77lyan lectures:

1. Social connections and relationships, their system-forming role.

2. The concepts of social action and interaction as an expression of the dynamic characteristics of the social structure.

3. Theories of social interaction (interaction).

1. In the previous topics, the analysis of the social structure was associated with the identification of its main components, which are: a person (personality), family, group, team, community, organization and institution. The identification of these components helps to understand the nature of the "material" of which the social structure is composed. However, these elements do not represent some inert disparate material. Each element of the social structure is an example of a living, active, self-organizing and self-developing system that has internal and external connections, functions and relationships, thanks to which the structure of society acquires a living, dynamic character. Therefore, the analysis of the social structure involves the identification of not only its components, but also those connections, thanks to which this structure takes the form of a living, functioning, developing system. This side of the social structure is expressed by such concepts as "connection", "relationship", "relationship", "action", "interaction", revealing the mechanisms of social functioning, change and development. Let's consider these concepts in more detail.

Let's start with the most general concept, which is the concept of communication. This concept means the connection of the elements of the system into a single, holistic formation. Systems, as already noted, are divided into simple and complex, static and dynamic, organic and inorganic, natural and social. Any object of nature, society or technology is a complex connection of its constituent elements.

If it's about technical systems- machines and units, on the one hand, the presence of individual parts that make up the unit, and on the other hand, the elements connecting them (bolts, nuts, welding, gluing, cementing, etc.) clearly appear. With the same obviousness, this connection appears in biological objects, i.e. in living organisms, which consist of individual organs and their connecting elements (joints, tendons, muscles, etc.). From this point of view, society is no different from those listed above.

systems, it also represents a kind of organism with many interconnected elements. As a group of climbers is literally tied with a safety line, so people in a society are in a kind of connection with each other. True, this connection is special, it is not always amenable to direct observation. But it exists and must be taken into account when it comes to social structure.

So what is a social connection? In the most general terms, we can say that social connection is the connecting elements of the social structure that ensure the unity and systemic integrity of social objects from the family and the group to society, the state and humanity as a whole.

Society as an integral system is a complex combination various kinds connections between its constituent elements. First of all, these are economic ties, which, in turn, fall into production, financial, trade, consumer, etc. In addition, class-political, legal, cultural, technical and other ties that make up the complex structure of social relations are distinguished. In the broad sense of the word, all these connections can be called social. But there is a special type of social relations that has a proper social meaning - these are relations that develop between people in a family, in a neighborly or friendly team, in a production team, in a student group, in a military unit, in a sports team, in a crowd, in a national or racial union religious community, in a class clan, in an age cohort, etc.

In this regard, social communication acts as a set of special dependencies of some social subjects on others, their mutual relations that unite people into the corresponding social communities and associations.

The basis for the formation of a social connection is direct contact between people in one or another primary social community (family, group, brigade), which then develops into a wider indirect connection of people who make up large social associations, within which feelings of belonging to a group or intra-group solidarity are formed. (within, for example, a nation, class, estate, confession, etc.).

There is a certain set of factors that determine the nature of social ties. These factors are divided into natural-biological, psychological-rational and socio-institutional. Natural and biological are set by hereditary traits, i.e. the very fact of the birth of a person, which op-

determines its ethnic, national or racial characteristics, and at the same time the nature of the connecting elements.

Among the factors that unite people into appropriate groups and communities, phenomena of a psychological nature, such as, for example, a sense of community with other people, are of great importance. Based on the feeling of such a community, a feeling of love, affection, passion, trust, recognition of authority, altruism, concern for one's neighbor or the weak, etc., is born, which allows individuals to become an element of an integral system that functions according to its own laws.

Social ties reach their highest manifestation when they become beliefs, acquire the character of rational attitudes, which reflect the traditions, norms and ideals that have developed in society.

If the latter are formed spontaneously in society, determining the socio-cultural code of social development, then institutional norms are specially created (formal, written) rules (norms) that regulate social ties and relations in a special way, determining the procedure for the operation of social objects within a social institution and controlling them.

Considering all these factors, we can say that social ties are formal and informal, personal and collective, direct and indirect, stronger and less strong, direct and reverse, probabilistic and correlational, etc.

The subjects of social relations are not only individuals, but also their associations: family, group, collective, community, institution, etc., which also enter into complex relationships with each other. In this regard, we can talk about the ties between the city and the countryside, between education and culture, between philosophy and religion, between science and technology, between supporters of different faiths, about neighborly, business, friendly and other ties.

Social connection between individuals is realized as communication. Communication involves contacts. The latter have a physical and spiritual form of their manifestation. Physical contact is realized in such actions as shaking hands, kissing, hugging, performing marital functions, physical punishment, etc., that is, it is realized as a physical impact of one person on another. Physical contact is also realized in the cohabitation of family members, in the joint performance job duties within the primary labor collective, in joint participation in political and public actions, etc. 156

The spiritual form of contact is a sensual-emotional coloring of physical connections and then itself acts as a prerequisite for productive connections between people. A positive spiritual coloration strengthens social ties, a negative one destroys them.

