Human groups {society, sociology} can have complex social behaviors and organizations.
levels
Societies are groups intermediate between families and states. Society levels are band, tribe, chiefdom, and state.
purposes
Societies try to ensure efficient interactions among members and meet member economic and psychological needs.
purposes: food
Societies produce and gather food.
purposes: security
Societies provide defense and safety. Societies have governments.
culture
Societies have language and culture, which affect all behaviors. Culture includes rituals and religions. Societies teach customs. Societies have religious beliefs, games, leisure time activities, and property laws.
groups
Societies have territoriality, tribalism, cliques, or subgroups. Societies have dominance of some members over others. Societies have social classes.
groups: families
Societies typically have nuclear families, with sexual and parent-child bonding. They have marriage practices, kinship systems, codes, and alliances, with kin selection. Families serve many roles in society, mostly in raising children. Families socialize children, discipline children, transmit culture to children, provide first status level to children, and provide security in outside social relations. Families also increase social controls and increase population, through pride in children and desire to continue family line.
groups: families and norms
Societies affect families by setting norms. Norms for children involve children number, children sex ratio, parent and children roles, and family-behavior rules. There are norms for household organization and location. There are norms for romantic love, motherhood, and sexual behavior. Ritual norms are marriage ceremonies, birth rites, and rites at entering adolescence and puberty.
roles
Societies require individuals to have many roles and compete to shift roles. Societies teach roles.
interactions: conflicts
Societies have conflicts and behaviors that vary with age and sex. Societies balance conflicting motivations or behaviors, such as aggression versus passivity, competition versus cooperation, selfishness versus altruism, and immediate need satisfaction versus delayed satisfaction for future rewards.
interactions: cooperation
Societies have cooperation, sharing, bartering, and reciprocal altruism. They use deception and hypocrisy only at moderate level. Societies have continual interaction and interdependence among members.
changes
Societies have cyclic changes, such as business cycles, seasonal cycles, and political cycles of democracy vs. aristocracy. Societies can evolve to use more energy and information and/or toward more diversity. Primitive societies have no definite patterns of transition to modern societies.
changes: extinction
Societies can become extinct by military defeat, disease, absorption into larger or more powerful and attractive cultures, and major innovations.
traits
Human-society traits include age-grading, athletic sports, body adornment, bonding behaviors, calendar, cleanliness training, community organization, cooking, cooperative behavior, cosmology, courtship, dancing, decorative art, divination, dream interpretation, education, eschatology, ethics, ethnobotany, etiquette, faith healing, family feasting, fire making, folklore, food taboos, funeral rites, games, gestures, gift giving, government, greetings, hairstyles, hospitality, housing, hygiene, incest taboos, inheritance rules, jokes, kin groups, kinship nomenclature, labor division, language, law, luck, magic, marriage, mealtimes, medicine, obstetrics, parent-child bonding, penal sanctions, personal names, population policy, post-natal care, pregnancy customs, property rights, spirit propitiation, puberty customs, religious rituals, residence rules, sexual bonding, sexual restrictions, soul concept, status differences, surgery, superstitions, tool making, trade, visiting, weaving, and weather control.
apes
Ape societies have 10 to 100 animals, long childhoods, parental care, and play.
ideal society
Individuals become more important, protected from harm, educated, and cared for by others. Individuals have more-various life experiences and more tolerance. Successful societies appear to require several subgroups, varied goals and means, many institutions, balance between centralized planning and freedom, and many experiments.
theory
People can study human societies using structural-functional approaches to relate organizations, institutions, and customs. People can study human societies using ecological-evolutionary approaches to find environments, adaptations, and evolution. Evolutionary approaches can explain change and conflict as evolving symbol systems that represent culture. Perhaps, strong or smart leaders control events {great-man theory}. Racial theories attribute societal characteristics to supposed racial attributes. Geographical and climatic theories attribute societal characteristics to territory climate or resources.
