Unit 5. Human Social Nature and Community

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Unit 5. Human Social Nature & Community

Nadia Dresscher

Objectives for Unit 5:

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1. Explore the concept of communitya) its propertiesb) its changing nature in timec) focus on conditions that favor communities

2. Introduce 2 modes of human social behavior

3. Refine the concept of community by relating community to the concepts of:a) reciprocity b) social capital

Class Assignment: The meaning of community

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Form groups of 4 or 5 students Brainstorm on the meaning of

the concept community for you all, answer these questions:

How would you describe a community in your own words?

What are the properties of a community?

What does the unique individual mean to the communities he/she belongs too

To which communities you consider yourself belonging to? Each student in the group can

belong to a different community Identify these communities

Write this all down in order to share this with the whole class

Approaching Community

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As a value:Solidarity, commitment, mutuality, trust,

fellowship, communal, communication

As a descriptive category or set of variables :1. In terms of Place:  territorial, people have

something in common, this shared element is geographically/ ‘locality’

Approaching Community

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2. In terms of interest:  ‘elective’ communities, people share a common characteristic other than place.

They are ‘linked’ together by factors (share some common binding ground) such as religion, occupation, culture, socio-economic status, hobbies, ideologies, ethnic origin, cybergroups, sexual-orientation etc.

We talk about Aruban community, religious community, neighborhood, childhood friends,etc.

To study of identity/selfhood plays an important role for the understanding of the approach of non-place community

Approaching Community

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3. Communion: sense of attachment to a place, group or idea

----- Communities have meaning to its members:

how? It plays a important role in generating

people’s sense of belonging A Community suggests that members of a

group have something in common with each other and the thing held in common distinguishes them in a significant way from the members of other groups

There is some kind of boundary

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Similarity and difference

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A question of boundary

What marks the beginning and the end of a community?

Some might suggest, boundaries may be marked On a map?In law?By physical features like a road, river, sea?Religion?Linguistic?

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However, not all boundaries are so obvious…

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They may be thought; existing in the minds of the member (beholders of the thought) : meaning is given to a community in order of it to become a community

As such they may be seen in in very different ways, not only by the people on either side, but also by people on the same side

This symbolic aspect of community boundary is important if we want to understand how humans experience communities

The defining of a boundary places some people within and some beyond the line (inclusion/exclusion)

Community as network and local social system

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The fact that people live close to each other does not necessarily mean that they have much to do with each other (e.g. they may be little interaction between neighbors)

It is the nature of the relationships between people and the social networks of which they belong to are seen as one of the most important aspects of community

Community, norms and habits:

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Whether individuals are disposed to engage with one another is dependent upon the norms of a particular society or community and to the extent to which individuals make these norms and habits as theirs

Assignment: Identify these norms/habits for the communities you named in your class assignment

to judge to quality of life within a particular community, we need to explore what shared expectations there are about the way people should behave and whether different individuals take these on!

3 types of qualities that are common when approaching communal life:

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Tolerance: an openness to others, curiosity, perhaps even respect, a willingness to listen and learn

Reciprocity: a definition for now: “I’ll do this for you now, without expecting anything immediately in return and perhaps without even knowing you, confident that down the road you or someone else will return the favor” (Putman 2000).

Trust: the confident expectation that people, institutions and things will act in a consistent, honest and appropriate way (trustworthiness/reliability).social trust

A brief history of communities

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Gather & Hunter period: Communities were much prevalent compared to now:

Reason for this: humans did not produce food, but gathered on a day-to-day basis

So it was important to have an effective division of tasks and sharing resources.

Community then meant SURVIVALReciprocity relations, egalitarianism ( idea

that everybody is equal), empathy, bonding, paternal care, ‘it takes a whole village to raise a child’, large group size etc.

Gather & Hunter period

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Humans start producing food (agriculture)

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Humans started to produce their own food by means of domestication of plants and animals had effect on communal life

Birth of (economic) markets: transactions (I give you 20 corns, you give me a fat cow)

The communal structure disappearedCommunities: at the level of kinship, familyImpersonal relationships: scattered

communities (small scale)

Agrarian societies:Domestication of plants & animals

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Industrial Revolution

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Humans went from a traditional agriculture to urbanization (to work in the industry)

Impersonal relationships, the introduction of the concept of time measured in labor hours….

Can you visualize how this happened in Aruba?

Year Inhabitants

1817 1.732

1863 3.258

1900 9.702

1920 8.265

1930 15.697

1940 30.614

1950 51.000

1960 56.905

1972 57.905

1981 60.321

Industrial revolution

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Contemporary communities

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Nowadays people are born in a social environment that does not resemblance the communal life of the past:

Urbanization (cities), strangers (we don’t always talk to our neighbors'):

But: reciprocity is learnedIn general children’s potential to learn

reciprocity behavior is realized step by step from early childhood to adolescence, within the confines of family and friends (nurture and nature debate: both nature (altruistic gene & socialization)

Modes of interpersonal behavior (Vos, 2004)

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Human social natureSocial; implying in relation to othersHuman nature: biological genes (nature)You will see that nurture (socialization) is

also important: human beings learn! Learn to be social, learn to compete

2 modes: Status Competition

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1. Status Competition: refers to the selection for those motivations and abilities that help individuals in competing with other individuals for resources (food, territory, mates).