A special binding material is language, which accompanies both physical and spiritual forms of contact. Considering the technical possibilities of transmitting linguistic and figurative information, we can assume that the scope of direct communication is expanding significantly, acquiring a truly planetary and even cosmic character.

Taking into account the fact that in society communications are not unidirectional, but reciprocal in nature, they are often expressed using the concept of "relationship", which expresses the mutual influence of objects on each other, their mutual conditionality. Schematically speaking, we can say that A affects B and B affects A.

Within the framework of the constant functioning of the social system, social connection and interconnection acquire the character of a social relationship, i.e. a person is not just connected with another person, but in a certain way relates to this person, evaluating him with a positive or negative side. For example, such a relationship as friendship implies the need for direct physical and verbal contacts, i.e. realized in the desire to meet, exchange news, play some games, etc., which ultimately leaves a pleasant impression. In the mind, friendship is preserved as a kind attitude of one person to another, as mutual respect, as confidence in the repetition of such contacts and the hope for help in difficult periods of life. Service communication between managers and subordinates is also expressed by the concept of attitude, they talk about service relations, formal or informal. Their relations are established between communities, institutions and organizations, in this case they speak of industrial relations, class relations, party relations, interfaith relations, etc.

Thus, the concepts of social connection, social interconnection and social relations mutually presuppose and complement each other. Sometimes their meanings are so close that they are used as synonyms. Meanwhile, they also have their own distinctive features. If the concepts of connection and interconnection denote the harmonious integrity of a social object, then the concept of relationship has both positive and negative meanings. Some relationships strengthen and integrate the social system, while others

are negative and disintegrate the system. These are the relations of friendship and enmity, love and hatred, altruism and selfishness, peacefulness and aggressiveness, tolerance (tolerance) and intolerance, equality and inequality, obedience and disobedience, etc. Therefore, we can say that the concept of social relations expresses the qualitative side of social relations. Thus, objective ties, interrelations and relationships act as a rallying, cementing force that unites individual elements of society into integral social systems.

The concepts of connection, interconnection and relationship, in addition, are closely related to the concepts of law and regularity. Considering the fact that connections are essential and non-essential, internal and external, general and particular, random and necessary, repetitive and non-repeating, we can single out those that allow us to formulate the concept of law, including social law. Such is the expression of the universal, necessary, essential connection of objects, phenomena and processes that reveal the functioning, change and development of social systems.

If the law expresses the deep essence of social phenomena and processes, then the concept of regularity reveals its external, empirically fixed form of manifestation.

Of the two types of laws (dynamic and statistical), the latter prevail in the description of social phenomena, because in the study of social processes and phenomena, most often one has to deal with mass objects, using statistical calculations and probabilistic conclusions.

The concept of social connection has become one of the main categories of sociology. With its help, experts even sought to determine the specifics of the very subject of this science. So, O. Comte tried to imagine social structure(statics) as a complex organism in which special ties are established from the family to the systems of religion and the state. Another founder of positivism, G. Spencer, tried to deduce the specifics of the militaristic and industrial types of society through the analysis of the system of social relations.

Representatives of psychological trends (for example, V. Pareto) saw the basis of social ties in the structure of instincts. E. Durkheim, seeking to classify the types of connections, singled out mechanical and organic solidarity as peculiar stages in the development of society from its traditional forms to an industrial society with its special manifestation of the division of labor.

Proponents of formal sociology, based on the allocation of different types of social ties, also sought to deduce different types uniting people and show their evolution from community to society.

This interest itself emphasizes the great meaning and categorical significance of the concept of social connection, without which it is generally impossible to get an idea of ​​how human society is organized, how it functions and develops.

2. Further characterizing the nature of social ties, it should be noted that they are based on social actions and interactions. The latter are interpreted in the sociological literature as a manifestation of human activity aimed at changing the behavior, attitudes, value system of an individual, group or community. So, M. Weber believed that sociology is a science that seeks to understand social actions and interactions and thereby causally explain social processes. At the same time, he calls social actions such actions that contain a subjective meaning and are focused on the actions of other people, i.e. interaction of subjects of social action is supposed.

In the theory of T. Parsons, social action is considered as a system in which the following elements are distinguished:

Actor (actor or subject of action);

Object (individual or community on which the action is directed);

The purpose of the action;

mode of action;

The result of the action (reaction of the object).

Bearing in mind the fact that the result of an action does not remain indifferent to the actor, but affects him in a certain way, social action also expands its meaning to the concept of interaction, often referred to as interaction.

Interaction begins at the level of two individuals (a kind of interaction atom) as carriers social statuses, it can also manifest itself as the interaction of an individual with a group or community, and at the macro level as the interaction of social communities, institutions and states.