People can acquire cultural values, aspirations, attitudes, roles, social skills, disciplines, concern for others, concern for consequences, concern for relations to others, and social organization {socialization}|.
purposes
Socialization continues society. It fits people into society. It provides values. It orders social interactions and roles. It satisfies need for others. It creates concept of self. It pushes people to have self-discipline, independence, and maturity. It helps people feel and understand emotions. It presents people with ideal of self. It teaches habits and customs. It continues ideology. It improves efficiency and economy. It provides satisfaction to individuals. It satisfies desire for competence. It makes infancy better. It enhances value of old age. It favors large social systems.
people
People do not have instincts to control behavior. People have individual drives that conflict with other people's drives. Infants depend on adults, and development and maturation takes a long time. To adapt to society, children need to know what to do and not to do.
groups
Socialization depends on cliques, schools, and work. Schools transmit personal ideals. Work teaches attitudes about time and space and provides job specialization.
People can have rapid social-value changes {resocialization}. Resocialization can use brainwashing processes. Prisoner rehabilitation and religious conversions have resocialization. It requires complete control of individual by group, eliminating individual status or roles, downgrading previous values, encouraging self-criticism, having strong rewards and punishments, being in peer group, having personal interactions with group members, and relating old values to new values.
If socialization is in tribes or villages, people {tradition-directed person} have traditions and mores, control others by sharing, do not engage in politics, and have subsistence economy.
People have group relations and behaviors {social organization}.
factors
Major social-organization determinants are birth rate, death rate, equilibrium population size, gene-flow rates, and kinship relations.
levels
Social-organization levels are interpersonal, including roles and social interactions; group, including group characteristics, interpersonal-relation initiation and preservation, and group relations; and social order, including community attitudes, behaviors, and conflicts.
social functions
Social functions are communication, production, distribution, military defense, medicine, member replacement, and social control. Communication uses common language. Communication, production, distribution, and defense require special technologies. Social organization and control depend on labor division and social stratification. These depend on individual statuses and roles and society's culture or ideology. Social control involves rules, values, beliefs, rewards, and punishments.
Plans for reaching complex common purposes {rational coordination}| are basis for social organization. Rational coordination typically has many workers that do repetitive jobs. Factories produce goods with organized workers along assembly lines. Factories make many similar things by mass production. Organizations have general rules, job specialization, and impersonal relations between people.
Governments depend on rational coordination {bureaucracy}|. Bureaucracies typically require professional managers. They have few interactions between bureaucratic levels. They have low personal satisfaction and low personal initiative.
Societies have classes {strata}|.
types
Social classes can depend on others' opinions {reputational strata}, on people's feelings {subjective strata}, or on occupation, power, income, or education {objective strata}.
occupation
Occupation is typically the best social-class indicator, because occupational status holds throughout society, across all other social-class types. The six main social classes by occupation are upper-upper high-wealth aristocrats; lower-upper high-salary professionals and managers; upper-middle civic leaders, business leaders, and professionals; lower-middle small businesspersons and white-collar workers; upper-lower semiskilled laborers and service workers; and lower-lower unskilled laborers and unemployed people.
Upper, middle, and lower social levels {social stratification}| {social class} {social category} {stratum} exist. Social classes differ in status level, accepted learning environment, income, wealth, and moral principles. Old-and-new-member, expert-and-novice, occupation, wealth, possession, and intelligence differences cause social classes. Groups have attributes based on wealth, education, and income.
attitude
Lower classes typically judge others based on money. Middle classes typically judge others based on money and morality. Upper classes typically judge others based on ancestry and life style. Individuals learn behaviors of others in same class.
Social position and rank {status} {social status} can be bases for social organizations {status system}. Social status can depend on ancestry, race, sex, and skin color {ascribed status} or income, job, residence, education, religion, and politics {achieved status}. Caste systems have rigid hereditary classes. Aristocracies have defined social classes. Hereditary kingdoms depend on status and titles.
People want to move to higher social class {upward mobility} {mobility, society}, which is most often done by marriage. People typically move up in social class over generations {generational mobility}. People of same social status can move between situses {horizontal mobility}. People of same situs can move between strata {vertical mobility}. People can move between jobs {career mobility}. Education increases social mobility.
