Social conflict theory. Conflict theory is an extension of the sociological theory that discusses various social issues leading to conflict in any society. Numerous theorists worked on different issues and provided their conflict theory, which is directly or indirectly related to the society. Conflict theory was elaborated, for instance, in Britain by M. Gluckman and J. Rex, in the USA by Ch. Mills, L. Coser and R. Collins, and in Germany (later the UK) by R. Dahrendorf, all of them being more or less influenced by K. Marx, L. Gumplovicz, V. Pareto, G. Simmel and other founder fathers of European sociology.
Social conflict is a confrontation of social powers. So, conflict theory is related to the society and organization whereby each individual participates with his group in the struggle to maximize its benefit to bring any social change in the society. Such changes include political change, social change or revolutions. Hence conflict theory is best applied to explain the conflicts between social classes and clash of ideologies within the society like socialism. The theory attempts to refute functionalism that considers societies and organizations function harmoniously so that each individual and group plays a specific role, like organs in the body.
Modern conflict theory is built on three assumptions which are the basic elements of conflict within a class society:
· interests commonly presented in various groups of the society,
· power that develops inequalities and leads to coercion among various groups of the society,
· coercion related to the unequal distribution of resources within various classes of the society that develops different power groups. This aspect is related to the clash of ideologies and conflicting values among various classes of the society.
Charles Mills (1916-1962), a professor of Columbia University, is the one who elaborated the methodological principles of conflict theory. In his works, The Power Elite (1956), The Sociological Imagination (1959) Ch. Mills was especially critical of structural functionalism because it rejected the idea of antagonism, rebel, revolution, and suggested the idea that harmony of interests was natural for any society. He didn’t deny that order, stability, harmony are needed by a class in power but social life is full of both disorders and conflicts, and is always instable. He considered social conflict as struggle for social power, values and status benefits, struggle whereby the opposite side tries not only to acquire benefits but neutralize or even liquidate the opponent. Its basic functions are seen in integration of the social structure, maintenance of solidarity within the group, strengthening of relations between humans and governing of social changes. In other words, Ch. Mills considers social conflict a natural component of the social organism.
Another elaborator of social conflict Lewis Coser (1913-2003) put forward the goal of making structural functionalism deeper and more perfect. In contrast to classical theorists of the functional approach who analyze harmony, not conflict, L. Coser proves that conflicts and confrontations are products of the internal life of the society and order of things and relations between people and groups existing in this society. If functionalists see in conflict a manifestation of disorder in the society, L. Coser makes a focus on its positive functions trying to show its integrative and stabilizing role there. He believes that taking place in the society struggle of interests on redistribution of means of production, public wealth and share of this wealth, bears a positive character. Thus, in his theory conflicts perform a number of positive functions which are described in the book, The Functions of Social Conflict (1956). For example, conflict within a group frequently helps to resolve tension between antagonists, revitalize existent norms; or it contributes to the emergence of new norms or it may help to establish unity or re-establish unity and cohesion where it has been threatened by hostile and antagonistic feelings among the members.
Another contribution into development of conflict theory was made by Ralf Dahrendorf (born in 1929), a German-British sociologist. His theory is deeply rooted in the Marxist theory but it is also an extension according to the contemporary sociological theory of class and class conflict in an industrial society.
R. Dahrendorf assumes that various elements of the society directly or indirectly participate in conflicts of any society, so conflicts exist between these elements of the society. Therefore, social change is ubiquitous that instigates conflicts between different classes and among various elements of the society. So his theory states that conflict occurs in every society and class but the roots of conflict in any society or class lies in integration. When two groups or classes are living in a society, they cohere either due to a clash of interests, ideologies or any other reason. This ultimately results in conflict within a society.
On the other hand, when two groups or classes integrate in the society, one becomes dominant over the other due to the unequal distribution of resources. This results into difference of division of power and authority. So the powerful and the weak become principle conflicting groups, and this stimulates conflict among classes.
R. Dahrendorf asserted that conflict can be regulated through negotiations, mediation, arbitrage etc. The acuteness of the conflict and efficiency of its regulation depend on the type of the social structure and level of its openness. A democratic, open, highly mobile society is most adequate for the regulation of conflicts as in such a society conflicts are extremely formalized.