Thus, social interaction is made up of individual acts, called social actions, and includes statuses (range of rights and obligations), roles, social relations, symbols and meanings (Kravchenko A.I; General Sociology. - M., 2001.-S. 205).

Specifically, interaction in society manifests itself as cooperation, competition and rivalry. It can be associated with conflict situations and with reasonable methods for their elimination.

Connections, relationships, actions and interactions are direct and indirect. It is the presence of the latter that makes it possible to consider all ties and relations (even such as those of production, and even more so political ones) as social relations, and by no means only those that are built in the order of exchange. For even when a person is chopping wood in the summer, and in this action, it would seem, there is nothing social, in fact, a deep social meaning is hidden in it, because. a person takes care of his household, about their life in winter conditions. Therefore, social action cannot be considered only as an act of direct interaction (interaction) of two individuals, it manifests itself in any action, the meaning of which is determined by the laws of coexistence. However, the analysis of interaction helps to reveal the internal mental mechanisms of social action and thereby show its human significance, the analysis of which acts as main task sociology.

Social actions and interactions seem so significant for the study of social structure that it is through them that the essence and subject of sociology as a science are determined. So, M. Weber believes that sociology is a science that seeks, interpreting, to understand social action and thereby causally explain its process and impact (Weber M. Selected Works. -M, 1990.-S. 602).

Similarly defines the subject of sociology and P. Sorokin, who believes that sociology studies the phenomena of interaction between people with each other, on the one hand, and the phenomena arising from this process of interaction, on the other.

3. Theories of social interaction (interaction) developed mainly within the framework of American sociological thought, in which the ideas of utilitarianism, pragmatism and behaviorism were strong. The behaviorist principle of "stimulus-response" was given a broad sociological meaning. Stimulus and reaction began to be considered in the aspect of human action and interaction, when one person (or group), acting on another, expects a certain positive reaction from the latter. The classical theories of this trend include the theory of "mirror self", symbolic interactionism and the theory of exchange. Let's consider them in more detail.

The theory of "mirror self". The founder of this theory is the American sociologist and social psychologist C. Cooley (1864 -1929), who in his works "Human nature and social order", "Social organization", "Social process", "Sociological theory and social research" outlined his vision of social structure, the essence of which is well expressed by a poetic line from Goethe's work: "Only in people can one know oneself." From the point of view of this author, society, group and individual are united into a kind of super-integrity. Society and the individual are not parts of the whole, but different sides, different manifestations of the whole. Society is a cumulative (rather than summative) aspect of integrity, an individual is a discrete essence of the whole. As the ancients said - everything is small and small in everything.

The integrity of society, group and individual is determined by such metaphysical concepts as "big consciousness", "human life", "social integrity", "social self".

An important system-forming category is the exchange of consciousness (information) between individuals. This exchange is achieved in the process of socialization of the individual within the framework of small group, i.e. a group in which direct contact between people is realized. This is, first of all, a family, a neighborhood community, within which a person begins to form with his subsequent inclusion in various social structures (organizations and institutions).

In the process of socialization, the transformation of individual consciousness into a collective mind takes place with the assimilation of social norms and a reassessment of one's personality from the position of perception by others, i.e. the transition from intuitive "self-awareness" to "social feelings" is carried out. A person looks at another person, as if in a special mirror, and sees his own reflection in it.

Moreover, this reflection does not always coincide with a person's own assessment. Socialization, according to Ch. Cooley, means the need to harmonize assessment and self-esteem, the transformation of the individual "I" into a collective "I". From this follows the conclusion that the individual nature of a person acquires social meaning only in communication, in interpersonal circulation within the primary group. The “social self” is the mental element that passes through specific people from society into the individual, embedding it into the social structure, turns the personal “I” into the social “I”. At the same time, a special role is given to the feeling of "appropriation", which is realized in a person's life from the elementary appropriation of things (as objects of property) to

appropriation of mental objects, i.e. appropriation of other people's opinions about themselves. In this regard, C. Cooley writes: “The self manifests itself most prominently in the appropriation of objects of general desire by the corresponding individual need for power over such objects in order to ensure one’s own development, as well as the threat of opposition from other people who also feel the need for them. This applies not only to material objects, but also implies the desire to capture the attention and affection of other people in the same way. And further this thought is expressed even more succinctly: "The feeling of appropriation is always, so to speak, the shadow of social life."

This appropriation by a person of the opinions of others about himself is the dominant part of his socialized "I", which determines the structure of the personality, its interaction with other people within the framework of the social self, within the framework of the primary social collective.

The peculiarity of direct interaction within the framework of a small group is that in it there is a “meeting” of individual and social consciousness, individual “I” and “social self”, moral norms and social traditions are born and transmitted. Given the fact that in the theory of "mirror self" the concept of "appropriation" is the key term, this theory could also be called the "theory of appropriation" by analogy with the theory of exchange. The main ideas of this idea were developed in the theories of symbolic interactionism.

society political power social

System analysis of public life

Throughout the history of sociology, one of its most important problems has been the problem: what is a society? Sociology of all times and peoples has tried to answer the questions: how is the existence of society possible? What are the mechanisms of social integration that ensure social order, despite the huge variety of interests of individuals and social groups? Consideration of this problem is our task in this topic.