Hunters and gatherers {hunter-gatherer}| were nomadic, with some horticulture. Hunter-gatherer was the only society type before -10000.
hunting
Wood spears began [-33000]. Later, people used spear throwers. Later, they used bows and arrows. In hunter society, sharing kills with community members was common. Sharing reduced future risks to individuals.
life
Birth and death rates were high. Average life span was 20, but people lived to 35 to 40 years old if they lived past first year. Abortion and infanticide were common. Ill and old died when community moved.
tribes
Common language, culture, and name caused hunter-society informal associations. Tribes resulted from social fission.
villages
Hunters and gatherers had 40 people in villages.
classes
Hunting societies did not have a strong class system. Rulers had little power. Hunter societies had one headman, who was the best hunter, one shaman, and artisans. These positions were part time. Office of headman was hereditary in more than half of groups. Shamans healed, blessed hunts, protected against evil spirits, and punished enemies. War was rare.
law
Laws were few, with little private property. In hunter society, if people suffered injury, they and/or relatives took blood revenge. Punishment by community included loss of respect, ostracism, and banishment for serious offense. If people violated rituals, communities relied on supernatural to punish offender.
slaves
Hunters rarely had slaves.
kinship
Economic organization depended on nuclear and extended families, unless hunting and gathering were communal. Kinship patterns were important. Extended families helped people in hard times. Headman had two or three wives. People could divorce. Kinship was through males: brothers or father and his married sons. Exogamy with neighboring tribes opened more territory for migration and so increased food.
gender
Hunting, making weapons, making tools, politics, religion, and art were male activities. Collecting and preparing vegetables and caring for children were female activities. Hunter societies had respect for old people, people with supernatural powers, people with skill in war, people with skill in hunting, kindness, generosity, good temper, and speaking ability. Only males received respect.
games
Hunters probably had few games.
religion
Hunters did not have one God but did have a main god. Religions were myths about world and man creation. Religion, magic, aesthetic reasons, and entertainment inspired art.
Tribes and farms {familistic society} depend on kinship.
Tribes {tribe, society}| have different evolution rates, customs, and change rates. Folk customs depend on ancient traditions.
Communities can have rigid hereditary classes {caste system} with different statuses. Classes {caste}| have roles. Social interactions are typically traditional and regular. Stable environments can form caste societies. If environments change, specialized caste societies continue.
Societies {maritime society}, typically on islands, emphasized trade and commerce. Maritime societies fished and had many boats. Maritime societies began -2000. Maritime societies were usually small republics. Merchants were more work oriented than other ruling groups, and they started more innovations.
Societies {fishing society} fished, were nomadic, and had simple horticulture. Fishing societies began 12000 years ago. They had no metal, no metal-working, small wood boats, few houses, no weaving, no pottery, and no leather.
villages
Fishers had 60 people in villages.
classes
Fishing societies did not have a strong class system. Rulers had little power, and wars were few.
slaves
Fishing societies often had slaves.
law
Private property was minimal. Laws were few.
gender
Fishing, making weapons, making tools, politics, religion, and art were male activities. Collecting and preparing vegetables and caring for children were female activities.
games
Fishers probably had few games.
religion
Fishers did not have one God but had a main god.
Societies {herding society} tended sheep, ox, or goats. Advanced herding societies had horses or camels. Herding societies began 10,000 years ago. Advanced herding societies appeared 3500 years ago. Herding societies worked metal, worked leather, wove, had no pottery, had no boats, had no houses, and changed into conquerors.
villages
Herders had 60 people in communities and up to 2000 in villages.
classes
Herding societies did not have a strong class system. Rulers had some power. War was intermittent.
law
Private property and laws existed.
slaves
Herders often had slaves.
gender
Herding, making weapons, making tools, politics, religion, and art were male activities. Collecting and preparing vegetables and caring for children were female activities.
games
Herders had games of physical skill.
religion
Herding societies usually believed in one active God.
