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Table of Content

General Sociology....................................................................................................................6
1. Individual: Sociability or the sociality of man......... ...............................................................11
2. Culture:............... ................................................................... .............................................19
Meaning and Characteristics (Culture is variable, learnt, social, shared,
Transmissive, dynamic and adaptive), types (Material, Non –material), functions
(transfer of knowledge, define situation, provide Behaviour pattern, moulds
personality) and elements of culture (norms, values, beliefs, sanctions,
customs).... ................................................................... ..........................................................23
Culture and Socialization; formal and non-formal socialization
transmission of culture, cultural relativism. Sub-cultures. Ethnocentrism and
xenocentrism, Cultural lag, High culture and popular culture. Multiculturalism,
assimilation, and acculturation........... ......................................................................................40
3. Society: Meaning and characteristics. Community; meaning and characteristics............82
Individual and society. Relationship between individual and society.
Two main theories regarding the relationship of man and society (i) the social contact theory
and (ii) the organismic theory. ............. ....................................................................................93
Social and cultural evolution of society (Hunting and
Gathering Society, Herding and Advance Herding Society, Horticultural Society,
Agrarian Society, Industrial Society, Post modern Society)....... ..............................................98
4. Social Interaction: Caste and classes, Forms of social classes, Feudal system in
Pakistan, Social Mobility-nature of social mobility and its determinants in Pakistani
society, Culture of poverty................ ......................................................................................102
5. Social Control: Mechanisms of social control-formal and informal means of social
control, Anomie, Alienation and social Integration-Means of social integration in
Pakistani Society........................... ........................................................................................108
6. Social and Cultural Change and Social Policy: Processes of Social and Cultural
Change-discovery, inhibitions to social and cultural change in Pakistan Social

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planning and directed social and cultural change, effect of Industrialization,
Urbanization, Modernization and Modern Means of Communication on Social
Change................................ .................................................................................................168
7. Public Opinion: Formation of Public, Opinion, Concept of opinion leader,
characteristics of opinion leadership....... ..............................................................................194
8. Community: The rural community, Traditional Characteristics of rural life, The
urban community, Rural – Urban convergence, Urbanism, Future of cities in
Pakistan....................................
9. Social Institutions: The nature and genesis of institutions, the process of
institutionalization, Functions of Social Institutions: Family, Religion, Education,
Economy and Politics................ ...........................................................................................221
10.Social Problems in Pakistan: High population growth rate, Rural –urban
migration. Issues of technical/vocational training, Deviance and street crime,
Unemployment, illiteracy and School drop out, Smuggling, Prostitution, Poverty,
Drug Addiction, Child Labour and Abuse Bonded Labour, Social Customs and
Traditions effecting Women in Pakistan, Violence Against Women’s and Domestics
Violence, Issues concerning the Elderly’s in Pakistan.......... ...............................................230
II. Sociological Theory:
Three sociological perspectives: Structural Functionalism, Symbolic interactions and
Conflict. Theorists: Ibn-i-Khaldun Spencer, August Comte, Emile Dukheim, Max Weber,
Kari Marx, Parson................................ ................................................................................290
III. Methods of Sociological Research:
Scientific Method, Steps in research, Types of Questionnaire Research Design,
Surveys, Observation and Case Studies.......... ..................................................................334

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INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY

Concerts, sports games, and political rallies can have very large crowds. When you attend one of
these events, you may know only the people you came with. Yet you may experience a feeling of
connection to the group. You are one of the crowd. You cheer and applaud when everyone else
does. You boo and yell alongside them. You move out of the way when someone needs to get
by, and you say “excuse me” when you need to leave. You know how to behave in this kind of
crowd.
It can be a very different experience if you are travelling in a foreign country and find yourself in
a crowd moving down the street. You may have trouble figuring out what is happening. Is the
crowd just the usual morning rush, or is it a political protest of some kind? Perhaps there was
some sort of accident or disaster. Is it safe in this crowd, or should you try to extract yourself?
How can you find out what is going on? Although you are in it, you may not feel like you are part
of this crowd. You may not know what to do or how to behave.
Even within one type of crowd, different groups exist and different behaviours are on display. At
a rock concert, for example, some may enjoy singing along, others may prefer to sit and observe,
while still others may join in a mosh pit or try crowd surfing. On February 28, 2010, Sydney Crosby
scored the winning goal against the United States team in the gold medal hockey game at the
Vancouver Winter Olympics. Two hundred thousand jubilant people filled the streets of downtown
Vancouver to celebrate and cap off two weeks of uncharacteristically vibrant, joyful street life in
Vancouver. Just over a year later, on June 15, 2011, the Vancouver Canucks lost the seventh
hockey game of the Stanley Cup finals against the Boston Bruins. One hundred thousand people
had been watching the game on outdoor screens. Eventually 155,000 people filled the downtown
streets. Rioting and looting led to hundreds of injuries, burnt cars, trashed storefronts and property
damage totaling an estimated $4.2 million. Why was the crowd response to the two events so
different?
1. WHAT IS SOCIOLOGY?
A dictionary defines sociology as the systematic study of society and social interaction. The word
“sociology” is derived from the Latin word socius (companion) and the Greek word logos (speech
or reason), which together mean “reasoned speech about companionship”. How can the
experience of companionship or togetherness be put into words or explained? While this is a
starting point for the discipline, sociology is actually much more complex. It uses many different
methods to study a wide range of subject matter and to apply these studies to the real world.
The sociologist Dorothy Smith (1926 – ) defines the social as the “ongoing concerting and
coordinating of individuals’ activities” (Smith 1999). Sociology is the systematic study of all those
aspects of life designated by the adjective “social.” These aspects of social life never simply occur;
they are organized processes. They can be the briefest of everyday interactions—moving to the
right to let someone pass on a busy sidewalk, for example—or the largest and most enduring
interactions—such as the billions of daily exchanges that constitute the circuits of global
capitalism. If there are at least two people involved, even in the seclusion of one’s mind, then
there is a social interaction that entails the “ongoing concerting and coordinating of activities.”
Why does the person move to the right on the sidewalk? What collective process lead to the

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decision that moving to the right rather than the left is normal? Think about the T-shirts in your
drawer at home. What are the sequences of linkages and social relationships that link the T-shirts
in your chest of drawers to the dangerous and hyper-exploitive garment factories in rural China
or Bangladesh? These are the type of questions that point to the unique domain and puzzles of
the social that sociology seeks to explore and understand.
What Are Society and Culture?
Sociologists study all aspects and levels of society. A society is a group of people whose members
interact, reside in a definable area, and share a culture. A culture includes the group’s shared
practices, values, beliefs, norms and artifacts. One sociologist might analyze video of people from
different societies as they carry on everyday conversations to study the rules of polite
conversation from different world cultures. Another sociologist might interview a representative
sample of people to see how email and instant messaging have changed the way organizations
are run. Yet another sociologist might study how migration determined the way in which language
spread and changed over time. A fourth sociologist might study the history of international
agencies like the United Nations or the International Monetary Fund to examine how the globe
became divided into a First World and a Third World after the end of the colonial era.
These examples illustrate the ways society and culture can be studied at different levels of
analysis, from the detailed study of face-to-face interactions to the examination of large-scale
historical processes affecting entire civilizations. It is common to divide these levels of analysis
into different gradations based on the scale of interaction involved. As discussed in later chapters,
sociologists break the study of society down into four separate levels of analysis: micro, meso,
macro, and global. The basic distinction, however, is between micro-sociology and macro-
sociology.
The study of cultural rules of politeness in conversation is an example of micro-sociology. At the
micro-level of analysis, the focus is on the social dynamics of intimate, face-to-face interactions.
Research is conducted with a specific set of individuals such as conversational partners, family
members, work associates, or friendship groups. In the conversation study example, sociologists
might try to determine how people from different cultures interpret each other’s behaviour to see
how different rules of politeness lead to misunderstandings. If the same misunderstandings occur
consistently in a number of different interactions, the sociologists may be able to propose some
generalizations about rules of politeness that would be helpful in reducing tensions in mixed-group
dynamics (e.g., during staff meetings or international negotiations). Other examples of micro-level
research include seeing how informal networks become a key source of support and
advancement in formal bureaucracies or how loyalty to criminal gangs is established.
Macro-sociology focuses on the properties of large-scale, society-wide social interactions: the
dynamics of institutions, classes, or whole societies. The example above of the influence of
migration on changing patterns of language usage is a macro-level phenomenon because it refers
to structures or processes of social interaction that occur outside or beyond the intimate circle of
individual social acquaintances. These include the economic and other circumstances that lead
to migration; the educational, media, and other communication structures that help or hinder the
spread of speech patterns; the class, racial, or ethnic divisions that create different slangs or
cultures of language use; the relative isolation or integration of different communities within a
population; and so on. Other examples of macro-level research include examining why women
are far less likely than men to reach positions of power in society or why fundamentalist Christian