Let's start with how sociology interprets the concept of "society". E. Durkheim considered society as a supra-individual spiritual reality based on collective ideas. According to M. Weber, society is the interaction of people, which is the product of social, that is, other people-oriented actions. The prominent American sociologist T. Parsons defined society as a system of relations between people, the connecting beginning of which are norms and values. From the point of view of K. Marx, society is a historically developing set of relations between people that develop in the process of their joint activities.

It is obvious that in all these definitions, to one degree or another, an approach is expressed to society as an integral system of elements that are in a state of close interconnection. This approach to society is called systemic. The main task systems approach in the study of society is to combine various knowledge about society into a coherent system that could become a theory of society.

Consider the basic principles of a systematic approach to society. To do this, it is necessary to define the basic concepts. System- this is a certain way ordered set of elements interconnected and forming some integral unity. The internal nature, the content side of any integral system, the material basis of its organization is determined by the composition, the set of elements.

The social system is a holistic formation, the main element of which are people, their connections, interactions and relationships. These connections, interactions and relationships are stable and are reproduced in the historical process, passing from generation to generation.

social connection is a set of facts that determine joint activities in specific communities at specific times to achieve certain goals. Social ties are established not at the whim of people, but objectively. The establishment of these connections is dictated social conditions, in which individuals live and act. The essence of social ties is manifested in the content and nature of the actions of people who make up this social community. Sociologists single out connections of interaction, relations, control, institutional, etc.

social interaction is a process in which people act and are affected by each other. The mechanism of social interaction includes individuals who perform certain actions, changes in the social community or society as a whole caused by these actions, the impact of these changes on other individuals that make up the social community, and, finally, the feedback of individuals. Interaction leads to the formation of new social relations. social relations-- these are relatively stable and independent ties between individuals and social groups.

So, society is made up of many individuals, their social connections, interactions and relationships. But is it possible to consider society as a simple sum of individuals, their connections, interactions and relationships? Supporters of a systematic approach to the analysis of society answer: "No." From their point of view, society is not a summative, but an integral system. This means that at the level of society, individual actions, connections and relationships form a new, systemic quality. System quality-- this is a special qualitative state, which cannot be considered as a simple sum of elements. Public interactions and relations are supra-individual, transpersonal in nature, that is, society is some kind of independent substance, which is primary in relation to individuals. Each individual, being born, finds a certain structure of connections and relations, and in the process of socialization is included in it. Due to what is this integrity, that is, systemic quality, achieved?

A holistic system has many connections, interactions and relationships. The most typical are correlative connections, interactions and relationships, including the coordination and subordination of elements. Coordination- this is a certain consistency of elements, that special nature of their mutual dependence, which ensures the preservation of an integral system. Subordination - this is subordination and subordination, indicating a special specific place, the unequal significance of elements in an integral system.

So, as a result, society becomes an integral system with qualities that none of the elements included in it separately have. Due to its integral qualities social system acquires a certain independence in relation to its constituent elements, a relatively independent way of its development.

social connection is a set of conscious or unconscious, necessary and random, stable and spontaneous dependencies of some social subjects on others. To the greatest extent, social ties are manifested in various kinds of adaptive behavior of people, taking into account the norms and values ​​recognized by the group. A high degree of manifestation of social ties is an activity undertaken by people taking into account the needs of others, especially when it does not correspond to the personal interests of the acting people.

Now we will move on to further analysis and raise questions about what is happening between people, between individuals, how connections and dependencies arise between them, how associations appear that unite people into stable communities. Communicating with peers, relatives, acquaintances, with random fellow travelers, each person carries out certain social interactions.

Spatial contact is the initial and necessary link in the formation social relationships. Knowing where people are and how many there are, and even more so observing them visually, a person can choose an object for further development of relationships based on their needs and interests.

Contacts can be:

v transient or persistent, depending on their frequency and duration;

v personal and material;

v direct and indirect.

In the process of social interaction is produced:

ü perception each other's people;

ü mutual evaluation each other;

ü joint action - cooperation, rivalry, conflict, etc.

Let us give a definition of social interaction: social interaction is a system of socially conditioned individual and/or group actions connected by mutual causal dependence, in which the behavior of one of the participants is both a stimulus and a reaction to the behavior of the others.

There are four main features of interaction:

1) objectivity- the presence of an external in relation to interacting individuals or groups of goals, reasons, objects, etc., which encourage them to interact;

2) situationality- a fairly strict regulation of interaction with the specific conditions of the situation in which this process takes place: the behavior of friends at work, in the theater, at the stadium, at a country picnic is significantly different;

3) explication- availability for an outside observer of the external expression of the interaction process, whether it is work at a factory, a game or dancing;

4) Reflective polysemy- the possibility for interaction to be a manifestation of both the main subjective intentions, and an unconscious or conscious consequence of the joint participation of people in interindividual or group activities (for example, teamwork).

