Social system

About: Social system is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2974 publications have been published within this topic receiving 92395 citations.

The Community as a Social Group

Abstract: WHETHER A community may be regarded as a social group depends not on the definitions offered but on the discoverable characteristics of systems that are designated as communities and groups. However, the observation and the identification of these characteristics depend on the conceptual scheme adopted. The viewpoint here taken, hypothetically, is that a group is a social system comprising identifiable elements which also are found in the composition of an analytical community, so that the latter may be regarded as a type of social group amenable to analysis by methods suitable to the study of social groups in general. Although communities have, at least by implication, been called groups,' apparently the literature dealing with this subject has not attempted an inductive comparison of these two types of social structures. For this reason, a brief statement as to the suggested analytic characteristics of social groups is desirable. This will serve to illustrate the method employed, as well as to characterize the community as a logical class of social forms. In briefest terms, we may say that a social group comprises persons acting with reference to given aims, in the prosecution of which an integration of roles and an ordering of social relations come into play. At least four analytical elements are identifiable in this descriptive statement: (I) a personnel (members); (2) a test of admission to membership; (3) distinctive roles or functions of the members; and (4) norms regulating the conduct of the personnel. This restriction of the characterizing elements implies that a group is distinguished from a society with its diverse complexes of folkways and that the groups comprised within such a society share in the various aspects of this culture. However, any culture trait or complex may become a differentiating element of a class of social groups. For the present, our attention is directed toward the generic elements. The sociologist constructs

The Role of Social Groups

Abstract: One of the most powerful theories in political science in recent years has been that of totalitarianism and this model of society has been taken to represent the reality of the USSR and States patterned on her. ‘Totalitarianism’ may be defined as a social system which ‘seeks to politicise all human behaviour and plan all human relationships’, its chief features include the obliteration of the distinction between State and society and the destruction of associations and groups which are interposed between the individual and the State.1 From the mid-1960s, however, thinking among specialists in the West has moved away from this model, which has been recognised as providing ‘a set of blinders to the perception of change’,2 to emphasise more the autonomous nature of various groups and their role in influencing the political authorities. As Ionescu has pointed out: No society, and especially no contemporary society, is so politically under-developed as not to continue, and reproduce within itself, the perennial conflict of power. No contemporary society can run all the complex activities of the state, political, cultural, social and economic, exclusively, by its own ubiquitous and omniscient servants, without collaboration, and bargains with, or checks by, other interest groups.3

Innovation and socialisation in small groups

Abstract: A number of social psychologists (e. g. Steiner, 1974; McGrath, 1978; Zander, 1979) have commented on the decline of interest in group processes since the 1950s. Rather than studying people as integral parts of a social system, social psychologists have tended to focus on the behaviour and cognition of individuals (Pepitone, 1981). It is heartening to note, however, that recently there has been a renewed interest in group processes. Much of the credit for this renewed interest belongs to our European colleagues. They have forced us to re-examine many of our basic assumptions about the relationship between the group and the individual and have offered provocative analyses of several neglected topics. As we begin what promises to be a new era of small group research, it is important to keep in mind the factors that caused investigators to lose interest in group research in the past. Some of these factors are extra-disciplinary in origin, reflecting broad political and social forces of the sort described by Steiner (1974). Others, however, are intra-disciplinary, in the sense that they reflect how social psychologists conceptualise group processes and formulate research questions. One important intra-disciplinary factor has been a tendency to overlook the phenomenon of reciprocal influence in small groups. A good deal of research has focused on how groups influence individuals, but the impact of individuals on groups has been largely neglected.

Inculturation and African Religion: Indigenous and Western Approaches to Medical Practice

Abstract: The devastating conditions prevailing in Africa continue to intrigue observers. This study argues that understanding the conditions requires setting them within a broad contextual framework of development of the peoples' cultural, economic, political, religious, and social systems from pre-colonial times to the present. It breaks new ground by clearly demonstrating the impact of the social and religious teachings and practices of the colonists on patterns of illness and medical responses of Ghanaians. It insists that it is in the spirit of dialogue and equality that the material and spiritual needs of Africans will be met.