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religious movements play a more prominent role in American politics than they do in Canadian
politics. In each case, the site of the analysis shifts away from the nuances and detail of micro-
level interpersonal life to the broader, macro-level systematic patterns that structure social change
and social cohesion in society.
The relationship between the micro and the macro remains one of the key problems confronting
sociology. The German sociologist Georg Simmel pointed out that macro-level processes are in
fact nothing more than the sum of all the unique interactions between specific individuals at any
one time (1908), yet they have properties of their own which would be missed if sociologists only
focused on the interactions of specific individuals. Émile Durkheim’s classic study of suicide
(1897) is a case in point. While suicide is one of the most personal, individual, and intimate acts
imaginable, Durkheim demonstrated that rates of suicide differed between religious
communities—Protestants, Catholics, and Jews—in a way that could not be explained by the
individual factors involved in each specific case. The different rates of suicide had to be explained
by macro-level variables associated with the different religious beliefs and practices of the faith
communities. We will return to this example in more detail later. On the other hand, macro-level
phenomena like class structures, institutional organizations, legal systems, gender stereotypes,
and urban ways of life provide the shared context for everyday life but do not explain its nuances
and micro-variations very well. Macro-level structures constrain the daily interactions of the
intimate circles in which we move, but they are also filtered through localized perceptions and
“lived” in a myriad of inventive and unpredictable ways.
The Sociological Imagination
Although the scale of sociological studies and the methods of carrying them out are different, the
sociologists involved in them all have something in common. Each of them looks at society using
what pioneer sociologist C. Wright Mills called the sociological imagination, sometimes also
referred to as the “sociological lens” or “sociological perspective.” In a sense, this was Mills’ way
of addressing the dilemmas of the macro/micro divide in sociology. Mills defined sociological
imagination as how individuals understand their own and others’ pasts in relation to history and
social structure (1959). It is the capacity to see an individual’s private troubles in the context of
the broader social processes that structure them. This enables the sociologist to examine what
Mills called “personal troubles of milieu” as “public issues of social structure,” and vice versa.
Mills reasoned that private troubles like being overweight, being unemployed, having marital
difficulties, or feeling purposeless or depressed can be purely personal in nature. It is possible for
them to be addressed and understood in terms of personal, psychological, or moral attributes,
either one’s own or those of the people in one’s immediate milieu. In an individualistic society like
our own, this is in fact the most likely way that people will regard the issues they confront: “I have
an addictive personality;” “I can’t get a break in the job market;” “My husband is unsupportive;”
etc. However, if private troubles are widely shared with others, they indicate that there is a
common social problem that has its source in the way social life is structured. At this level, the
issues are not adequately understood as simply private troubles. They are best addressed as
public issues that require a collective response to resolve.
Obesity, for example, has been increasingly recognized as a growing problem for both children
and adults in North America. Michael Pollan cites statistics that three out of five Americans are
overweight and one out of five is obese (2006). In Canada in 2012, just under one in five adults
(18.4 percent) were obese, up from 16 percent of men and 14.5 percent of women in 2003

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(Statistics Canada 2013). Obesity is therefore not simply a private trouble concerning the medical
issues, dietary practices, or exercise habits of specific individuals. It is a widely shared social
issue that puts people at risk for chronic diseases like hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular
disease. It also creates significant social costs for the medical system.
Pollan argues that obesity is in part a product of the increasingly sedentary and stressful lifestyle
of modern, capitalist society, but more importantly it is a product of the industrialization of the food
chain, which since the 1970s has produced increasingly cheap and abundant food with
significantly more calories due to processing. Additives like corn syrup, which are much cheaper
to produce than natural sugars, led to the trend of super-sized fast foods and soft drinks in the
1980s. As Pollan argues, trying to find a processed food in the supermarket without a cheap,
calorie-rich, corn-based additive is a challenge. The sociological imagination in this example is
the capacity to see the private troubles and attitudes associated with being overweight as an issue
of how the industrialization of the food chain has altered the human/environment relationship, in
particular with respect to the types of food we eat and the way we eat them.
By looking at individuals and societies and how they interact through this lens, sociologists are
able to examine what influences behaviour, attitudes, and culture. By applying systematic and
scientific methods to this process, they try to do so without letting their own biases and pre-
conceived ideas influence their conclusions.
Studying Patterns: How Sociologists View Society
All sociologists are interested in the experiences of individuals and how those experiences are
shaped by interactions with social groups and society as a whole. To a sociologist, the personal
decisions an individual makes do not exist in a vacuum. Cultural patterns and social forces put
pressure on people to select one choice over another. Sociologists try to identify these general
patterns by examining the behaviour of large groups of people living in the same society and
experiencing the same societal pressures.
Understanding the relationship between the individual and society is one of the most difficult
sociological problems, however. Partly this is because of the reified way these two terms are used
in everyday speech. Reification refers to the way in which abstract concepts, complex processes,
or mutable social relationships come to be thought of as “things.” A prime example of this is when
people say that “society” caused an individual to do something or to turn out in a particular way.
In writing essays, first-year sociology students sometimes refer to “society” as a cause of social
behaviour or as an entity with independent agency. On the other hand, the “individual” is a being
that seems solid, tangible, and independent of anything going on outside of the skin sack that
contains its essence. This conventional distinction between society and the individual is a product
of reification in so far as both society and the individual appear as independent objects. A concept
of “the individual” and a concept of “society” have been given the status of real, substantial,
independent objects. As we will see in the chapters to come, society and the individual are neither
objects, nor are they independent of one another. An “individual” is inconceivable without the
relationships to others that define his or her internal subjective life and his or her external socially
defined roles.

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The problem for sociologists is that these concepts of the individual and society and the
relationship between them are thought of in terms established by a very common moral framework
in modern democratic societies, namely that of individual responsibility and individual choice.
Often in this framework, any suggestion that an individual’s behaviour needs to be understood in
terms of that person’s social context is dismissed as “letting the individual off” of taking personal
responsibility for their actions.
Talking about society is akin to being morally soft or lenient. Sociology, as a social science,
remains neutral on these type of moral questions. The conceptualization of the individual and
society is much more complex. The sociological problem is to be able to see the individual as a
thoroughly social being and yet as a being who has agency and free choice. Individuals are beings
who do take on individual responsibilities in their everyday social roles and risk social
consequences when they fail to live up to them. The manner in which they take on responsibilities
and sometimes the compulsion to do so are socially defined however. The sociological problem
is to be able to see society as a dimension of experience characterized by regular and predictable
patterns of behaviour that exist independently of any specific individual’s desires or self-
understanding. Yet at the same time a society is nothing but the ongoing social relationships and
activities of specific individuals.

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Individual: Sociability or the sociality of man.
Introduction
1. Man is a social animal:
He has a natural urge to live an associated life with others. Man needs society for his existence
or survival. The human child depends on his parents and others for its survival and growth.
The inherent capacities of the child can develop only in society. The ultimate goal of society
is to promote good and happy life for its individuals. It creates conditions and opportunities for
the all round development of individual personality. Society ensures harmony and cooperation
among individuals in spite of their occasional conflicts and tensions. If society helps the
individuals in numerous ways, great men also contribute to society by their wisdom and
experience. Thus, society and individuals are bound by an intimate and harmonious bond and
the conflicts between the two are apparent and momentary. In a well-ordered society, there
would be lasting harmony between the two.
2. Society:
The term “society” means relationships social beings, men, express their nature by creating
and re-creating an organization which guides and controls their behavior in myriad ways.
Society liberates and limits the activities of men and it is a necessary condition of every human
being and need to fulfillment of life. Society is a system of usages and procedures of authority
and mutual aid many divisions of controls of human behavior and of liberties. This changing
system, we call society and it is always changing . Society exists only where social beings
“behave” toward one another in ways determined by their recognition of one another.
3. Society not confined to man:
It should be clear that society is not limited to human beings. There are many degrees of
animal societies, likely the ants, the bee, the hornet, are known to most school children. It has
been contended that wherever there is life there is society, because life means heredity and,
so far as we know, can arise only out of and in the presence of other life. All higher animals
at least have a very definite society, arising out of the requirements their nature and the
conditions involved in the perpetuation of their species. In society each member seeks
something and gives something. A society can also consist of likeminded people governed by
their own norms and values within a dominant, large society moreover; a society may be
illustrated as an economic, social or industrial infrastructure, made up of a varied collection of
individuals. Finally, we can say that the word “society” may also refer to an organized voluntary
association of people for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic or other
purposes. Society is universal and pervasive and has no defined boundary or assignable
limits. A society is a collection of individuals united by certain relations or modes of behavior
which mark them off from others who do not enter into those relations or who differ from them
in behavior. In this way we can conclude that, society is the whole complex of social behavior
and the network of social relationship.

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4. Nature of Society:
Society is an abstract term that connotes the complex of inter-relations that exist between and
among the members of the group. Society exists wherever there are good or bad, proper or
improper relationships between human beings. These social relationships are not evident,
they do not have any concrete from, and hence society is abstract. Society is not a group of
people; it means in essence a state or condition, a relationship and is therefore necessarily
an abstraction. Society is organization of relationship. It is the total complex of human
relationships. It includes whole range of human relations. Social relationships invariably
possess a physical element, which takes the form of awareness of another’s presence,
common objective or common interest. Now we can say that society is the union itself, the
organization, the sum of formal relations in which associating individuals are bound together.
Societies consist in mutual interaction and inter relation of individuals and of the structure
formed by their relations.
5. Social Life
As a human being man cannot live without association. So man’s life is to an enormous extent
a group life. Because individuals cannot be understood apart from their relations with one
another; the relations cannot be understood apart from the units (or terms) of the relationship.
A man of society may be aided by the understanding of say, neurons and synapses, but his
quest remains the analysis of social relationships . The role of social life is clarified when we
consider the process by which they develop in the life of the individual. Kant thought that it
was just antagonism which served to awaken man’s power to overcome his inertia and in the
search for power to win for himself a place among his fellow-men, “with whom he cannot live
at all.” Without this resistance, the spiteful competition of vanity, the insatiable desire of gain
and power, the natural capacities of humanity would have slumbered undeveloped .Social life
is the combination of various components such as activities, people and places. While all of
these components are required to define a social life, the nature of each component is different
for every person and can change for each person, as affected by a variety of external
influences. In fact, the complex social life of our day his actions indeed, even his thoughts and
feelings are influenced in large measure by a social life which surrounds him like an
atmosphere . It is true that, human achievement is marked by his ability to do, so to a more
remarkable degree than any other animal. Everywhere there is a social life setting limitations
and pre- dominatingly influencing individual action. In government, in religion, in industry, in
education, in family association―in everything that builds up modern life, so men are
cooperating. Because they work together, combine and organize for specific purposes, so that
no man lives to himself. This unity of effort is to make society .
There are different kinds of social life and these are depends on various factors. There are
also more immediate things that can affect one’s social life on a day-to-day basis. Availability
of friends and/or dates, current cash flow, personal schedule, recent positive restaurant
reviews and perhaps a post on Perez Hilton of where the celebs are hanging out can all
determine with whom you interact, the nature of activities, how often you socialize and where
such social activities take place . These types of factors of social life are normal and for
normal people.