Big role in the implementation of interactions the system plays mutual expectations presented by individuals and social groups to each other before performing social actions. Such expectations can be episodic and vague in the case of short-term interactions, say, with a single date, a casual and non-recurring meeting, but can also be stable in frequently repeated or role-playing interactions.

If an interaction is a bidirectional exchange of actions between two or more individuals, then an action is just a one-way interaction. Action can be divided into four types:

1. physical action, for example: a slap in the face, handing over a book, writing on paper;

2. verbal or verbal action, for example: insult, greeting - "hello";

3. gestures as a kind of action: a smile, a raised finger, a handshake;

4. mental action, which is expressed only in inner speech.

Of the four types of action, the first three are external, and the fourth - internal. Examples that reinforce each type of action correspond to the criteria of social action by M. Weber: they are meaningful, motivated, oriented towards the other.

Social interaction is based on social statuses and roles. Hence the second typology of social interaction (by spheres):

The economic sphere, where individuals act as owners and employees, entrepreneurs, rentiers, capitalists, businessmen, unemployed, housewives;

Professional area where individuals participate as drivers, bankers, professors, miners, cooks;

Family-related sphere, where people act as fathers, mothers, sons, cousins, grandmothers, uncles, aunts, godfathers, sworn brothers, bachelors, widows, newlyweds;

Demographic sphere, including contacts between representatives of different sexes, ages, nationalities and races (nationality is also included in the concept of interethnic interaction);

The political sphere, where people oppose or cooperate as representatives of political parties, popular fronts, social movements, as well as subjects state power: judges, policemen, juries, diplomats, etc.;

The religious sphere implies contacts between representatives of different religions, one religion, as well as believers and non-believers, if the content of their actions relate to the area of ​​religion;

Territorial-settlement sphere - clashes, cooperation, competition between local and newcomers, urban and rural, temporarily and permanently residing emigrants, immigrants and migrants.

Thus, the first typology of social interaction is based on types of action, the second - on status systems.

Any interaction is exchange. You can exchange anything: signs of attention, words, gestures, symbols, material objects. Perhaps you will not find anything that could not serve as a medium of exchange. Thus, money, with which we usually have an exchange process, is far from the first place.

According to the exchange theory George Homans (1910-1989), the behavior of a person at the present moment is determined by whether and how exactly his actions were rewarded in the past. He brought out the following exchange principles: 1) the higher the act is rewarded, the more often it is repeated; 2) if in the past in certain situation there was a reward, people tend to create such a situation again; 3) the greater the reward, the more people are willing to expend effort to receive it; 4) when a person's needs are almost completely satisfied, he is less eager to make efforts to satisfy them. social behavior is an exchange of activities, tangible or intangible, more or less rewarding or costly, between at least two persons. Subinstitutional behavior is real behavior in institutional structures, elementary social behavior is the actual behavior of people in direct contact with each other, where each directly and directly rewards or punishes the other.

Elementary social behavior:

§ socially (orientation to another person);

§ directly (face-to-face);

§ really (this is real behavior, not the norm of behavior);

§ implies social norms, which, however, cannot cover all situations of interaction (role and role performance).

social interaction

The starting point for the emergence of a social connection is the interaction of individuals or groups of individuals to meet certain needs.

Interaction - it is any behavior of an individual or a group of individuals that is significant for other individuals and groups of individuals or society as a whole at the present moment and in the future. The category "interaction" expresses the content and nature of relations between individuals and social groups as constant carriers of qualitatively different types of activities, differing in social positions (statuses) and roles (functions). No matter in which sphere of the life of society (economic, political, etc.) interaction takes place, it is always social in nature, as it expresses the connections between individuals and groups of individuals, connections mediated by goals that each of the interacting parties haunts.

Social interaction has an objective and subjective side. The objective side of interaction- these are connections independent of individuals, but mediating and controlling the content and nature of their interaction. The subjective side of interaction - this is a conscious attitude of individuals to each other, based on mutual expectations (expectations) of the corresponding behavior. These are interpersonal (or, more broadly, socio-psychological) relations, which are direct connections and relationships between individuals that develop under specific conditions of place and time.

Mechanism of social interaction includes: individuals who perform certain actions; changes in the outside world caused by these actions; the impact of these changes on other individuals; feedback from affected individuals.

Under the influence of Simmel and especially Sorokin, interaction in his subjective interpretation was accepted as the initial concept of group theory, and then became the initial concept of American sociology. As Sorokin wrote: “The interaction of two or more individuals is a generic concept of a social phenomenon: it can serve as a model for the latter. By studying the structure of this model, we can also understand the structure of all social phenomena. Having decomposed the interaction into its component parts, we will thereby decompose the most complex social phenomena into parts. “The subject of sociology,” says one of the American teaching aids according to sociology, is direct verbal and non-verbal interaction. The main task of sociology is to achieve a systematic knowledge of social rhetoric. The interview as a form of rhetoric is not just a sociological tool, but part of its subject matter.”

