Wichita State University - SOC

CHAPTER 5: Groups, Networks, and Organizations

MULTIPLE CHOICE

1)Which of the following is a social group?

1. 1. a brother and sister
   2. everyone in your sociology class who has blond hair
   3. people waiting at Terminal C for Flight 181
   4. passengers on a cruise ship

2. The rich and varied group life of societies reflects:

how dependent we are on transactional leaders

1. 1. our need to congregate and belong
   2. how we tend to live in social isolation
   3. our natural tendency to always include everyone

3. Which of the following is a social aggregate?
   1. your family
   2. middle-class Asian American women
   3. people waiting at Terminal C for Flight 205
   4. Facebook friends

4. People milling around in crowds, waiting for a bus, or strolling on a beach make up a:
   1. social group                                            c.   social aggregate
   2. social triad                                              d.   social category

5. When a group of people share common characteristics, such as gender or ethnicity, the group is labeled a:
   1. social network                                         c.   social category
   2. social group                                            d. social aggregate

6. Which of the following would be considered a social category?
   1. African Americans
   2. a group of soldiers who recently returned from war
   3. neighbors who are both Mexican American
   4. two friends who are freshmen at the same college

7. Which of the following is more likely to be an in-group?
   1. a family                                                   c.   the people in line at a supermarket
   2. a sociology class                                     d. Asian Americans

8. At the University of California, the Alpha Gamma Gamma fraternity always made fun of its rival fraternity, Alpha Sigma Sigma, during rush week when the brothers were recruiting new members. This increased the bonding and sense of loyalty among the members of Alpha Gamma Gamma, and therefore we could consider these members of:
   1. an out-group                                           c.   a network
   2. an in-group                                             d. a social category

9. A new group recently emerged, calling itself the Real Americans. This group’s activities reflect disdain and prejudicial attitudes toward recent immigrants to the United States. In relation to this group, recent immigrants could be classified as a(n):
   1. in-group                                                  c.   dyad
   2. out-group                                                d.   triad

10. A brother and sister enrolled in a large chemistry class would be considered a(n):
    1. triad                                                        c.   secondary group
    2. primary group                                         d.   social category

11. Which of the following is an example of a primary group?
    1. a professor and the president of the university
    2. a bus driver and passenger

1. 3. a tutor and her student
   4. three best friends in high school

12. Which of the following would be an example of why a person would want to be part of a secondary group?
    1. to form close bonds and ties with everyone in the group
    2. to have a sense of closeness and camaraderie
    3. to associate with people who care about the person and his or her future
    4. to accomplish a specific goal, such as graduating from college

13. Shelley spends most of her time at school and work, which leaves her with little time to socialize with her family and friends. Lately, Shelley is feeling socially isolated because she:
    1. is working too hard
    2. has friends and family who do not understand her time commitments
    3. does not like the people at school and work
    4. is interacting mostly with people in secondary groups, which tend to be large and produce impersonal relationships

14. The group a person uses to measure his or her own social worth is called:
    1. a reference group                                   c.   a peer group
    2. a social aggregate                                  d. a secondary group

15. Reference groups provide us with:
    1. the ability to be concerned with accomplishing a task
    2. strict conformity to rigid organizational structures
    3. the impersonal anonymity of modern life
    4. a standard for judging our attitudes and behaviors

16. Most advertisements today try to associate a product with a specific reference group. For this marketing strategy to be effective, which of the following must be true?
    1. The product must be important to the person viewing the advertisement.

1. 2. The product must have a good price.
   3. The person viewing the advertisement must have interacted with the person or people in the advertisement.
   4. The person viewing the advertisement must identify with the person or people in the

advertisement.

17. According to sociologists, what is the smallest size that can make up a social group?
    1. a dyad                                                     c.   a triad
    2. an ego and an alter ego                         d. a family

18. Juan and Sally got divorced after three years of marriage, and both moved on to establish new relationships. Their divorce demonstrates that dyads are fragile social groups because:
    1. if one person leaves, the group disappears
    2. one member can hurt the other
    3. they do not require individuals to stay in the relationship
    4. the relationships are too intense

19. Every Sunday, Janet, Laneitha, and Margaret get together for lunch, and Janet usually decides which restaurant they will eat at. However, one Sunday, Laneitha and Margaret told Janet they wanted to try a new restaurant in town. Laneitha and Margaret formed a:
    1. rift between the triad                             c.   dyad
    2. negative relationship                              d. coalition or alliance

20. Triads are generally more stable than dyads because:
    1. three are always better than two
    2. the third person relieves some of the pressures on the other two
    3. the third person makes the relationship more intense
    4. the third person can get jealous

21. Which of the following is true regarding large groups?
    1. Relationships in the group are more intense.

1. 2. They tend to be informal.
   3. They are unstable.
   4. They tend to be more exclusive.