Nevertheless, social life depends on different things such as

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a) The political life;
b) The economic life;
c) Voluntary associations;
d) Educational associations;
e) Methods of communication and;
f) The family .
However, I have come to realize that my social life, or at least the very little going out that
counts as “social” is completely determined by things that should have nothing to do with
determining one’s social life.
5. Man Is a Social Animal
Though accurate information about the exact origin of society is not known still it is an
accepted fact that man has been living in society since time immemorial. Long ago, Aristotle
expressed that “Man is essentially a social animal by nature”. He cannot live without society,
if he does so; he is either beast or God. Man has to live in society for his existence and welfare.
In almost all aspect of his life he feels the need of society. Biologically and psychologically he
compelled to live in society.
Man can never develop his personality, language, culture and “inner deep” by living outside
the society. The essence of the fact is that man has always belonged to a society of some
sort, without which man cannot exist at all. Society fulfills all his needs and provides security.
Every human took birth, grows, live and die in society. Without society human’s life is just like
fish out of water. Hence there exists a great deal of close relationships between man and
society. Both are closely inter-related, interconnected and inter-dependent. Relationship
between the two is bilateral in nature. But this close relationship between man and society
raises one of the most important questions i.e. in what sense man is a social animal? No doubt
Aristotle said so long ago. However, man is a social animal mainly because of the following
three reasons:
5.1. Man Is a Social Animal by NatureMan is a social animal because his nature makes him
so. Sociality or sociability is his natural instinct. He can’t but live in society. All his human
qualities such as: to think, to enquire, to learn language, to play and work only developed in
human society. All this developed through interaction with others. One can’t be a normal being
in isolation. His nature compels him to live with his fellow beings. He can’t afford to live alone.
Famous sociologist MacIver has cited three cases in which infants were isolated from all social
relationships to make experiments about man’s social nature.
The first case was of Kasper Hauser who from his childhood until his seventeenth year was
brought up in woods of Nuremberg. In his case it was found that at the age of seventeen he
could hardly walk, had the mind of an infant and mutter only a few meaningless phrases. In
spite of his subsequent education he could never make himself a normal man.The second
case was of two Hindu children who in 1920 were discovered in a wolf den.
One of the children died soon after discovery. The other could walk only on all four, possessed
no language except wolf like growls. She was shy of human being and afraid of them. It was

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only after careful and sympathetic training that she could learn some social habits.The third
case was of Anna, an illegitimate American child who had been placed in a room at age of six
months and discovered five years later. On discovery it was found that she could not walk or
speech and was indifferent to people around her.
All the above cases prove that man is social by nature. Human nature develops in man only
when he lives in society, only when he shares with his fellow begins a common life. Society is
something which fulfils a vital need in man’s constitution, it is not something accidentally
added to or super imposed on human nature. He knows himself and his fellow beings within
the framework of society. Indeed, man is social by nature. The social nature is not super-
imposed on him or added to him rather it is inborn.
5.2. Necessity Makes Man a Social Animal
Man is a social animal not only by nature but also by necessity. It is said that needs and
necessities makes man social. Man has many needs and necessities. Out of these different
needs social, mental and physical needs are very important and needs fulfillment. He can’t
fulfill these needs without living in society.
All his needs and necessities compel him to live in society. Many of his needs and necessities
will remain unfulfilled without the co-operation of his fellow beings. His psychological safety,
social recognition, loves and self-actualization needs only fulfilled only within the course of
living in society. He is totally dependent for his survival upon the existence of society. Human
baby is brought up under the care of his parents and family members.
He would not survive even a day without the support of society. All his basic needs like food,
clothing, shelter, health and education are fulfilled only within the framework of society. He
also needs society for his social and mental developments. His need for self-preservation
compels him to live in society. Individual also satisfy his sex needs in a socially accepted way
in a society.
To fulfill his security concern at the old age individual lives in society. Similarly helplessness
at the time of birth compels him to live in society. A nutrition, shelter, warmth and affection
need compels him to live in society. Thus for the satisfaction of human wants man lives in
society. Hence it is also true that not only for nature but also for the fulfillment of his needs
and necessities man lives in society.
5.3. Man Lives in Society for His Mental and Intellectual Development:
This is yet another reason for which man is a social animal. Society not only fulfils his physical
needs and determines his social nature but also determines his personality and guides the
course of development of human mind.Development of human mind and self is possible only
living in society. Society moulds our attitudes, beliefs, morals, ideals and thereby moulds
individual personality. With the course of living and with the process of socialization man’s
personality develops and he became a fully fledged individual. Man acquires a self or
personality only living in a society. From birth to death individual acquires different social
qualities by social interaction with his fellow beings which moulds his personality. Individual
mind without society remains undeveloped at infant stage. The cultural heritage determines
man’s personality by molding his attitudes, beliefs, morals and ideals. With the help of social
heritage man’s in born potentialities are unfolded.Thus, from the above discussion we

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conclude that Man is a social animal. His nature and necessities makes him a social being.
He also depends on society to be a human being. He acquires personality within society.
There exists a very close relationship between individual and society like that of cells and
body.
6. Relation between Individual and Society
Human cannot survive without society and societies cannot exist without members. Still there
may be conflicts between the individual and society; one can imagine that social systems
function better when they have considerable control over their individual members, but that
this is a mixed blessing for the system’s members. Likewise can competition with other
societies strengthen the social system, while wearing out its constituent members? This idea
was voiced by Rousseau (1769) who believed that we lived better in the original state of nature
than under civilization, and who was for that reason less positive about classic Greek
civilization than his contemporaries. The relation between individual and society has been an
interesting and a complex problem at the same time. It can be stated more or less that it has
defied all solutions so far. No sociologist has been able to give a solution of the relation
between the two that will be fully satisfactory and convincing by reducing the conflict between
the two to the minimum and by showing a way in which both will tend to bring about a healthy
growth of each other. Aristotle has treated of the individual only from the point of view of the
state and he wants the individual to fit in the mechanism of the state and the society. It is very
clear that relation between individual and society are very close. So we will discuss here Rawls
three models of the relation between the individual and society
:6.1. Utilitarianism
The first model is Rawls’s presentation of the position of classical utilitarianism. His most
telling argument against the utilitarian position is that it conflates the system of desires of all
individuals and arrives at the good for a society by treating it as one large individual choice. It
is a summing up over the field of individual desires. Utilitarianism has often been described
as individualistic, but Rawls argues convincingly that the classical utilitarian position does not
take seriously the plurality and distinctness of individuals . It applies to society the principle
of choice for one man. Rawls also observes that the notion of the ideal observer or the
impartial sympathetic spectator is closely bound up with this classical utilitarian position. It is
only from the perspective of some such hypothetical sympathetic ideal person that the various
individual interests can be summed over an entire society . The paradigm presented here,
and rejected by Rawls, is one in which the interests of society are considered as the interests
of one person. Plurality is ignored, and the desires of individuals are conflated. The tension
between individual and society is resolved by subordinating the individual to the social sum.
The social order is conceived as a unity. The principles of individual choice, derived from the
experience of the self as a unity, are applied to society as a whole. Rawls rightly rejects this
position as being unable to account for justice, except perhaps by some administrative
decision that it is desirable for the whole to give individuals some minimum level of liberty and
happiness. But individual persons do not enter into the theoretical position. They are merely
sources or directions from which desires are drawn.

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6.2. Justice as Fairness
The second paradigm is that which characterizes the original position. It has already been
suggested that this is a picture of an aggregate of individuals, mutually disinterested, and
conceived primarily as will. While not necessarily egoistic, their interests are each of their own
choosing. They have their own life plans. They coexist on the same geographical territory and
they have roughly similar needs and interests so that mutually advantageous cooperation
among them is possible. I shall emphasize this aspect of the circumstances of justice by
assuming that the parties take no interest in one another’s interest...Thus, one can say, in
brief, that the circumstances of justice obtain whenever mutually disinterested persons put
forward conflicting claims to the division of social advantages under conditions of moderate
scarcity .Here the tension between individual and society is resolved in favor of plurality, of
an aggregate of mutually disinterested individuals occupying the same space at the same
time. It is resolved in favor of the plural, while giving up any social unity which might obtain.
The classical utilitarian model and the original position as sketched by Rawls provide
paradigms for two polar ways in which the tension between the plurality of individuals and the
unity of social structure might be resolved. One resolution favors unity and the other favors
plurality.
6.3. The Idea of a Social Union
The third paradigm is included under Rawls’s discussion of the congruence of justice and
goodness, and of the problem of stability. It is described as a good, as an end in itself which
is a shared end. This paradigm is distinct both from the conflated application to the entire
society of the principle of choice for one person and from the conception of society as an
aggregate of mutually disinterested individuals. The idea of a social union is described in
contrast to the idea of a private society. A private society is essentially the second model as
realized in the actual world. It stems from a consideration of the conditions of the original
position as descriptive of a social order. Over against this notion of private society, Rawls
proposes his idea of a social union . It is one in which final ends are shared and communal
institutes are valued.6.4. Marx and Engels on Relationship between Individuals and
SocietyThe direct elaborations of Marx and Engels on relationships between individual action
and social process can be divided into three categories for purposes of discussion:
1) general statements concerning the dialectical relations between the two and the historicity
of human nature;
2) concrete descriptions―often angry, sometimes satirical―of the impact on people of their
particular relations to the production process and the examination, as a major concern, of
“estrangement” or “alienation”; and
3) analyses of consciousness with particular attention to the pervasive power of commodity
fetishism in class society
.Besides, the relationship between individual and society can be viewed from another three
angles: Functionalist, Inter-actionist, and Culture and personality.