Societies {horticultural society} cultivated plants. Simple ones used no plow and no iron and had no metallurgy. Horticultural societies began 9000 years ago. In simple horticultural societies, root crops grew around village. Villages did not link families or businesses, but they had trade and crafts.
Metal use began 6000 years ago. Horticultural societies usually did leather work and pottery, used seals, knew glazing, knew fermentation, and started orchards. Starting in late Neolithic times, horticultural societies had cattle, pigs, and ornaments.
villages
Villages had 100 to 300 people in communities and up to 6000 in villages. At first, villages had no defenses or walls, because wars were few.
classes
Positions were headman, chief, or shaman. Status depended on position, military skill, age, speaking ability, kin, and wealth. Strong class system was in advanced horticultural societies. Rulers had some power. War was intermittent. Advanced horticultural societies developed feudalism with two classes. One had warriors, priests, and nobles.
Warriors ruled society. Central authority developed, with administration and judges. Leaders favored their extended family and retained men with no family to serve them. King's brothers often revolted.
Priests controlled planting and harvest times. Only priests were literate and kept records.
Nobility was typically hereditary. The largest families became more powerful, as they accumulated wealth by taking most agricultural surplus, grew in number of men and retainers, had more children through polygyny, allied with or conquered lesser families, and learned ways to avoid revolts, feuds, and revenge.
law
Laws and private property existed.
war
Land became scarcer as groups grew and impinged on each other. War increased and led to war trophies, war poets, war singers, warrior cults, and ceremonial cannibalism. Confederations for defense began.
slaves
Simple horticulturists rarely had slaves. Advanced horticulturists often had slaves.
kinship
Kinship patterns were often through mother's relatives, because women cultivated. Kinship protected people from enemies, provided power for revenge, and organized economy.
gender
Men took several wives. Men had little to do, because women performed cultivation. Making weapons, making tools, politics, religion, and art were male activities. Collecting and preparing vegetables and caring for children were female activities.
games
Horticulturists had games of physical skill.
religion
Simple horticulturists did not have one God but had a main god. Advanced horticulturists usually believed in one god, who was not active in human life.
Societies {agrarian society} {agricultural society} cultivated plants, had metallurgy, and used plows. Agrarian societies had houses, pottery, leather, and weaving. Simple agricultural societies began 5000 years ago. Advanced agrarian societies appeared 3000 years ago.
grains
Agrarian societies grew cereal grains and typically had agricultural surpluses. Food increase allowed more people to live and allowed some people not to have to farm.
exchange
Agrarian societies first developed means of exchange. Wheat in Egypt and barley in Mesopotamia were the first means of exchange, because grains are preservable. Later, exchange used metal bars and coins. Means of exchange led to merchant class.
writing
Writing developed to keep economic records. Cuneiform writing used 600 to 1000 characters. Only nobles and rich learned how to write.
cities
Cities formed. Communities and villages had 3000 to 10000 people. Some cities had over 100,000 people by 2500 years ago.
classes
Advanced agrarian societies developed classes, from dichotomies between peasants and rulers, people in cities and villages, and literate and illiterate people. Urban people, literate people, and rulers merged into a superior class, with respect for war, skill, and information but contempt for physical labor. Rulers had strong power.
army
Advanced agrarian societies developed professional armies, with up to 5000 men, starting 4500 years ago. Military caste began. Armies sometimes used mercenaries. Kings controlled armies, who also acted as police. War was common.
bureaucracy
In advanced agrarian societies, king's household and retained officials and scribes formed a bureaucracy. Formal legal systems developed. There were many laws. Private property was a major concept.
slaves
Agrarian societies often had slaves.
games
Agrarian societies had games of chance, and later, games of strategy.
gender
Getting money, making weapons, making tools, politics, religion, and art were male activities. Collecting and preparing vegetables and caring for children were female activities. In agrarian societies, men cultivated because they had the physical strength needed to plow. After harvest, men waged war.
kinship
In agrarian societies, kinship was through males.
religion
Religion was central to agrarian societies. Agrarian peoples believed in active gods. Gods created people to serve them, so they could have leisure to perform their activities. Humans were to supply gods with food, drink, and shelter. Priests mediated with gods, whom people can anger and who can cause ruin. In Egypt, pharaoh was god, but, in Mesopotamia, king was under god. Thus, religion motivated people to have and set aside surpluses, and governments imposed taxes to take part. Religion helped rulers get more surplus goods, to build things and to make war. Magic was part of religion.