However, in and of itself, social interaction still explains absolutely nothing. In order to understand the interaction, it is necessary to clarify the properties of the interacting forces, and these properties cannot find an explanation in the fact of interactions, no matter how they change due to it. The very fact of interaction does not add knowledge. Everything depends on the individual and social properties and qualities of the interacting parties. That is why the main thing in social interaction is content side. In modern Western European and American sociology, this side of social interaction is considered mainly from the standpoint of symbolic interactionism and ethnomstodology. In the first case, any social phenomenon appears as a direct interaction of people, carried out on the basis of the perception and use of common symbols, meanings, etc.; as a result, the object of social cognition is considered as a set of symbols of the human environment included in a certain "behavioral situation". In the second case, social reality is seen as "a process of interaction based on everyday experience."

Everyday experience, the meanings and symbols that govern the interacting individuals, impart to their interaction, and it cannot be otherwise, a certain quality. But in this case, the main qualitative side of interaction remains aside - those real social phenomena and processes that appear for people in the form of meanings, symbols, everyday experience.

As a result, social reality and its constituent social objects act as a chaos of mutual actions based on the "interpreting role" of the individual in "defining the situation" or on ordinary consciousness. Without denying the semantic, symbolic and other aspects of the process of social interaction, it must be recognized that its genetic source is labor, material production, and the economy. In turn, everything derived from the basis can and does have an inverse effect on the basis.

Way of interaction

The way in which an individual interacts with other individuals and social environment as a whole determines the "refraction" of social norms and values ​​through the consciousness of the individual and his real actions based on the comprehension of these norms and values.

The interaction method includes six aspects: 1) information transfer; 2) obtaining information; 3) reaction to the received information; 4) processed information; 5) receiving processed information; 6) reaction to this information.

social relations

Interaction leads to the establishment of social relationships. Social relations are relatively stable links between individuals (as a result of which they are institutionalized into social groups) and social groups as constant carriers of qualitatively different types of activities, differing in social status and roles in social structures.

Social communities

Social communities are characterized by: the presence of living conditions (socio-economic, social status, vocational training and education, interests and needs, etc.) common to a given group of interacting individuals (social categories); the mode of interaction of a given set of individuals (nations, social classes, socio-professional groups, etc.), i.e., a social group; belonging to historically established territorial associations (city, village, settlement), i.e., territorial communities; the degree of limitation of the functioning of social groups by a strictly defined system of social norms and values, the belonging of the studied group of interacting individuals to certain social institutions (family, education, science, etc.).

Formation of social relations

Social interaction is an invariable and constant companion of a person who lives among people and is forced to constantly enter into a complex network of relationships with them. Gradually emerging connections take the form of permanent ones and turn into social relations- conscious and sensually perceived sets of repetitive interactions, correlated in their meaning with each other and characterized by appropriate behavior. Social relations are, as it were, refracted through the internal content (or state) of a person and are expressed in his activity as personal relations.

Social relations are extremely diverse in form and content. Each person in his own way personal experience knows that relationships with others develop in different ways, that this world of relationships contains a motley palette of feelings - from love and irresistible sympathy to hatred, contempt, hostility. Fiction, as a good assistant to the sociologist, reflects in its works the inexhaustible richness of the world of social relations.

Classifying social relations, they are primarily divided into unilateral and reciprocal. One-sided social relations exist when partners perceive and evaluate each other differently.

One-sided relationships are quite common. A person experiences a feeling of love for another and assumes that his partner also experiences a similar feeling, and orients his behavior towards this expectation. However, when, for example, a young man proposes to a girl, he may unexpectedly receive a refusal. A classic example of one-sided social relations is the relationship between Christ and the apostle Jude, who betrayed the teacher. World and domestic fiction will give us many examples of tragic situations associated with one-sided relationships: Othello - Iago, Mozart - Salieri, etc.

The social relations that arise and exist in human society are so diverse that it is advisable to consider any one of their aspects, based on a certain system of values ​​and the activity of individuals aimed at achieving it. Recall that in sociology values understand the views and beliefs shared by any community regarding the goals to which people aspire. Social interactions become social relationships precisely because of the values ​​that individuals and groups of people would like to achieve. Thus, values ​​are necessary condition social relations.

To determine the relationship of individuals, two indicators are used:

• value expectations (expectations), which characterize satisfaction with a value model;
• value requirements that an individual puts forward in the process of distributing values.

The real possibility of achieving one or another value position is value potential. Often it remains only a possibility, since the individual or group does not take active steps to occupy more value-attractive positions.