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6.4.1. Functionalist View:
How Society Affects the Individual? What is the relation between individual and society?
Functionalists regard the individual as formed by society through the influence of such
institutions as the family, school and workplace. Early sociologists such as Herbert Spencer,
Emile Durkheim and even Karl Marx were functionalists, examined society as existing apart
from the individual. For Durkheim, society is reality; it is first in origin and importance to the
individual. Durkheim’s keen discussion of the collective consciousness showed the ways in
which social interactions and relationships and ultimately society influence the individual’s
attitudes, ideas and sentiments. He utilized his theory of “collective representation” in
explaining the phenomena of religion, suicide and the concept of social solidarity. In contrast
to Auguste Comte (known as father of sociology), who regarded the individual as a mere
abstraction, a somewhat more substantial position by Durkheim held that the individual was
the recipient of group influence and social heritage. In sociological circle, this was the “burning
question” (individual v/s society) of the day .How society is important in the formation of
individual’s person­ality is clearly reflected in the cases of isolated and feral children (children
who were raised in the company of animals such as bears and wolves). The studies of feral
children, referred to earlier, have clearly demonstrated the impor­tance of social interaction
and human association in the development of personality
.6.4.2. Inter-Actionist View: How Is Society Constructed?How an individual helps in building
society? For inter-actionists, it is through the interaction of the people that the society is
formed. The main champion of this approach was Max Weber (social action theorist), who
said that society is built up out of the interpretations of individuals. The structuralists (or
functionalists) tend to approach the relationship of self (individual) and society from the point
of the influence of society on the individual. Inter-actionists, on the other hand, tend to work
from self (individual) “outwards”, stressing that people create society. A prominent theorist of
the last century, Talcott Parsons developed a general theory for the study of society called
action theory, based on the methodological principle of voluntarism and the epistemological
principle of analytical realism. The theory attempted to establish a balance between two major
methodological traditions: the utilitarian-positivist and hermeneutic-idealistic traditions. For
Parsons, voluntarism established a third alternative between these two. More than a theory
of society, Parsons presented a theory of social evolution and a concrete interpretation of the
“drives” and directions of world history. He added that, the structure of society which
determines roles and norms, and the cultural system which determines the ultimate values of
ends. His theory was severely criticized by George Homans. In his Presidential address,
“bringing man back in”, Homans re-established the need to study individual social interactions,
the building blocks of society. A recent well-known theorist Anthony Giddens has not accepted
the idea of some sociologists that society has an existence over and above individuals. He
argues: “Human actions and their reactions are the only reality and we cannot regard societies
or systems as having an existence over and above individuals.” .

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6.4.3. Culture and Personality View: How Individual and Society Affect Each Other? Or How
Individual and Society Interacts? Both the above views are incomplete. In reality, it is not
society or individual but it is society and individual which helps in understanding the total
reality. The extreme view of individual or society has long been abandoned. Sociologists from
Cooley to the present have recognized that neither society nor the individual can exist without
each other. This view was laid down mainly by Margaret Mead, Kardiner and others who
maintained that society’s culture affects personality (individual) and, in turn, personality helps
in the formation of society’s culture. These anthropologists have studied how society shapes
or controls individuals and how, in turn, individuals create and change society. Thus, to
conclude, it can be stated that the relationship between society and individual is not one-
sided. Both are essential for the comprehension of either. Both go hand in hand, each is
essentially dependent on the other. Both are interdependent on each, other.The individual
should be subordinated to society and the individual should sacrifice their welfare at the cost
of society. Both these views are extreme which see the relationship between individual and
society from merely the one or the other side. But surely all is not harmonious between
individual and society. The individual and society interact on one another and depend on one
another. Social integration is never complete and harmonious.
7. Conclusion F. M. Anayet Hossain, Md. Korban Ali: The wellbeing of nations can occur at
the cost of the well-being of their citizens, and this seems to have happened in the past. Yet
in present day conditions, there is no such conflict. Society and individual are made mutually
dependent and responsible and mutually complementary. The result is that society
progresses well with the minimum possible restrictions on the individual. A very wide scope is
given to the natural development of the energies of the individual in such a manner that in the
end. Society will benefit the best by it. While society reaps the best advantage of the properly
utilized and developed energies of the individuals, an attempt is made to see that the normal
and sometimes even the abnormal weaknesses of the individuals have the least possible
effect on the society. Spirit of service and duty to the society is the ideal of the individual and
spirit of tolerance, broadmindedness and security of the individual is the worry of the society.
There is no rigid rule to develop the individual in a particular pattern suitable to the rules of
the society. Society demands greater sacrifices from its greater individuals while the fruits of
the works of all are meant equally for all. The general rule is: the higher the status and culture
of the individual are, the lesser his rights are and the greater his duties are. A sincere attempt
is made by the sociologists to bring to the minimum the clash between the individual and the
society, so that there will be few psychological problems for the individual and the society
both. The inherent capacities, energies and weaknesses of the individual are properly taken
into account and the evolution of the relation between the two is made as natural as possible.
Human values and idealism being given due respect, the development of the relation between
the two is more or less philosophical.

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2. Culture:
A culture is a way of life of a group of people--the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that
they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication
and imitation from one generation to the next.
Culture is symbolic communication. Some of its symbols include a group's skills, knowledge,
attitudes, values, and motives. The meanings of the symbols are learned and deliberately
perpetuated in a society through its institutions.
THEORY OF CULTURAL DETER MINISM
The position that the ideas, meanings, beliefs and values people learn as members of society
determines human nature. People are what they learn. Optimistic version of cultural determinism
place no limits on the abilities of human beings to do or to be whatever they want. Some
anthropologists suggest that there is no universal "right way" of being human. "Right way" is
almost always "our way"; that "our way" in one society almost never corresponds to "our way" in
any other society. Proper attitude of an informed human being could only be that of tolerance.
The optimistic version of this theory postulates that human nature being infinitely malleable,
human being can choose the ways of life they prefer.
The pessimistic version maintains that people are what they are conditioned to be; this is
something over which they have no control. Human beings are passive creatures and do whatever
their culture tells them to do. This explanation leads to behaviorism that locates the causes of
human behavior in a realm that is totally beyond human control.
CULTURAL RELATIVISM
Different cultural groups think, feel, and act differently. There is no scientific standards for
considering one group as intrinsically superior or inferior to another. Studying differences in
culture among groups and societies presupposes a position of cultural relativism. It does not imply
normalcy for oneself, nor for one's society. It, however, calls for judgment when dealing with
groups or societies different from one's own. Information about the nature of cultural differences
between societies, their roots, and their consequences should precede judgment and action.
Negotiation is more likely to succeed when the parties concerned understand the reasons for the
differences in viewpoints.
CULTURAL ETHNOCENTRISM
Ethnocentrism is the belief that one's own culture is superior to that of other cultures. It is a form
of reductionism that reduces the "other way" of life to a distorted version of one's own. This is
particularly important in case of global dealings when a company or an individual is imbued with
the idea that methods, materials, or ideas that worked in the home country will also work abroad.
Environmental differences are, therefore, ignored. Ethnocentrism, in relation to global dealings,
can be categorized as follows:
Important factors in business are overlooked because of the obsession with certain cause-effect
relationships in one's own country. It is always a good idea to refer to checklists of human

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variables in order to be assured that all major factors have been at least considered while working
abroad.
Even though one may recognize the environmental differences and problems associated with
change, but may focus only on achieving objectives related to the home-country. This may result
in the loss of effectiveness of a company or an individual in terms of international competitiveness.
The objectives set for global operations should also be global.
The differences are recognized, but it is assumed that associated changes are so basic that they
can be achieved effortlessly. It is always a good idea to perform a cost-benefit analysis of the
changes proposed. Sometimes a change may upset important values and thereby may face
resistance from being implemented. The cost of some changes may exceed the benefits derived
from the implementation of such changes.
MANIFESTATIONS OF CULTURE
Cultural differences manifest themselves in different ways and differing levels of depth. Symbols
represent the most superficial and values the deepest manifestations of culture, with heroes and
rituals in between.
Symbols are words, gestures, pictures, or objects that carry a particular meaning which is only
recognized by those who share a particular culture. New symbols easily develop, old ones
disappear. Symbols from one particular group are regularly copied by others. This is why symbols
represent the outermost layer of a culture.
Heroes are persons, past or present, real or fictitious, who possess characteristics that are highly
prized in a culture. They also serve as models for behavior.
Rituals are collective activities, sometimes superfluous in reaching desired objectives, but are
considered as socially essential. They are therefore carried out most of the times for their own
sake (ways of greetings, paying respect to others, religious and social ceremonies, etc.).
The core of a culture is formed by values. They are broad tendencies for preferences of certain
state of affairs to others (good-evil, right-wrong, natural-unnatural). Many values remain
unconscious to those who hold them. Therefore they often cannot be discussed, nor they can be
directly observed by others. Values can only be inferred from the way people act under different
circumstances.
Symbols, heroes, and rituals are the tangible or visual aspects of the practices of a culture. The
true cultural meaning of the practices is intangible; this is revealed only when the practices are
interpreted by the insiders.

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Figure 1. Manifestation of Culture at Different Levels of Depth
LAYERS OF CULTURE
People even within the same culture carry several layers of mental programming within
themselves. Different layers of culture exist at the following levels:
• The national level: Associated with the nation as a whole.
• The regional level: Associated with ethnic, linguistic, or religious differences that exist
within a nation.
• The gender level: Associated with gender differences (female vs. male)
• The generation level: Associated with the differences between grandparents and parents,
parents and children.
• The social class level: Associated with educational opportunities and differences in
occupation.
• The corporate level: Associated with the particular culture of an organization. Applicable
to those who are employed.