Personal commitments {fealty}| between leader and follower, such as barons and vassals, can be bases for social organization. Medieval feudalism and fiefdoms depended on fealty.
Hereditary king and ruling class, 2% of people, controlled half or more total wealth and income {medieval society}|.
economy
Economies depended on ruler desires, in a command economy. Power and government helped gain wealth. People bought and sold government and religious offices. Kings were private owners of whole state {proprietary theory of state}.
politics
Rules of succession to kingship were clear, but frequent internal struggles happened.
church
Catholic Church owned 30% of European land. Clergy was a separate class, usually literate and well off.
cities
Cities were mostly political, religious, or commercial centers, not industrial centers. 1% to 10% of people lived in cities. In cities, trade and industry were 5% of ruler incomes.
Merchants mixed with ruling class and supplied them luxury goods. Merchants became wealthy. Families owned businesses. Artisans, 3% to 5% of people, had shops of 4 to 10 people that lived and worked there. Guilds began, but merchants, not artisans, controlled them.
Cities contained many servants. Thieves, beggars, prostitutes, injured, and unemployed were also in cities.
life
Sanitation was poor. Life expectancy was 20 to 25 years. Prevalent attitudes among people were fatalism and belief in magic.
primogeniture
Family wealth passed to first-born son at father's death. Primogeniture was necessary to keep family wealth and land large and powerful.
peasants
Peasants and people in cities were often too poor to marry. More than half of peasant production went to rulers, mainly through taxes, but also from rents, interest, tithes, and profits. Peasants typically had house, cooking utensils, no beds, stools, table, and chest. Peasants ate bread, cheese, and soup. Peasants had high birth rate, causing surplus labor. Plague, crop failure, war, and famine happened often and reduced number of peasants. Peasants received cruel treatment from rulers. Ruling family owned land and ruled peasants.
change: exploration
Exploration brought gold to Europe and caused inflation. Inflation favored merchant class and reduced hereditary-holding value. Inflation also caused agricultural revolution, as technology and money changed farming. In England, enclosure acts between 1750 and 1800 encouraged large farms.
change: Protestant Reformation
Protestant Reformation emphasized individualism, work, frugalness, honesty, and rationalism, as opposed to magic or traditionalism. It legitimized profit. City, merchant, artisan, and economy growth influenced Reformation.
Kingdoms {hereditary kingdom} inherit through family line and depend on status.
Industrializing societies {industrializing society} began when agriculture still dominated industry but used new energy sources besides wood, horses, people, water, and wind.
Industrial societies {industrial society} began before 1800.
life
In industrialized countries, productivity rose faster than birth rate. Birth rate typically declined compared to agrarian societies. Death rate decreased faster than birth rate decreased.
Children had different treatment. Education was good. Attitudes were more egalitarian.
cities
By 1800, 50 cities had populations over 100,000. Industrialized countries established communication systems. Cooperatives, labor unions, and professional associations formed. Managers, administrators, and specialists began. Local subcultures were typically submerged. Social-change rate increased. Industrialized countries often retained agrarian values.
cities: corporations
Industrialized countries had corporations. Corporations developed from joint stock companies in England [1550]. In England, corporations got limited liability [1800].
politics
Industrialized countries had large political parties, based on pragmatic goals, ideology, ethnic group, religion, or nationalistic aspirations. Industrialized countries had political conflicts, especially between classes. Political stability is greater if industry level is higher, government controls military, many associations exist, people have vested interests, and middle class is large. Governments tended to be large.
Democracy was the ideal. Some groups favored innovation, and some groups favored tradition.
war
War depended on new technology.
kinship
Kinship was not important.
religion
Religion became less important.
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Date Modified: 2022.0225