It implies that there is a competition: there is a winner and a loser.

Dominance, hierarchical relations: the winner acts dominating and the loser submissively

Egoistic gene survival of the fittist

2 modes: Reciprocity

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2. Reciprocity:the mechanism whereby the evolution of

cooperative or altruistic behavior may be favored by the probability of future mutual interactions

To help without the expectation of immediate help back. Purely based on the need of the other: feelings of care and attachment (biological).

And when learned: moral obligation (artificial)

The reciprocity relation is the building block of the social system of community

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To help without the expectation of immediate help back. Purely based on the need of the other: feelings of care and attachment“I’ll do this for you now, without expecting anything immediately in return and perhaps without even knowing you, confident that down the road you or someone else will return the favor” (Putman 2000).

Drawing courtesy of Stephanie Croes

Movie Pay it Forward illustrates the concept of (generalized) reciprocity

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEwRXCalF9g

Reciprocity: I’ll do this for you now, without expecting anything immediately in return and perhaps without even knowing you, confident that down the road you or someone else will return the favor” (Putman 2000).

Influence of the environment

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Human social environments (contexts) (in terms of concentration of modes: number of humans behaving in a status competition or communal (reciprocity) mode) triggers a the switch in a particular mode:

The more communal behavior, the more reciprocity relations between individuals or

The more status-competition behavior , the more competing between individuals on multiple levels.

Definition of Community !!!!!!(Vos, 2004)

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This will be the one definition we will use for this course:

“ A group of individuals with an internal structure of reciprocity relations.”

This implies:A community consists of communals, that

is, of individuals who act in the communal mode. BUT:

At the same time it should be realized that a precondition for people enacting this mode is the existence of the community

The egg – chicken dilemma:

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The community needs the communal individual and the individual needs the community in order to be communal

‘Social Capital’

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We will explore the concept of Social Capital in order to understand the internal structures of the communities

relationships matter: social networks are a valuable asset

Interaction is important:COMMUNICATION IS THE BINDING GLUE IN

A COMMUNITY:it enables people to build communities, to

commit themselves to each other and to knit the social fabric

Relationship between concepts:Modes of interpersonal behavior, social environment, community & social capital

31Drawing courtesy of Stephanie Croes

Community (Vos, 2004)

A community is a group of individuals with an internal structure of reciprocity relations

Contemporary SocietyPeople in contemporary societies have 2 non-exclusive (niet elkaar uitsluitend) options for contributing to communal living:

1. They can try to maintain and enrich the remains of community life that are transmitted from the past or that are based on existing long-term relationships

2. There may be occasions for building community more or less from scratch

In the second option the expectation of a long-term relationship is intentionally generated

Which conditions favor the existing of communities?1. The interdependency condition

2. The condition of expected long-term relationships

3. The multiplexity condition

4. The accessibility condition

Conditions favoring communities (Vos, 2004)

The more people are interdependent, the more they have and/or expect to have long-term relationships, the more they have multiplex relationships and the easier they are mutually accessible, the more they will develop mutual reciprocity relationsWhich means: the more they are a community

Social Capital

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Social Capital: “Relationship matters”Relationships are a valuable assetHumans are social being: we have

relationships with othersSociety is composed of multiple

communities (formal and informal) that are connected to each other. Internal structure

Interaction (communication) is the binding glue of society and of communities and between communities

Social CapitalWhat is capital?SC has a lot of different definitions:SC is the aggregate of the actual potential

resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition (Bourdieu)

SC consists of social connections, who you know and who you are friendly with, who you can call on for help or favors

Putman:

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“Whereas physical capital refers to psychical objects and human capital refers to the properties of individuals, social capital refers to connections among individuals, the social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them”.

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SCRefers to the connections between people

When approaching SC we look at the nature of these connections

E.g. of types of assets:TrustNormsReciprocityInformation CooperationMobilizationidentification

Types of SC Bonding: ties between people in similar

situations (are alike) , such as immediate family, close friends, neighbors

Bridging: more distant ties of persons: workmates, loose friendships and workmates

Linking: reaches out to unlike people in dissimilar situations, such as those who are entirely outside of the community.

Social Capital visualized in terms of social networks

•What value do I give the relationships I have with others? •If I could indentify this value, and break it down in concrete ‘things’, what would these be? In other words: What are the social assets I get from these relationships?

Positive Outcomes linked to SCIndividual level:Well-beingSelf-esteemSatisfaction with lifeUseful information

Community level:Mobilize community efforts: e.g. public health,

schoolsLow crime ratesMore efficiency on level of organizations

Negative outcomes linked to SCExclusion of others not in the social

networkBenefits to the ones in a social network

alone. E.g. Nepotism

Can you think of other negative outcomes?

Decline SC (Putman) due toChanges in family structureSuburban sprawl (travel a lot to work,

leisure etc): less time available to connect with each other

Electronic entertainment (tv, internet)The last one will be the topic of our next

meeting: the influence of internet on SC, communities: emerging of new types of communities?

Assignment:How does the Internet affect the

formation, development and

maintenance of relationships?