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Table of Content

General Sociology....................................................................................................................6
1. Individual: Sociability or the sociality of man......... ...............................................................11
2. Culture:............... ................................................................... .............................................19
Meaning and Characteristics (Culture is variable, learnt, social, shared,
Transmissive, dynamic and adaptive), types (Material, Non –material), functions
(transfer of knowledge, define situation, provide Behaviour pattern, moulds
personality) and elements of culture (norms, values, beliefs, sanctions,
customs).... ................................................................... ..........................................................23
Culture and Socialization; formal and non-formal socialization
transmission of culture, cultural relativism. Sub-cultures. Ethnocentrism and
xenocentrism, Cultural lag, High culture and popular culture. Multiculturalism,
assimilation, and acculturation........... ......................................................................................40
3. Society: Meaning and characteristics. Community; meaning and characteristics............82
Individual and society. Relationship between individual and society.
Two main theories regarding the relationship of man and society (i) the social contact theory
and (ii) the organismic theory. ............. ....................................................................................93
Social and cultural evolution of society (Hunting and
Gathering Society, Herding and Advance Herding Society, Horticultural Society,
Agrarian Society, Industrial Society, Post modern Society)....... ..............................................98
4. Social Interaction: Caste and classes, Forms of social classes, Feudal system in
Pakistan, Social Mobility-nature of social mobility and its determinants in Pakistani
society, Culture of poverty................ ......................................................................................102
5. Social Control: Mechanisms of social control-formal and informal means of social
control, Anomie, Alienation and social Integration-Means of social integration in
Pakistani Society........................... ........................................................................................108
6. Social and Cultural Change and Social Policy: Processes of Social and Cultural
Change-discovery, inhibitions to social and cultural change in Pakistan Social

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planning and directed social and cultural change, effect of Industrialization,
Urbanization, Modernization and Modern Means of Communication on Social
Change................................ .................................................................................................168
7. Public Opinion: Formation of Public, Opinion, Concept of opinion leader,
characteristics of opinion leadership....... ..............................................................................194
8. Community: The rural community, Traditional Characteristics of rural life, The
urban community, Rural – Urban convergence, Urbanism, Future of cities in
Pakistan....................................
9. Social Institutions: The nature and genesis of institutions, the process of
institutionalization, Functions of Social Institutions: Family, Religion, Education,
Economy and Politics................ ...........................................................................................221
10.Social Problems in Pakistan: High population growth rate, Rural –urban
migration. Issues of technical/vocational training, Deviance and street crime,
Unemployment, illiteracy and School drop out, Smuggling, Prostitution, Poverty,
Drug Addiction, Child Labour and Abuse Bonded Labour, Social Customs and
Traditions effecting Women in Pakistan, Violence Against Women’s and Domestics
Violence, Issues concerning the Elderly’s in Pakistan.......... ...............................................230
II. Sociological Theory:
Three sociological perspectives: Structural Functionalism, Symbolic interactions and
Conflict. Theorists: Ibn-i-Khaldun Spencer, August Comte, Emile Dukheim, Max Weber,
Kari Marx, Parson................................ ................................................................................290
III. Methods of Sociological Research:
Scientific Method, Steps in research, Types of Questionnaire Research Design,
Surveys, Observation and Case Studies.......... ..................................................................334

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INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY

Concerts, sports games, and political rallies can have very large crowds. When you attend one of
these events, you may know only the people you came with. Yet you may experience a feeling of
connection to the group. You are one of the crowd. You cheer and applaud when everyone else
does. You boo and yell alongside them. You move out of the way when someone needs to get
by, and you say “excuse me” when you need to leave. You know how to behave in this kind of
crowd.
It can be a very different experience if you are travelling in a foreign country and find yourself in
a crowd moving down the street. You may have trouble figuring out what is happening. Is the
crowd just the usual morning rush, or is it a political protest of some kind? Perhaps there was
some sort of accident or disaster. Is it safe in this crowd, or should you try to extract yourself?
How can you find out what is going on? Although you are in it, you may not feel like you are part
of this crowd. You may not know what to do or how to behave.
Even within one type of crowd, different groups exist and different behaviours are on display. At
a rock concert, for example, some may enjoy singing along, others may prefer to sit and observe,
while still others may join in a mosh pit or try crowd surfing. On February 28, 2010, Sydney Crosby
scored the winning goal against the United States team in the gold medal hockey game at the
Vancouver Winter Olympics. Two hundred thousand jubilant people filled the streets of downtown
Vancouver to celebrate and cap off two weeks of uncharacteristically vibrant, joyful street life in
Vancouver. Just over a year later, on June 15, 2011, the Vancouver Canucks lost the seventh
hockey game of the Stanley Cup finals against the Boston Bruins. One hundred thousand people
had been watching the game on outdoor screens. Eventually 155,000 people filled the downtown
streets. Rioting and looting led to hundreds of injuries, burnt cars, trashed storefronts and property
damage totaling an estimated $4.2 million. Why was the crowd response to the two events so
different?
1. WHAT IS SOCIOLOGY?
A dictionary defines sociology as the systematic study of society and social interaction. The word
“sociology” is derived from the Latin word socius (companion) and the Greek word logos (speech
or reason), which together mean “reasoned speech about companionship”. How can the
experience of companionship or togetherness be put into words or explained? While this is a
starting point for the discipline, sociology is actually much more complex. It uses many different
methods to study a wide range of subject matter and to apply these studies to the real world.
The sociologist Dorothy Smith (1926 – ) defines the social as the “ongoing concerting and
coordinating of individuals’ activities” (Smith 1999). Sociology is the systematic study of all those
aspects of life designated by the adjective “social.” These aspects of social life never simply occur;
they are organized processes. They can be the briefest of everyday interactions—moving to the
right to let someone pass on a busy sidewalk, for example—or the largest and most enduring
interactions—such as the billions of daily exchanges that constitute the circuits of global
capitalism. If there are at least two people involved, even in the seclusion of one’s mind, then
there is a social interaction that entails the “ongoing concerting and coordinating of activities.”
Why does the person move to the right on the sidewalk? What collective process lead to the

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decision that moving to the right rather than the left is normal? Think about the T-shirts in your
drawer at home. What are the sequences of linkages and social relationships that link the T-shirts
in your chest of drawers to the dangerous and hyper-exploitive garment factories in rural China
or Bangladesh? These are the type of questions that point to the unique domain and puzzles of
the social that sociology seeks to explore and understand.
What Are Society and Culture?
Sociologists study all aspects and levels of society. A society is a group of people whose members
interact, reside in a definable area, and share a culture. A culture includes the group’s shared
practices, values, beliefs, norms and artifacts. One sociologist might analyze video of people from
different societies as they carry on everyday conversations to study the rules of polite
conversation from different world cultures. Another sociologist might interview a representative
sample of people to see how email and instant messaging have changed the way organizations
are run. Yet another sociologist might study how migration determined the way in which language
spread and changed over time. A fourth sociologist might study the history of international
agencies like the United Nations or the International Monetary Fund to examine how the globe
became divided into a First World and a Third World after the end of the colonial era.
These examples illustrate the ways society and culture can be studied at different levels of
analysis, from the detailed study of face-to-face interactions to the examination of large-scale
historical processes affecting entire civilizations. It is common to divide these levels of analysis
into different gradations based on the scale of interaction involved. As discussed in later chapters,
sociologists break the study of society down into four separate levels of analysis: micro, meso,
macro, and global. The basic distinction, however, is between micro-sociology and macro-
sociology.
The study of cultural rules of politeness in conversation is an example of micro-sociology. At the
micro-level of analysis, the focus is on the social dynamics of intimate, face-to-face interactions.
Research is conducted with a specific set of individuals such as conversational partners, family
members, work associates, or friendship groups. In the conversation study example, sociologists
might try to determine how people from different cultures interpret each other’s behaviour to see
how different rules of politeness lead to misunderstandings. If the same misunderstandings occur
consistently in a number of different interactions, the sociologists may be able to propose some
generalizations about rules of politeness that would be helpful in reducing tensions in mixed-group
dynamics (e.g., during staff meetings or international negotiations). Other examples of micro-level
research include seeing how informal networks become a key source of support and
advancement in formal bureaucracies or how loyalty to criminal gangs is established.
Macro-sociology focuses on the properties of large-scale, society-wide social interactions: the
dynamics of institutions, classes, or whole societies. The example above of the influence of
migration on changing patterns of language usage is a macro-level phenomenon because it refers
to structures or processes of social interaction that occur outside or beyond the intimate circle of
individual social acquaintances. These include the economic and other circumstances that lead
to migration; the educational, media, and other communication structures that help or hinder the
spread of speech patterns; the class, racial, or ethnic divisions that create different slangs or
cultures of language use; the relative isolation or integration of different communities within a
population; and so on. Other examples of macro-level research include examining why women
are far less likely than men to reach positions of power in society or why fundamentalist Christian