22. According to Georg Simmel, an important aspect of groups is:
    1. as group size decreases, their intensity and exclusivity decrease
    2. as group size increases, their stability and intensity increase
    3. as group size increases, their intensity decreases, but their stability and exclusivity increase
    4. group size has little impact on stability over time; what matters is the common goal of the group

23. The members of the drama club at Suzie’s high school had a disagreement about who should play the lead in the upcoming production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Therefore, five of the twenty-five drama club members decided to leave the group, but this had little impact on the stability of the drama club, and it was able to go forward with the production, according to the textbook, because:
    1. the drama club had a good leader who was able to address the instability in the group
    2. larger groups are less exclusive, and it was easy to get new members
    3. the five members who left were troublemakers
    4. the withdrawal of members from larger groups has little impact on the survival of the group

24. Nelson Mandela directed the dissolution of apartheid in South Africa. What kind of leader was he?
    1. Mandela was a transformational leader.    c.      Mandela was a despot.
    2. Mandela was a transactional leader.     d. Mandela was an autocratic leader.

25. Which of the following is the best example of a transformational leader?
    1. a student government president who motivated the students at her college to turn their campus into a green campus
    2. a student government president who made sure the treasurer accounted for all the money

spent by the student government at her college

1. 3. a student government president who expanded the campus recycling program to include paper as well as metal
   4. a student government president whom most students really liked

26. Tanya is the CEO of Digi-Corp, a corporation that specializes in computer software. The corporation has made a substantial profit since Tanya became CEO and hired new software designers. What type of leader is Tanya?
    1. bureaucratic                                           c.   transformational
    2. transactional                                           d. network

27. Solomon Asch’s experiment illustrated that:
    1. even if it makes them feel uncomfortable, many people are willing to discount their own perceptions rather than go against group consensus
    2. people stammered and fidgeted before speaking out against group conformity
    3. people can easily be bullied into changing their minds
    4. the last person to answer did not feel the need to conform or bow to group pressure

28. The experiments by Solomon Asch and Stanley Milgram illustrate that:
    1. conformity and authority have little influence on people when they are under pressure
    2. people get nervous around authority figures and large groups
    3. conformity and authority are powerful factors affecting people’s actions
    4. it is easy to persuade people to inflict pain on others

29. The Stanley Milgram study demonstrated that people are willing to obey authority:
    1. regardless of the pain they might inflict on others
    2. only when they feel that the authority figure is part of their primary group
    3. when the authority figure is part of their reference group
    4. if the orders do not have negative consequences for other people

30. Stanley Milgram’s study demonstrated that even in extraordinary situations, ordinary people will:
    1. conform to the directives of transformative leaders
    2. resist authority
    3. obey those in positions of power
    4. exclude others

31. Groupthink takes place when:
    1. group members discuss strategies to increase group harmony
    2. group members work together to carefully weigh all the options presented to them
    3. group members ignore the actions, plans, or ideas that go against group consensus
    4. group members are all in agreement

32. The football team at Three Rivers High School wanted to steal the mascot—a horse—of the opposing team before the big homecoming game. Even though the captain of the football team knew the players would likely be caught and suspended by the principal, he agreed to steal the mascot. Why did the captain of the team agree to steal the mascot?
    1. The football captain was a transformational leader and convinced the players it would

work even when common sense told them it would not.

1. 2. The groupthink of the football team made him uncomfortable, but he felt it was more important that there not be dissension before the homecoming game.
   3. The team captain feared that he would no longer be accepted in his social group for

breaking expectations.

1. 4. The team captain and the players were part of the same primary group and wanted to think and play as a “we.”

