Anderson and Parker (1966) give a comprehensive definition of a social groups. Main focus of groups “Groups are units of two or more people meeting in the same environment, or overcoming distance by some means of communication, who are influencing each other psychologically. The distinctive bond of the group is reciprocal interaction. Friends in conversation, a committee in action and children playing together are examples.”
In a social groups definition of group implies that the relations among group members are not temporary, they are recurrent and influence the other members of the group i.e. members are conscious about the presence of other members. This consciousness of membership influences their behaviour and also differentiates a group. Hence, Group is not only a physical collection of people or an aggregation; while it is a collection of people who shares common characteristics and organised pattern of persistent interaction and are aware of each other’s presence. Recurrent nature of interaction among the group members makes the group one of the most stable ‘social groups’ social units of the society. They endure for a longer period and make the society sustained. They are important for both to their members and for the society at large. As we have already discussed, groups fulfill the needs of its members. They also perform a number of functions like socialisation necessary for the maintenance of the society.
A very important classification of groups was made by C.H. Cooley (1909). On the basis of his works into PRIMARY and SECONDARY groups.
PRIMARY GROUP in Social Groups
For the very first time, these were recognised by C.H. Cooley (1909) in his very famous book ‘Social Organisation: (Social Groups) Human Nature and Social Order’. He has observed intimate and close social relations among the members of certain small groups and termed those groups as Primary groups. In his analysis of primary group he defined it in term of face-to-face interaction, co-operation and association, emotional involvement, identification and sentiments of loyalty. In primary groups emotions and sentiments carry more importance than the size of the group. Primary group is considered to be a product of long and intimate informal interactions. The relations among the members of primary groups are as in themselves not a mean to those ends.
Characteristics of Primary Group
Characteristics of primary groups can be divided into two broad categories i.e. external characters and internal characters .
- External characters
- Physical proximity among group members
- Small size of the group
- Stability and durability
- Continuity in the relations
- Internal characters include:
- Common objectives of the group
- The relations are ends in themselves
- Relationships are spontaneous
- Personal relationships
- Inclusive relations among members
- Control over the members
Primary groups are essential for social life. They play a very important role in an individual’s life. They are significant at both individual and social level. They provide the medium through which we learn our culture and patterns of behaviour. Some of the main points regarding the importance of a primary group are given below.
Importance of a Primary Group
At the level of individual, a primary group
- Helps in development of personality
- Increases the efficiency of an individual
- Fulfills the psychological needs.
- At the level of society, a primary group
- Transfers the culture from one generation to another
- Carries cultural norms of the society within the society
- Provides means of social control and helps maintaining the social order
- Ensures the performance of social roles in accordance with society norms.
SECONDARY GROUP in Social Groups
Primary groups play a vital role in a person’s life; however, there are secondary groups which fulfill their maximum needs in life. Cooley did not provide any terminology for the groups other than primary groups and many writers came to speak of ‘secondary groups’ the tendency has been to consider secondary groups as those which depend for communication on indirect media, such as newspapers (Faris, 1937).
In secondary groups, the relations are formal, impersonal, segmental and utilitarian. These groups are less intimate as the level of interaction is restricted at a formal level. They do not give close identity to its members as primary groups do. In secondary group, we very often interact with people of diverse background because we need their services and we have certain obligations to fulfill. In case of utilitarian or contractual obligations, there is no need to develop personal relations. These relations remain based on reciprocal needs. Hence, members of these groups regard each other as means not an end in themselves.
MacIver and Page (1952) has pointed out that primary group relations are characteristics of simple or primitive societies. As the population and territory of a society increases, interests would have become diversified and so the needs. It gave rise to the need of indirect, impersonal and utilitarian relations. He called these newly emerged impersonal relations as ‘great associations”. They are result of expansion of population and perhaps primarily, of growing cultural complexity. He considers secondary group a character of industrialised and urbanised complex societies. In these societies due to complexity in the nature of work, more complicated relations develop which provides a very limited scope for intimate relations.
Ogburn and Nimkoff (1966) say that the “groups which provide experience lacking in intimacy, can be called as secondary group.” Here by experience he means the interaction with the varied kind of people in day to day life. At one hand secondary groups fulfill majority of the needs of an individual, on the other hand they also separate individuals’ activities from the rest of the activities because in secondary group context every individual is supposed to play his own part. It also segments individuals’ personality in contrast to primary groups where his whole personality reflects.
Characteristics of Secondary Group
Dominance of secondary relations: Secondary group relations can be seen in reference to primary relations. Secondary group relations are impersonal, indirect, non-inclusive and utilitarian. Members are connected to each other through contractual obligations or interests. Due to self-interest, individuality develops among the members in social groups.
- Voluntary membership: Individuals are free to join or leave the group at any point of time i.e. membership of these groups are predominantly voluntary. But in case of secondary groups like ‘state’, membership becomes compulsory.
- Large in Size: Unlike a primary group, physical proximity is not the condition for secondary group and so size of secondary group becomes large. They might spread all over the world. For example, members of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) are scattered all over the world.
- Goal Oriented: Secondary groups are formed in order to fulfill the needs of the individuals. They serve the special functions in the society. Every secondary group emerges in response to specific purpose and joins the people having same type of need.
- Indirect communication: Mode of communication among the members of secondary group is indirect. In many of the cases, group members seldom or rarely or never come into direct contact to each other. They rely on different forms of mass media communication which include radio, telephone, television, newspaper, movies, magazines, post and telegraph , social media etc.
- Role decides a person’s position: In secondary groups, position of a person depends upon his role. Socially achieved status and its corresponding role remains the key factor behind the position of a person in the secondary group. His position is not being decided by his ascribed status neither he is treated on the basis of his birth.
However, In social groups are an individual fulfills its majority of the needs through the secondary group, yet these groups are not exclusive and cannot replace the importance of primary groups.
In modern society, many of the former functions of the primary groups have been assumed by large, impersonal, goal-oriented groups. Each of these secondary groups creates a new network of primary groups that provide intimacy and personal response in many impersonal situations also. So we should not see both of them mutually exclusive.
The inflexible classification of groups into primary and secondary is not preferable as there is much overlapping of the two social groups. Kingsley Davis (1957: 289) writes that “Cooley’s emphasis on ‘we’ feeling cannot be taken as the distinctive element in the primary group as such feeling to some extent is necessary for any enduring community.” In between primary group like the family and a formal and rigid group like army there are hundreds of groups, some of which are more primary than others. Even in modern organisations, efforts are made to create a friendly atmosphere among the employees.