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religious movements play a more prominent role in American politics than they do in Canadian
politics. In each case, the site of the analysis shifts away from the nuances and detail of micro-
level interpersonal life to the broader, macro-level systematic patterns that structure social change
and social cohesion in society.
The relationship between the micro and the macro remains one of the key problems confronting
sociology. The German sociologist Georg Simmel pointed out that macro-level processes are in
fact nothing more than the sum of all the unique interactions between specific individuals at any
one time (1908), yet they have properties of their own which would be missed if sociologists only
focused on the interactions of specific individuals. Émile Durkheim’s classic study of suicide
(1897) is a case in point. While suicide is one of the most personal, individual, and intimate acts
imaginable, Durkheim demonstrated that rates of suicide differed between religious
communities—Protestants, Catholics, and Jews—in a way that could not be explained by the
individual factors involved in each specific case. The different rates of suicide had to be explained
by macro-level variables associated with the different religious beliefs and practices of the faith
communities. We will return to this example in more detail later. On the other hand, macro-level
phenomena like class structures, institutional organizations, legal systems, gender stereotypes,
and urban ways of life provide the shared context for everyday life but do not explain its nuances
and micro-variations very well. Macro-level structures constrain the daily interactions of the
intimate circles in which we move, but they are also filtered through localized perceptions and
“lived” in a myriad of inventive and unpredictable ways.
The Sociological Imagination
Although the scale of sociological studies and the methods of carrying them out are different, the
sociologists involved in them all have something in common. Each of them looks at society using
what pioneer sociologist C. Wright Mills called the sociological imagination, sometimes also
referred to as the “sociological lens” or “sociological perspective.” In a sense, this was Mills’ way
of addressing the dilemmas of the macro/micro divide in sociology. Mills defined sociological
imagination as how individuals understand their own and others’ pasts in relation to history and
social structure (1959). It is the capacity to see an individual’s private troubles in the context of
the broader social processes that structure them. This enables the sociologist to examine what
Mills called “personal troubles of milieu” as “public issues of social structure,” and vice versa.
Mills reasoned that private troubles like being overweight, being unemployed, having marital
difficulties, or feeling purposeless or depressed can be purely personal in nature. It is possible for
them to be addressed and understood in terms of personal, psychological, or moral attributes,
either one’s own or those of the people in one’s immediate milieu. In an individualistic society like
our own, this is in fact the most likely way that people will regard the issues they confront: “I have
an addictive personality;” “I can’t get a break in the job market;” “My husband is unsupportive;”
etc. However, if private troubles are widely shared with others, they indicate that there is a
common social problem that has its source in the way social life is structured. At this level, the
issues are not adequately understood as simply private troubles. They are best addressed as
public issues that require a collective response to resolve.
Obesity, for example, has been increasingly recognized as a growing problem for both children
and adults in North America. Michael Pollan cites statistics that three out of five Americans are
overweight and one out of five is obese (2006). In Canada in 2012, just under one in five adults
(18.4 percent) were obese, up from 16 percent of men and 14.5 percent of women in 2003

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(Statistics Canada 2013). Obesity is therefore not simply a private trouble concerning the medical
issues, dietary practices, or exercise habits of specific individuals. It is a widely shared social
issue that puts people at risk for chronic diseases like hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular
disease. It also creates significant social costs for the medical system.
Pollan argues that obesity is in part a product of the increasingly sedentary and stressful lifestyle
of modern, capitalist society, but more importantly it is a product of the industrialization of the food
chain, which since the 1970s has produced increasingly cheap and abundant food with
significantly more calories due to processing. Additives like corn syrup, which are much cheaper
to produce than natural sugars, led to the trend of super-sized fast foods and soft drinks in the
1980s. As Pollan argues, trying to find a processed food in the supermarket without a cheap,
calorie-rich, corn-based additive is a challenge. The sociological imagination in this example is
the capacity to see the private troubles and attitudes associated with being overweight as an issue
of how the industrialization of the food chain has altered the human/environment relationship, in
particular with respect to the types of food we eat and the way we eat them.
By looking at individuals and societies and how they interact through this lens, sociologists are
able to examine what influences behaviour, attitudes, and culture. By applying systematic and
scientific methods to this process, they try to do so without letting their own biases and pre-
conceived ideas influence their conclusions.
Studying Patterns: How Sociologists View Society
All sociologists are interested in the experiences of individuals and how those experiences are
shaped by interactions with social groups and society as a whole. To a sociologist, the personal
decisions an individual makes do not exist in a vacuum. Cultural patterns and social forces put
pressure on people to select one choice over another. Sociologists try to identify these general
patterns by examining the behaviour of large groups of people living in the same society and
experiencing the same societal pressures.
Understanding the relationship between the individual and society is one of the most difficult
sociological problems, however. Partly this is because of the reified way these two terms are used
in everyday speech. Reification refers to the way in which abstract concepts, complex processes,
or mutable social relationships come to be thought of as “things.” A prime example of this is when
people say that “society” caused an individual to do something or to turn out in a particular way.
In writing essays, first-year sociology students sometimes refer to “society” as a cause of social
behaviour or as an entity with independent agency. On the other hand, the “individual” is a being
that seems solid, tangible, and independent of anything going on outside of the skin sack that
contains its essence. This conventional distinction between society and the individual is a product
of reification in so far as both society and the individual appear as independent objects. A concept
of “the individual” and a concept of “society” have been given the status of real, substantial,
independent objects. As we will see in the chapters to come, society and the individual are neither
objects, nor are they independent of one another. An “individual” is inconceivable without the
relationships to others that define his or her internal subjective life and his or her external socially
defined roles.

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The problem for sociologists is that these concepts of the individual and society and the
relationship between them are thought of in terms established by a very common moral framework
in modern democratic societies, namely that of individual responsibility and individual choice.
Often in this framework, any suggestion that an individual’s behaviour needs to be understood in
terms of that person’s social context is dismissed as “letting the individual off” of taking personal
responsibility for their actions.
Talking about society is akin to being morally soft or lenient. Sociology, as a social science,
remains neutral on these type of moral questions. The conceptualization of the individual and
society is much more complex. The sociological problem is to be able to see the individual as a
thoroughly social being and yet as a being who has agency and free choice. Individuals are beings
who do take on individual responsibilities in their everyday social roles and risk social
consequences when they fail to live up to them. The manner in which they take on responsibilities
and sometimes the compulsion to do so are socially defined however. The sociological problem
is to be able to see society as a dimension of experience characterized by regular and predictable
patterns of behaviour that exist independently of any specific individual’s desires or self-
understanding. Yet at the same time a society is nothing but the ongoing social relationships and
activities of specific individuals.

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Individual: Sociability or the sociality of man.
Introduction
2. Man is a social animal:
He has a natural urge to live an associated life with others. Man needs society for his existence
or survival. The human child depends on his parents and others for its survival and growth.
The inherent capacities of the child can develop only in society. The ultimate goal of society
is to promote good and happy life for its individuals. It creates conditions and opportunities for
the all round development of individual personality. Society ensures harmony and cooperation
among individuals in spite of their occasional conflicts and tensions. If society helps the
individuals in numerous ways, great men also contribute to society by their wisdom and
experience. Thus, society and individuals are bound by an intimate and harmonious bond and
the conflicts between the two are apparent and momentary. In a well-ordered society, there
would be lasting harmony between the two.
2. Society:
The term “society” means relationships social beings, men, express their nature by creating
and re-creating an organization which guides and controls their behavior in myriad ways.
Society liberates and limits the activities of men and it is a necessary condition of every human
being and need to fulfillment of life. Society is a system of usages and procedures of authority
and mutual aid many divisions of controls of human behavior and of liberties. This changing
system, we call society and it is always changing . Society exists only where social beings
“behave” toward one another in ways determined by their recognition of one another.
3. Society not confined to man:
It should be clear that society is not limited to human beings. There are many degrees of
animal societies, likely the ants, the bee, the hornet, are known to most school children. It has
been contended that wherever there is life there is society, because life means heredity and,
so far as we know, can arise only out of and in the presence of other life. All higher animals
at least have a very definite society, arising out of the requirements their nature and the
conditions involved in the perpetuation of their species. In society each member seeks
something and gives something. A society can also consist of likeminded people governed by
their own norms and values within a dominant, large society moreover; a society may be
illustrated as an economic, social or industrial infrastructure, made up of a varied collection of
individuals. Finally, we can say that the word “society” may also refer to an organized voluntary
association of people for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic or other
purposes. Society is universal and pervasive and has no defined boundary or assignable
limits. A society is a collection of individuals united by certain relations or modes of behavior
which mark them off from others who do not enter into those relations or who differ from them
in behavior. In this way we can conclude that, society is the whole complex of social behavior
and the network of social relationship.

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4. Nature of Society:
Society is an abstract term that connotes the complex of inter-relations that exist between and
among the members of the group. Society exists wherever there are good or bad, proper or
improper relationships between human beings. These social relationships are not evident,
they do not have any concrete from, and hence society is abstract. Society is not a group of
people; it means in essence a state or condition, a relationship and is therefore necessarily
an abstraction. Society is organization of relationship. It is the total complex of human
relationships. It includes whole range of human relations. Social relationships invariably
possess a physical element, which takes the form of awareness of another’s presence,
common objective or common interest. Now we can say that society is the union itself, the
organization, the sum of formal relations in which associating individuals are bound together.
Societies consist in mutual interaction and inter relation of individuals and of the structure
formed by their relations.
5. Social Life
As a human being man cannot live without association. So man’s life is to an enormous extent
a group life. Because individuals cannot be understood apart from their relations with one
another; the relations cannot be understood apart from the units (or terms) of the relationship.
A man of society may be aided by the understanding of say, neurons and synapses, but his
quest remains the analysis of social relationships . The role of social life is clarified when we
consider the process by which they develop in the life of the individual. Kant thought that it
was just antagonism which served to awaken man’s power to overcome his inertia and in the
search for power to win for himself a place among his fellow-men, “with whom he cannot live
at all.” Without this resistance, the spiteful competition of vanity, the insatiable desire of gain
and power, the natural capacities of humanity would have slumbered undeveloped .Social life
is the combination of various components such as activities, people and places. While all of
these components are required to define a social life, the nature of each component is different
for every person and can change for each person, as affected by a variety of external
influences. In fact, the complex social life of our day his actions indeed, even his thoughts and
feelings are influenced in large measure by a social life which surrounds him like an
atmosphere . It is true that, human achievement is marked by his ability to do, so to a more
remarkable degree than any other animal. Everywhere there is a social life setting limitations
and pre- dominatingly influencing individual action. In government, in religion, in industry, in
education, in family association―in everything that builds up modern life, so men are
cooperating. Because they work together, combine and organize for specific purposes, so that
no man lives to himself. This unity of effort is to make society .
There are different kinds of social life and these are depends on various factors. There are
also more immediate things that can affect one’s social life on a day-to-day basis. Availability
of friends and/or dates, current cash flow, personal schedule, recent positive restaurant
reviews and perhaps a post on Perez Hilton of where the celebs are hanging out can all
determine with whom you interact, the nature of activities, how often you socialize and where
such social activities take place . These types of factors of social life are normal and for
normal people.

