apartments, cars, and lively social lives despite not having a job. In music videos, young women might dance and sing in a sexually aggressive way that suggests experience beyond their years. At all ages, we use reference groups to help guide our behavior and establish our social norms. So, how important is it to surround yourself with positive reference groups? You may not recognize a reference group, but it still influences how you act. Identifying your reference groups can help you understand the source of the social identities you aspire to or want to distance yourself from.

Source: Tonja R. Conerly, Kathleen Holmes, Asha Lal Tamang; OpenStax, https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/6-1-types-of-groups
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.