33. In general, nonwhites tend to have           ties within networks than whites.
    1. weaker                                                    c.   more consistent
    2. more familial                                          d. more social

34. James and Shannon both graduated from college with a high GPA and a good résumé in the field of accounting. A year after graduation, James was working as a waiter, and Shannon was working at an accounting firm that her father’s best friend headed. Shannon most likely got this job because:
    1. she had an advantage due to her father’s social networks, even if she did not know her father’s best friend well
    2. she had a better résumé than James.
    3. her father’s best friend thought she was pretty
    4. James was unmotivated and did not look for work very hard

35. In the absence of the physical and social cues involved in traditional face-to-face interactions, the Internet fosters the creation of relationships that:
    1. are often misleading and lead to hurt feelings
    2. are built on common interests rather than social characteristics, such as race and gender
    3. are lasting and enduring
    4. are based on being members of the same social category

36. The Internet often increases the diversity of one’s social networks beyond face-to-face interactions, which tend to limit social networks due to race, gender, and social status. However, the Internet can also limit the diversity of social networks for some people because:
    1. it is easy to find out someone’s gender, race, or social status on the Internet
    2. there is a “digital divide” in which low-income and ethnic minorities are less likely to have

access to the Internet

1. 3. there are many racist and sexist groups that use the Internet to organize
   4. studies show that people tend to form networks on the Internet based on race, gender, and class instead of shared interests

37. What term do sociologists use to refer to a group with an identifiable membership that engages in concerted collective actions to achieve a common purpose?
    1. primary group                                         c.   in-group
    2. secondary group                                     d. organization out-group

38. A large grouping of people that engages in concerted collective actions to achieve specific objectives is called:
    1. an oligarchy                                            c.   a primary group
    2. an organization                                       d. a peer group

39. People in modern societies depend on organizations to:
    1. tell us how to act and behave
    2. make us feel connected to others
    3. take care of everything, including how we are born, our daily supply of running water, and even the way we die
    4. educate and employ us, but little else

40. Max Weber was the first to develop a systematic interpretation of:
    1. conformity                                              c.   modern organizations
    2. primary groups                                       d. secondary groups

41. Formal organizations:
    1. are organized in ways that allow power to be evenly distributed within them
    2. are often flexible in the application of their rules, regulations, and procedures due to their

size

1. 3. have risen to prominence in modern societies largely because we do not spend much time with our families anymore
   4. are rationally designed to achieve their objectives

42. Max Weber argued that               is necessary in modern societies.
    1. tradition                                                  c.   surveillance
    2. bureaucracy                                            d. emotion

43. According to Max Weber, which of the following is difficult to achieve in a rigid bureaucratic organization?
    1. efficiency                                                c.   compliance
    2. rationality                                               d. innovation

44. Max Weber believed the more an organization approaches the ideal type of bureaucracy, the more effective it will be in pursuing the objectives for which it was established. However, he also recognized that bureaucracies can create some negatives, such as:
    1. numerous unofficial ways of doing things because of the lack of flexibility in completing

tasks in a bureaucracy

1. 2. inefficiency because of the strict adherence to rules and regulations that makes it difficult to respond to new issues
   3. organizational tension between male authority figures and female subordinates
   4. increasing employee salary costs

45. Max Weber concluded that the closer bureaucracies were to the ideal type, the more    they would become.
    1. ineffective in achieving their objectives
    2. effective in achieving their objectives
    3. loose and informal
    4. like a feudal estate

46. According to Max Weber’s ideal type of bureaucracy:
    1. there is a set of rules that govern the conduct of officials at all levels of the organization
    2. there is a lot of room for innovation
    3. each job has a salary that is negotiable
    4. ownership is in the hands of the workers

47. John Meyer and Brian Rowan found that the formal procedures in a bureaucracy are often:
    1. myths that people profess to follow but that have little basis in reality
    2. outdated and need revision
    3. identical to the practices members of the organization adopt
    4. understood to be the “right” way to do things

48. At Digi-Corp, each employee receives an employee manual outlining the rules on how employees and managers should work together and interact. These rules are referred to as the        between employee and manager.
    1. formal relations                                      c.   primary groups
    2. informal relations                                   d. surveillance

49. At the Symantec Corporation, the CEO, the president, and the vice president made a majority of the decisions, with little decision-making power given to upper-level managers or other employers. This type of concentration of power among a few people in an organization is called:
    1. oligarchy                                                 c. capitalism
    2. corporate concentration                         d. anarchy

50. According to Robert Michels’s concept of the “iron law of oligarchy”:
    1. Societies dominated by large-scale organizations will turn us all into machines.
    2. In large-scale organizations, power is inevitably concentrated at the top.
    3. Power is concentrated at the bottom in large-scale organizations.
    4. Large-scale organizations will become more concentrated until there are only a few organizations.

51. Which of the following best characterizes the place of women in bureaucratic organizations, such as corporations?
    1. Women are encouraged to climb the corporate ladder.
    2. Due to strict rules and regulations, women and men are in equal positions.
    3. Women are seen as playing supporting roles and performing routine tasks.
    4. Most women are in key decision-making roles.