Nevertheless, social life depends on different things such as

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a) The political life;
b) The economic life;
c) Voluntary associations;
d) Educational associations;
e) Methods of communication and;
f) The family .
However, I have come to realize that my social life, or at least the very little going out that
counts as “social” is completely determined by things that should have nothing to do with
determining one’s social life.
5. Man Is a Social Animal
Though accurate information about the exact origin of society is not known still it is an
accepted fact that man has been living in society since time immemorial. Long ago, Aristotle
expressed that “Man is essentially a social animal by nature”. He cannot live without society,
if he does so; he is either beast or God. Man has to live in society for his existence and welfare.
In almost all aspect of his life he feels the need of society. Biologically and psychologically he
compelled to live in society.
Man can never develop his personality, language, culture and “inner deep” by living outside
the society. The essence of the fact is that man has always belonged to a society of some
sort, without which man cannot exist at all. Society fulfills all his needs and provides security.
Every human took birth, grows, live and die in society. Without society human’s life is just like
fish out of water. Hence there exists a great deal of close relationships between man and
society. Both are closely inter-related, interconnected and inter-dependent. Relationship
between the two is bilateral in nature. But this close relationship between man and society
raises one of the most important questions i.e. in what sense man is a social animal? No doubt
Aristotle said so long ago. However, man is a social animal mainly because of the following
three reasons:
5.1. Man Is a Social Animal by NatureMan is a social animal because his nature makes him
so. Sociality or sociability is his natural instinct. He can’t but live in society. All his human
qualities such as: to think, to enquire, to learn language, to play and work only developed in
human society. All this developed through interaction with others. One can’t be a normal being
in isolation. His nature compels him to live with his fellow beings. He can’t afford to live alone.
Famous sociologist MacIver has cited three cases in which infants were isolated from all social
relationships to make experiments about man’s social nature.
The first case was of Kasper Hauser who from his childhood until his seventeenth year was
brought up in woods of Nuremberg. In his case it was found that at the age of seventeen he
could hardly walk, had the mind of an infant and mutter only a few meaningless phrases. In
spite of his subsequent education he could never make himself a normal man.The second
case was of two Hindu children who in 1920 were discovered in a wolf den.
One of the children died soon after discovery. The other could walk only on all four, possessed
no language except wolf like growls. She was shy of human being and afraid of them. It was

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only after careful and sympathetic training that she could learn some social habits.The third
case was of Anna, an illegitimate American child who had been placed in a room at age of six
months and discovered five years later. On discovery it was found that she could not walk or
speech and was indifferent to people around her.
All the above cases prove that man is social by nature. Human nature develops in man only
when he lives in society, only when he shares with his fellow begins a common life. Society is
something which fulfils a vital need in man’s constitution, it is not something accidentally
added to or super imposed on human nature. He knows himself and his fellow beings within
the framework of society. Indeed, man is social by nature. The social nature is not super-
imposed on him or added to him rather it is inborn.
5.2. Necessity Makes Man a Social Animal
Man is a social animal not only by nature but also by necessity. It is said that needs and
necessities makes man social. Man has many needs and necessities. Out of these different
needs social, mental and physical needs are very important and needs fulfillment. He can’t
fulfill these needs without living in society.
All his needs and necessities compel him to live in society. Many of his needs and necessities
will remain unfulfilled without the co-operation of his fellow beings. His psychological safety,
social recognition, loves and self-actualization needs only fulfilled only within the course of
living in society. He is totally dependent for his survival upon the existence of society. Human
baby is brought up under the care of his parents and family members.
He would not survive even a day without the support of society. All his basic needs like food,
clothing, shelter, health and education are fulfilled only within the framework of society. He
also needs society for his social and mental developments. His need for self-preservation
compels him to live in society. Individual also satisfy his sex needs in a socially accepted way
in a society.
To fulfill his security concern at the old age individual lives in society. Similarly helplessness
at the time of birth compels him to live in society. A nutrition, shelter, warmth and affection
need compels him to live in society. Thus for the satisfaction of human wants man lives in
society. Hence it is also true that not only for nature but also for the fulfillment of his needs
and necessities man lives in society.
5.3. Man Lives in Society for His Mental and Intellectual Development:
This is yet another reason for which man is a social animal. Society not only fulfils his physical
needs and determines his social nature but also determines his personality and guides the
course of development of human mind.Development of human mind and self is possible only
living in society. Society moulds our attitudes, beliefs, morals, ideals and thereby moulds
individual personality. With the course of living and with the process of socialization man’s
personality develops and he became a fully fledged individual. Man acquires a self or
personality only living in a society. From birth to death individual acquires different social
qualities by social interaction with his fellow beings which moulds his personality. Individual
mind without society remains undeveloped at infant stage. The cultural heritage determines
man’s personality by molding his attitudes, beliefs, morals and ideals. With the help of social
heritage man’s in born potentialities are unfolded.Thus, from the above discussion we

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conclude that Man is a social animal. His nature and necessities makes him a social being.
He also depends on society to be a human being. He acquires personality within society.
There exists a very close relationship between individual and society like that of cells and
body.
6. Relation between Individual and Society
Human cannot survive without society and societies cannot exist without members. Still there
may be conflicts between the individual and society; one can imagine that social systems
function better when they have considerable control over their individual members, but that
this is a mixed blessing for the system’s members. Likewise can competition with other
societies strengthen the social system, while wearing out its constituent members? This idea
was voiced by Rousseau (1769) who believed that we lived better in the original state of nature
than under civilization, and who was for that reason less positive about classic Greek
civilization than his contemporaries. The relation between individual and society has been an
interesting and a complex problem at the same time. It can be stated more or less that it has
defied all solutions so far. No sociologist has been able to give a solution of the relation
between the two that will be fully satisfactory and convincing by reducing the conflict between
the two to the minimum and by showing a way in which both will tend to bring about a healthy
growth of each other. Aristotle has treated of the individual only from the point of view of the
state and he wants the individual to fit in the mechanism of the state and the society. It is very
clear that relation between individual and society are very close. So we will discuss here Rawls
three models of the relation between the individual and society
:6.1. Utilitarianism
The first model is Rawls’s presentation of the position of classical utilitarianism. His most
telling argument against the utilitarian position is that it conflates the system of desires of all
individuals and arrives at the good for a society by treating it as one large individual choice. It
is a summing up over the field of individual desires. Utilitarianism has often been described
as individualistic, but Rawls argues convincingly that the classical utilitarian position does not
take seriously the plurality and distinctness of individuals . It applies to society the principle
of choice for one man. Rawls also observes that the notion of the ideal observer or the
impartial sympathetic spectator is closely bound up with this classical utilitarian position. It is
only from the perspective of some such hypothetical sympathetic ideal person that the various
individual interests can be summed over an entire society . The paradigm presented here,
and rejected by Rawls, is one in which the interests of society are considered as the interests
of one person. Plurality is ignored, and the desires of individuals are conflated. The tension
between individual and society is resolved by subordinating the individual to the social sum.
The social order is conceived as a unity. The principles of individual choice, derived from the
experience of the self as a unity, are applied to society as a whole. Rawls rightly rejects this
position as being unable to account for justice, except perhaps by some administrative
decision that it is desirable for the whole to give individuals some minimum level of liberty and
happiness. But individual persons do not enter into the theoretical position. They are merely
sources or directions from which desires are drawn.

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6.2. Justice as Fairness
The second paradigm is that which characterizes the original position. It has already been
suggested that this is a picture of an aggregate of individuals, mutually disinterested, and
conceived primarily as will. While not necessarily egoistic, their interests are each of their own
choosing. They have their own life plans. They coexist on the same geographical territory and
they have roughly similar needs and interests so that mutually advantageous cooperation
among them is possible. I shall emphasize this aspect of the circumstances of justice by
assuming that the parties take no interest in one another’s interest...Thus, one can say, in
brief, that the circumstances of justice obtain whenever mutually disinterested persons put
forward conflicting claims to the division of social advantages under conditions of moderate
scarcity .Here the tension between individual and society is resolved in favor of plurality, of
an aggregate of mutually disinterested individuals occupying the same space at the same
time. It is resolved in favor of the plural, while giving up any social unity which might obtain.
The classical utilitarian model and the original position as sketched by Rawls provide
paradigms for two polar ways in which the tension between the plurality of individuals and the
unity of social structure might be resolved. One resolution favors unity and the other favors
plurality.
6.3. The Idea of a Social Union
The third paradigm is included under Rawls’s discussion of the congruence of justice and
goodness, and of the problem of stability. It is described as a good, as an end in itself which
is a shared end. This paradigm is distinct both from the conflated application to the entire
society of the principle of choice for one person and from the conception of society as an
aggregate of mutually disinterested individuals. The idea of a social union is described in
contrast to the idea of a private society. A private society is essentially the second model as
realized in the actual world. It stems from a consideration of the conditions of the original
position as descriptive of a social order. Over against this notion of private society, Rawls
proposes his idea of a social union . It is one in which final ends are shared and communal
institutes are valued.6.4. Marx and Engels on Relationship between Individuals and
SocietyThe direct elaborations of Marx and Engels on relationships between individual action
and social process can be divided into three categories for purposes of discussion:
1) general statements concerning the dialectical relations between the two and the historicity
of human nature;
2) concrete descriptions―often angry, sometimes satirical―of the impact on people of their
particular relations to the production process and the examination, as a major concern, of
“estrangement” or “alienation”; and
3) analyses of consciousness with particular attention to the pervasive power of commodity
fetishism in class society
.Besides, the relationship between individual and society can be viewed from another three
angles: Functionalist, Inter-actionist, and Culture and personality.