Conventionally, all values ​​are divided as follows:

• welfare values, including material and spiritual benefits, without which it is impossible to maintain the normal life of individuals - wealth, health, safety, professional excellence;
• all others - power as the most universal value, since the possession of it allows you to acquire other values ​​(respect, status, prestige, fame, reputation), moral values ​​(justice, kindness, decency, etc.); love and friendship; also distinguish national values, ideological, etc.

Among the social relations are the relations social dependency, for they are present to varying degrees in every other respect. Social dependence is a social relationship in which the social system S1, (individual, group or social institution) cannot perform the social actions necessary for it d1 if the social system S 2 take no action d2. At the same time, the system S 2 is called dominant, and the system S 1 - dependent.

Suppose the mayor of the city of Los Angeles cannot pay wages public utilities until the money is allocated to him by the governor of California, who manages these funds. In this case, the mayor's office is a dependent system, and the governor's administration is seen as the dominant system. In practice, dual interdependence often occurs. Thus, the population of an American city depends on the head in terms of the distribution of funds, but the mayor also depends on voters who may not elect him for new term. The line of behavior of the dependent system must be predictable for the dominant system in the area that concerns dependency relationships.

Social dependence is also based on the difference in status in the group, which is typical for organizations. Thus, individuals of low status are dependent on individuals or groups that are of higher status; subordinates depend on the leader. Dependence arises from differences in the possession of meaningful values ​​regardless of official status. For example, a leader may be financially dependent on a subordinate from whom he has borrowed a large amount of money. Latent, i.e. hidden, dependencies play an important role in the life of organizations, teams, groups.

Often in an organization, the leader relies in everything on the opinion of a relative working here, in order to please him, erroneous decisions are often made from the point of view of the interests of the organization, for which the whole team then pays. In the old vaudeville "Lev Gurych Sinichkin", the question of who will play the main role in the premiere performance instead of the ill actress can only be decided by the main "patron" of the theater (Count Zefirov). Cardinal Richelieu effectively ruled France instead of the king. Sometimes a sociologist, in order to understand conflict situation in the team where he was invited as an expert, one must begin with the search for a "grey eminence" - an informal leader who actually has real influence in the organization.

power relations are of the greatest interest among researchers of social dependence. Power as the ability of some to control the actions of others is of decisive importance in the life of a person and society, but so far scientists have not developed a consensus on how power relations are carried out. Some (M. Weber) believe that power is associated primarily with the ability to control the actions of others and overcome their resistance to this control. Others (T. Parsons) proceed from the fact that power must first of all be legalized, then the personal position of the leader makes others obey him, despite personal qualities leader and subordinates. Both points of view have the right to exist. Thus, the emergence of a new political party begins with the fact that there is a leader who has the ability to unite people, create an organization and begin to lead it.

If the power is legalized (legitimate), people obey it as a force, resisting which is useless and unsafe.

In society, there are other, not legalized aspects of the manifestation of power dependence. The interaction of people at the personal level often leads to the emergence of power relations, paradoxical and inexplicable from the point of view of common sense. A person of his own free will, not urged on by anyone, becomes a supporter of exotic sects, sometimes a real slave to his passions, which make him break the law, decide to kill or commit suicide. The irresistible attraction to gambling can deprive a person of his livelihood, but he again and again returns to roulette or cards.

Thus, in a number of spheres of life, constantly recurring interactions gradually acquire a stable, orderly, predictable character. In the process of such ordering, special connections are formed, called social relations. Social relations - these are stable ties that arise between social groups and within them in the process of material (economic) and spiritual (legal, cultural) activities.

Social contacts.

social actions.

Social interactions.

social relations

1. Social ties are connections between the interaction of individuals and groups of individuals pursuing certain social goals in specific conditions of place and time.

Social ties can express the relationship between two or more social phenomena and features of these phenomena.

The starting point for the emergence of social ties is the interaction of individuals or their groups to meet certain needs. The social connections of individuals and their groups, based on a system of social statuses and social roles, social norms and values, form a social organization.

Social connections are different: from fleeting short-term contacts to persistent long-term relationships.

Circumstances confront each person with many individuals. In accordance with his needs and interests, a person selects from this set those with whom he then enters into complex interactions. This selection work is a special type of fleeting short-term connections, which are called contacts. There are several types of contacts:

Spatial contacts. In order to interact with other individuals, each member of a society or social group must first determine where these individuals are and how many there are. Each of us daily encounters many people in transport, at the stadium, at work.

N.N. Obozov identified 2 types of spatial contacts:

supposed spatial contact, when a person's behavior changes due to the assumption of the presence of individuals in some place.

visual spatial contact, when the individual's behavior changes under the influence of visual observation of other people.

Contacts of interest. Their essence lies in the choice of a social object that has certain values ​​or features that correspond to the needs of a given individual. The contact of interest can be interrupted or prolonged depending on many factors, but, first of all, on the strength and importance for the personality of the actualized motive and, accordingly, the strength of interest; the degree of reciprocity of interests, the degree of awareness of one's interest; environment. In contacts of interest, unique individual personality traits are manifested, as well as features of the social groups to which it belongs.