Although conflict theory of R. Dahrendorf is depicted from the Marxist theory of class struggle which relates to the class conflict in an industrialized society, his theory differs from the theory of K. Marx in many aspects. For instance, R. Dahrendorf disagrees to the principle that economic interests are the only interests among classes in the industrialized society that lead to a conflict. He does not agree either that revolution is the only way to abolish a class conflict. Moreover, he does not believe that the upper class is the only class that owns and controls the means of production of any society.
Therefore, R. Dahrendorf believes in a system where managers belonging to various classes of the society actually control economy of various industries and business corporations. At the same time, he believes that in modern society economic division of power is altered due to unequal distribution of resources, and that allows the middle class to grow side by side. This is basically a result from changing trends of globalization and regionalism.
Social psychology is a sub-discipline of both sociology and psychology. If sociology deals with social categories and groups, psychology – with individuals, social psychology involves the intersection of the social and the individual where the individual is influenced by the social and, in turn, interacts with the social and influences on it as well.
Another way of looking at social psychology is that it is the study of how micro- and macro-social phenomena – the individual and society – interact. Social psychology tries to answer the following questions: How does an individual develop his self-concept or personality? Or, how do social situations affect the way a person thinks or acts?
Two of the many perspectives in social psychological thought are symbolic interaction and social exchange. Such perspectives are of importance because they are based on the assumption that people, in order to meet their basic needs and fulfill their desires, must interact with others in the process of social exchanges. For example, very few people produce the food they eat but obtain it in exchange for goods, services, and money they provide through a network of others in roles and organizations that specialize in one or another aspect of food production and distribution. Without these complex, interdependent social exchanges most of people would starve. From the symbolic interaction and social exchange perspectives in social psychology, one might say that individuals are able to interact – and indeed must interact with each other as individuals and as members of social groups – through shared meanings and values that they learn. They also play various social roles in the process of social exchanges with others.
Symbolic interactionism, or theory of symbolic interaction, has a long intellectual history, beginning with the German sociologist and economist Max Weber and American philosophers Charles Cooley (1864-1929)and George Mead (1863-1931), who emphasized the subjective meaning of human behaviour, the social process and pragmatism. It was later developed by Herbert Blumer, who is responsible for coining the term, “symbolic interactionism”, as well as for formulating the most prominent version of the theory. It also continues to develop and grow popular today.
Symbolic interactionism explains how individuals are socialized through social interactions with others. In the process of developing a self, or personality, language and other symbols and values become meaningful through social interaction with significant others, primary groups, reference groups and generalized others. Through this process of interactions, individuals also learn roles that they play as they act in their social groups and in the larger society. For instance, if a lecturer sees a student’s raised hand, he interpret it as a sign to stop the lecture and get to know whether the student wants to ask a question on the issue or ask for permission to leave the class. Somebody’s raised hand in another situation or in another culture may be interpreted in a different way.
For interactionists, humans are pragmatic actors who must continually adjust their behaviour to the actions of other actors. We can adjust to these actions only because we are able to interpret them, i.e., to denote them symbolically and treat the actions and those who perform them as symbolic objects.
The social exchange perspective complements symbolic interaction but emphasizes the exchanges that cohere individuals with each other and with groups. It has been influenced by many including B. F. Skinner, John Thibaut, Harold Kelly etc. but its main contributors were George Homans (1910-1989) and Peter Blau (b. 1918). Social exchange concepts include value, punishment, sanctions, cost, profit, reward, and behaviour.
The first problem is that of names. GeorgeHomans’s famous work, “Social Behaviour as Exchange” led sociologists to refer to it as exchange theory. Anyway, the researcher never liked this term, preferring instead “social behaviourism”. He wanted to emphasize the behaviourist aspect of his work. That is, he wants the theory to explain whether observable behaviours increase or decrease based on actors’ rewards and costs. So his interest is the individual who enters into exchange relationships, in which social rewards and costs determine individual choices.