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6.4.1. Functionalist View:
How Society Affects the Individual? What is the relation between individual and society?
Functionalists regard the individual as formed by society through the influence of such
institutions as the family, school and workplace. Early sociologists such as Herbert Spencer,
Emile Durkheim and even Karl Marx were functionalists, examined society as existing apart
from the individual. For Durkheim, society is reality; it is first in origin and importance to the
individual. Durkheim’s keen discussion of the collective consciousness showed the ways in
which social interactions and relationships and ultimately society influence the individual’s
attitudes, ideas and sentiments. He utilized his theory of “collective representation” in
explaining the phenomena of religion, suicide and the concept of social solidarity. In contrast
to Auguste Comte (known as father of sociology), who regarded the individual as a mere
abstraction, a somewhat more substantial position by Durkheim held that the individual was
the recipient of group influence and social heritage. In sociological circle, this was the “burning
question” (individual v/s society) of the day .How society is important in the formation of
individual’s person­ality is clearly reflected in the cases of isolated and feral children (children
who were raised in the company of animals such as bears and wolves). The studies of feral
children, referred to earlier, have clearly demonstrated the impor­tance of social interaction
and human association in the development of personality
.6.4.2. Inter-Actionist View: How Is Society Constructed?How an individual helps in building
society? For inter-actionists, it is through the interaction of the people that the society is
formed. The main champion of this approach was Max Weber (social action theorist), who
said that society is built up out of the interpretations of individuals. The structuralists (or
functionalists) tend to approach the relationship of self (individual) and society from the point
of the influence of society on the individual. Inter-actionists, on the other hand, tend to work
from self (individual) “outwards”, stressing that people create society. A prominent theorist of
the last century, Talcott Parsons developed a general theory for the study of society called
action theory, based on the methodological principle of voluntarism and the epistemological
principle of analytical realism. The theory attempted to establish a balance between two major
methodological traditions: the utilitarian-positivist and hermeneutic-idealistic traditions. For
Parsons, voluntarism established a third alternative between these two. More than a theory
of society, Parsons presented a theory of social evolution and a concrete interpretation of the
“drives” and directions of world history. He added that, the structure of society which
determines roles and norms, and the cultural system which determines the ultimate values of
ends. His theory was severely criticized by George Homans. In his Presidential address,
“bringing man back in”, Homans re-established the need to study individual social interactions,
the building blocks of society. A recent well-known theorist Anthony Giddens has not accepted
the idea of some sociologists that society has an existence over and above individuals. He
argues: “Human actions and their reactions are the only reality and we cannot regard societies
or systems as having an existence over and above individuals.” .

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6.4.3. Culture and Personality View: How Individual and Society Affect Each Other? Or How
Individual and Society Interacts? Both the above views are incomplete. In reality, it is not
society or individual but it is society and individual which helps in understanding the total
reality. The extreme view of individual or society has long been abandoned. Sociologists from
Cooley to the present have recognized that neither society nor the individual can exist without
each other. This view was laid down mainly by Margaret Mead, Kardiner and others who
maintained that society’s culture affects personality (individual) and, in turn, personality helps
in the formation of society’s culture. These anthropologists have studied how society shapes
or controls individuals and how, in turn, individuals create and change society. Thus, to
conclude, it can be stated that the relationship between society and individual is not one-
sided. Both are essential for the comprehension of either. Both go hand in hand, each is
essentially dependent on the other. Both are interdependent on each, other.The individual
should be subordinated to society and the individual should sacrifice their welfare at the cost
of society. Both these views are extreme which see the relationship between individual and
society from merely the one or the other side. But surely all is not harmonious between
individual and society. The individual and society interact on one another and depend on one
another. Social integration is never complete and harmonious.
7. Conclusion F. M. Anayet Hossain, Md. Korban Ali: The wellbeing of nations can occur at
the cost of the well-being of their citizens, and this seems to have happened in the past. Yet
in present day conditions, there is no such conflict. Society and individual are made mutually
dependent and responsible and mutually complementary. The result is that society
progresses well with the minimum possible restrictions on the individual. A very wide scope is
given to the natural development of the energies of the individual in such a manner that in the
end. Society will benefit the best by it. While society reaps the best advantage of the properly
utilized and developed energies of the individuals, an attempt is made to see that the normal
and sometimes even the abnormal weaknesses of the individuals have the least possible
effect on the society. Spirit of service and duty to the society is the ideal of the individual and
spirit of tolerance, broadmindedness and security of the individual is the worry of the society.
There is no rigid rule to develop the individual in a particular pattern suitable to the rules of
the society. Society demands greater sacrifices from its greater individuals while the fruits of
the works of all are meant equally for all. The general rule is: the higher the status and culture
of the individual are, the lesser his rights are and the greater his duties are. A sincere attempt
is made by the sociologists to bring to the minimum the clash between the individual and the
society, so that there will be few psychological problems for the individual and the society
both. The inherent capacities, energies and weaknesses of the individual are properly taken
into account and the evolution of the relation between the two is made as natural as possible.
Human values and idealism being given due respect, the development of the relation between
the two is more or less philosophical.

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2. Culture:
A culture is a way of life of a group of people--the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that
they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication
and imitation from one generation to the next.
Culture is symbolic communication. Some of its symbols include a group's skills, knowledge,
attitudes, values, and motives. The meanings of the symbols are learned and deliberately
perpetuated in a society through its institutions.
THEORY OF CULTURAL DETER MINISM
The position that the ideas, meanings, beliefs and values people learn as members of society
determines human nature. People are what they learn. Optimistic version of cultural determinism
place no limits on the abilities of human beings to do or to be whatever they want. Some
anthropologists suggest that there is no universal "right way" of being human. "Right way" is
almost always "our way"; that "our way" in one society almost never corresponds to "our way" in
any other society. Proper attitude of an informed human being could only be that of tolerance.
The optimistic version of this theory postulates that human nature being infinitely malleable,
human being can choose the ways of life they prefer.
The pessimistic version maintains that people are what they are conditioned to be; this is
something over which they have no control. Human beings are passive creatures and do whatever
their culture tells them to do. This explanation leads to behaviorism that locates the causes of
human behavior in a realm that is totally beyond human control.
CULTURAL RELATIVISM
Different cultural groups think, feel, and act differently. There is no scientific standards for
considering one group as intrinsically superior or inferior to another. Studying differences in
culture among groups and societies presupposes a position of cultural relativism. It does not imply
normalcy for oneself, nor for one's society. It, however, calls for judgment when dealing with
groups or societies different from one's own. Information about the nature of cultural differences
between societies, their roots, and their consequences should precede judgment and action.
Negotiation is more likely to succeed when the parties concerned understand the reasons for the
differences in viewpoints.
CULTURAL ETHNOCENTRISM
Ethnocentrism is the belief that one's own culture is superior to that of other cultures. It is a form
of reductionism that reduces the "other way" of life to a distorted version of one's own. This is
particularly important in case of global dealings when a company or an individual is imbued with
the idea that methods, materials, or ideas that worked in the home country will also work abroad.
Environmental differences are, therefore, ignored. Ethnocentrism, in relation to global dealings,
can be categorized as follows:
Important factors in business are overlooked because of the obsession with certain cause-effect
relationships in one's own country. It is always a good idea to refer to checklists of human

43. 43

variables in order to be assured that all major factors have been at least considered while working
abroad.
Even though one may recognize the environmental differences and problems associated with
change, but may focus only on achieving objectives related to the home-country. This may result
in the loss of effectiveness of a company or an individual in terms of international competitiveness.
The objectives set for global operations should also be global.
The differences are recognized, but it is assumed that associated changes are so basic that they
can be achieved effortlessly. It is always a good idea to perform a cost-benefit analysis of the
changes proposed. Sometimes a change may upset important values and thereby may face
resistance from being implemented. The cost of some changes may exceed the benefits derived
from the implementation of such changes.
MANIFESTATIONS OF CULTURE
Cultural differences manifest themselves in different ways and differing levels of depth. Symbols
represent the most superficial and values the deepest manifestations of culture, with heroes and
rituals in between.
Symbols are words, gestures, pictures, or objects that carry a particular meaning which is only
recognized by those who share a particular culture. New symbols easily develop, old ones
disappear. Symbols from one particular group are regularly copied by others. This is why symbols
represent the outermost layer of a culture.
Heroes are persons, past or present, real or fictitious, who possess characteristics that are highly
prized in a culture. They also serve as models for behavior.
Rituals are collective activities, sometimes superfluous in reaching desired objectives, but are
considered as socially essential. They are therefore carried out most of the times for their own
sake (ways of greetings, paying respect to others, religious and social ceremonies, etc.).
The core of a culture is formed by values. They are broad tendencies for preferences of certain
state of affairs to others (good-evil, right-wrong, natural-unnatural). Many values remain
unconscious to those who hold them. Therefore they often cannot be discussed, nor they can be
directly observed by others. Values can only be inferred from the way people act under different
circumstances.
Symbols, heroes, and rituals are the tangible or visual aspects of the practices of a culture. The
true cultural meaning of the practices is intangible; this is revealed only when the practices are
interpreted by the insiders.

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Figure 1. Manifestation of Culture at Different Levels of Depth
LAYERS OF CULTURE
People even within the same culture carry several layers of mental programming within
themselves. Different layers of culture exist at the following levels:
• The national level: Associated with the nation as a whole.
• The regional level: Associated with ethnic, linguistic, or religious differences that exist
within a nation.
• The gender level: Associated with gender differences (female vs. male)
• The generation level: Associated with the differences between grandparents and parents,
parents and children.
• The social class level: Associated with educational opportunities and differences in
occupation.
• The corporate level: Associated with the particular culture of an organization. Applicable
to those who are employed.

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