Exchange contact. Continuing to deepen and develop social ties, individuals begin to enter into short-term contacts, during which they exchange some values. Exchange contacts are a specific type of social relationship in which individuals exchange values ​​without having the desire to change the behavior of other individuals. Every day a person has a lot of exchange contacts: he buys tickets for transport, exchanges remarks with passengers in the subway, asks how to find any institution, etc. Social contacts are the basis of group-forming processes, the first step in the formation of social groups.

3. The concept of "social action" is one of the central ones in sociology. For the first time in sociology, the concept of "social action" was introduced and substantiated by Max Weber. He called social action “the action of a person (regardless of whether it is external or internal, whether it comes down to non-intervention or patient acceptance), which, according to the meaning assumed by the actor, correlates with the action of other people or is oriented towards him.” In Weber's understanding, social action has 2 features: it must be, firstly, rational, conscious, and, secondly, focused on the behavior of other people.

Any social action is preceded by social contacts, but unlike them, social action is a rather complex phenomenon, which includes:

actor;

the need to activate behavior;

the purpose of the action;

action method;

another actor to whom the action is directed;

action result.

Social actions, unlike reflexive, impulsive actions, are never instantaneous. Before they are committed, a fairly stable impulse to activity must arise in the mind of any acting individual. This drive is called motivation. Motivation is a set of factors, mechanisms and processes that ensure the emergence of an incentive to achieve the goals necessary for an individual, in other words, motivation is a force that pushes an individual to perform certain actions. Any social action begins with the emergence of a need in an individual. Each social action is performed as a result of some subjective activity that forms motivation.

4. The starting point for the emergence of a social connection is the interaction of individuals or groups of individuals to meet certain needs.

What is social interaction? Obviously, when performing social actions, each person experiences the action of others. There is an exchange of actions, or social interaction. Social interaction is understood as a system of interdependent social actions associated with a cyclic causal dependence, in which the actions of one subject are both the cause and effect of the response actions of other subjects. This means that each social action is caused by the previous social action and at the same time is the cause of subsequent actions. Thus, social actions are links in an inextricable chain called interaction.

The mechanism of social interaction includes: individuals performing certain actions; changes in the outside world caused by these actions; the impact of these changes on other individuals and, finally, the feedback of individuals who were affected.

Interaction is a certain system of actions of one party in relation to the other and vice versa. The purpose of these actions is to somehow influence the behavior of the other side, which in turn responds in kind, otherwise it would not be an interaction. Interaction is the real content of the life of the group, the basis of all group phenomena and processes. Interaction between individuals is one of the ways of manifestation of the functioning of society, the result of these interactions is society.

One of the models of interaction between individuals is social exchange. In the social field, as it were, they exchange behavior. Behavioral events contain certain values ​​that provide participants in social interaction with a gain or loss in achieving desired material goals or desired status. In a divided society, people exchange the results of their labor among themselves and thus enter into a lively social exchange.

With a view to a winning social exchange, people are happy to come into contact with those individuals or groups who can be useful in achieving their goals. According to the theory of social exchange, attraction to a person or group increases to the extent that this contributes to the achievement of the goal. An important motive for interaction can also be the phenomenon of social comparability: a person tries to analyze and evaluate his abilities and successes in comparison with others. The motives of interaction, of course, can be both attraction and sympathy for another.

For social exchange, good prerequisites are created by competence, which means the possession of resources, i.e., power reserves. In this aspect, interaction can be understood as a social ability determined by social intelligence and social competence. Observation of the situation and response is an important part of the interaction: the analysis of the previous situation determines the subsequent stages of progress in the process of interaction.

The most obvious form of social interaction is communication by means of a socially accepted system of symbols. One of the most important symbol systems that provides the possibility of communication is, of course, language. There is an opinion that people do not react to each other's actions and deeds as such, but only to their meaning, just as a person in the course of communication weighs the statements of the interlocutor regarding his own activities, qualities, etc., and regards them in the light of his expectations.

5. Social relations are various interactions regulated by social norms between two or more people, each of which has a social position and performs a social role.

Sociologists believe public relations the highest form of social phenomena in comparison with behavior, action, social behavior, social action and social interaction.

It can be argued that social relations arise:

Between people as part of a social group;

Between groups of people;

Between individuals and groups of people.

Despite the fact that the term "social relations" is widely used, but scientists have not yet come to a common conclusion about the concept of social relations. There are such definitions:

Social relations (social relations) - the relationship of people to each other, developing in historically defined social forms, in specific conditions of place and time.

Public relations (social relations) - relations between social subjects regarding their equality and social justice in the distribution of life's benefits, the conditions for the formation and development of the individual, the satisfaction of material, social and spiritual needs.

There are several classifications of social relations. In particular, there are:

class relations;

National relations;

ethnic relations;

Group relations;

Personal social relations;

Social relations develop in all spheres of public life.