G. Homans interprets social behaviouras an exchange of activity, tangible or intangible, and more or less rewarding or costly, between at least two people. According to his point of view, actors are profit seekers who want to maximize their wealth while interacting with others with minimum efforts. It follows from it that social exchange is based on a rational principle: a rewarded action tends to repeat, and the higher is the reward, the more possible is the action. G. Homans developed several propositions on success, stimuli, value, satiation and aggression that explain how social exchange works at the individual level. By doing it the researcher tried to bring sociology nearer to economy by estimating behaviours in the context of a number of economic categories such as cost, profit, reward etc.
On the other hand, P. Blau does offer an exchange theory. His interest is in how exchange as a form of social activity gives rise to different forms of association and different organizational forms. He supplements the exchange concepts to understand a more complex social process of institutionalization. Therefore, he attaches great importance on the abstract concepts such as value, conscience, ideas, and impression, strains and social norms that bind the society together. It is through P. Blau’s works that account of the emergence of large-scale organizations and institutions governed by cultural norms and values.
According to P. Blau, rewards that are exchanged can be either intrinsic (love, affection, respect) or extrinsic (money, physical labor); the parties cannot always reward each other equally; when there is inequality in the exchange, a difference of power will emerge within an association. The theorist is concerned with what holds large-scale social units together and what tears them apart. Therefore, he takes pains in discussing groups, organization, collectivities, societies, norms and values. That’s why P. Blau’s exchange theory is usually regarded as macro-theoretical perspective.
Sociometry. The word sociometry comes from Latin “socius” (social) and “metrum” (measure). As the roots imply, sociometry is a way of measuring a degree of interpersonal relationships between people. The term was coined by the psychiatrist Jacob Levi Moreno (1892-1974). A student of S. Freud, J. Moreno migrated from Rumania to the USA and in New York conducted the first long-range sociometric study (1932-1938). As part of this study, J. Moreno used sociometric techniques to assign residents to various cottages. He found that assignments on the basis of sociometry substantially reduced the number of runaways from the facility.
Sociometry is based on the fact that people make choices in interpersonal relationships. Whenever people gather, they make choices – where to sit or stand; choices about who is perceived as friendly and who is not, who is central to the group, who is rejected, who is isolated. So measurement of relationships can be useful not only in assessment of behaviour within a group, but also for interventions to bring about positive change. For a labour group, sociometry can be a powerful tool for reducing a conflict and improving communications because it allows the group to see itself objectively and analyze its own dynamics. It can also be applied to identify informal leaders, social rankings and isolated individuals as it shows the patterns of how individuals associate with each other when acting as a group toward a specified end or goal.
Among sociometric tools of frequent use are various tests, sociomatrix and sociograms. When members of a group are asked to choose others in the group, everyone in the group makes a choice and describes why he does so. From these choices a description (a drawing, like a map) called a sociogram emerges. The data for the sociogram may also be displayed as a table or matrix of each person’s choices.
There are other important trends and perspectives in sociology of the XX century developed by theorists of all continents.
Phenomenology is another approach to sociological theory that has been gaining popularity. The approach is based on the ideas of Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), a German philosopher, who insisted that the phenomena we encounter in sensory perceptions are the ultimate source of all knowledge. His perspective was brought to the United States by sociologist Alfred Schutz (1899-1959) and developed further by Harold Garfinkel (b. 1917). Another important development in phenomenological thinking can be found in works by Thomas Luckmann (b. 1927) and Peter Berger (b. 1929), whose landmark book, The Social Construction of Reality (1966), has been widely influential, especially among contemporary feminists. P. Berger is perhaps best known for his view that sociology is a form of consciousness. Central to his work is the relationship between the society and the individual. In his book, The Social Construction of Reality P. Berger develops a sociological theory “society as objective reality and as subjective reality”. His analysis of the society as subjective reality studies how reality has produced and keeps producing individuals. He writes about how new humans concepts or inventions become a part of our reality (a process he calls reification). His conception of social structure resolving around the importance of language “the most important sign system of human society,” is similar to G. Hegel’s conception of Geist.
Among other current sociological theories one can note postmodernism, globalization theory by I. Wallenstein, European industrial sociology, feminism, ecological movement, communicative theory by N. Lumann etc. Jürgen Habermas (b. 1929), a leading German sociologist, Anthony Giddens (b. 1938), a leading British sociologist, and American sociologist Randall Collins (b. 1913) are all noted for having constructed theories which synthesize ideas drawn from several theoretical traditions.