52. Until the late 20th century, organizational studies largely ignored:
    1. organizational size                                  c.   the physical setting of organizations
    2. dysfunctions of bureaucracy                   d. gender relations

53. The imbalance of gender roles in organizations demonstrates that modern organizations have:
    1. encouraged women to stay home
    2. found men to be better at following written rules and procedures
    3. have developed in a gendered way
    4. found maternity to be too expensive

54. Many of the organizations we see in modern society have the hierarchical structure that Max Weber argued characterizes modern organizations. However, according to the textbook, today many organizations are changing to a more   structure.
    1. free-flowing                                            c.   formal
    2. horizontal                                                d. bottom-up

55. According to human resources management theory, which of the following is central to a company’s competitiveness?
    1. employee dedication to the company and its product
    2. a company mascot

1. 3. employee autonomy from the company
   4. telecommuting

56. Every Friday, Google, Inc., encourages all of its employees to attend a speaker series in which authors, athletes, and other famous and inspiring people speak. This weekly corporate event is an example of a management trend known as:
    1. employee perks                                      c.   corporate culture
    2. human resources management             d. socialism

57. Which of the following is an advantage of telecommuting?
    1. Workers are not wasting time with the kind of casual interaction that occurs around water coolers.
    2. It eliminates the time spent commuting to and from work.
    3. Workers can cheat on their time cards and say they worked more hours than they really did.
    4. It creates a two-strata employment system of technology experts and less autonomous clerical workers.

58. According to the textbook, the use of information and communications technology in corporations has reduced the rigid hierarchical structure of corporations, but at the same time it has created:
    1. a two-strata employment system of technology experts and less autonomous clerical

workers

1. 2. telecommuters who are totally disconnected from the corporate culture
   3. a three-strata employment system of powerful managers, autonomous technology experts,

and less autonomous clerical workers

1. 4. unhappiness among employees who are telecommuters

59. The McDonaldization of society refers to:

1. 1. the obesity epidemic in American society
   2. the taking over of key authority positions by baby boomers
   3. the increased uniformity and rationality of society due to automation
   4. the phenomenal success of cooperative restaurants as a model for other companies

60. Of the following, which is NOT a principle of George Ritzer’s theory of the McDonaldization of society?
    1. efficiency                                                c.   dependability
    2. calculability                                             d. uniformity

61. According to Robert Putnam, television is the main cause of:
    1. an increase in violence
    2. an increase in sex among teenagers
    3. declining civic participation
    4. a declining attention span among young people

62. Every day after school Maria goes to the local teen center. She is part of a group that is organizing a multicultural festival for the community. This activity is likely to produce:
    1. bonding social capital                             c.   community banks
    2. bridging social capital                            d. reference groups

ESSAY

1. Today more of our social relationships are dominated by secondary groups instead of primary groups. Charles Horton Cooley worried about the loss of intimacy as secondary groups became more prominent and pervasive. Émile Durkheim and Georg Simmel saw some benefits of the development of more secondary groups. What do you think about the trend toward more secondary-group relationships in modern society?

2. Give an example of a dyad, a triad, and a larger group. In which groups are the relationships more intense? In which are they more stable? Use your examples to explain why.

3. Compare transformational leadership and transactional leadership. Give an example of each from your own experience or from your knowledge of history.

4. How do the studies conducted by Solomon Asch, Stanley Milgram, and Irving Janis help us understand conformity? Pick one of these studies and explain how you think you would have responded as a subject in the study.

5. According to Irving Janis, what is groupthink? Why can groupthink lead to bad decisions by otherwise smart and strong-willed individuals? Provide a historical example in your explanation of groupthink.

6. What are the benefits of social networks? Explain how social networks facilitate the reproduction of existing inequalities for women, lower socioeconomic classes, and minorities. Give an example.

7. Explain how the Internet affects social relationships and social networks. Explain how it can have both a positive and a negative impact.

8. List and explain the characteristics of the “ideal type of bureaucracy” that Max Weber described and how they are evident or not evident in your college or university.

9. According to George Ritzer, what is the McDonaldization of society? Explain the four guiding principles of McDonaldization, using the example of one of the following: your college or university, the health-care system, or the movie industry.

10. Look at the organizations you belong to that may provide you with social capital. Describe one organization that provides you with bridging social capital and explain why it does. Describe another organization that provides you with bonding social capital and explain why it does.