III. Answer the following questions:

1. How do social groups vary?

2. What are the ways by which a person may be recognized as a leader?

3. Is there a category of people who might be considered as «natural leaders»?

4. What is the difference between instrumental and expressive leaders?

5. What do large social groups tend to develop?

6. What group do you think is regarded to be an ideal one?

IV. Comment on the illustration in Figure 3.

V. Characterize in brief:

1. The core of group dynamics.

2. An ideal social group.

3. The importance of group size.

VI. Choose the qualities you think to be necessary for an ideal leader:

emotional, aggressive, active, brave, clever, strong, intuitive, tall, handsome, good with money, mechanically-minded, tender.

You may expand the list. But give reasons of your choice.

VII. Read the text and state its general idea:

Ingroups and Outgroups

By the time children are in the early grades of school, much of their activity takes place within social groups.

4'* I English for Psychologists and Sociologists

They eagerly join some groups, but avoid - or are excluded from — others. Based on sex as a master status, for example, girls and boys often form distinct play groups with patterns of behaviour culturally defined as feminine and masculine.

On the basis of sex, employment, family ties, personal tastes, or some other category, people often identify others positively with one social group while opposing other groups. Across the United States, for example, many high school students wear jackets with the name of their school on the back and place school decals on their car windows to symbolize their membership in the school as a social group. Students who attend another school may be the subject of derision simply because they are members of a competing group.

This illustrates the general process of forming ingroups and outgroups. An ingroup is a social group with which people identify and toward which they feel a sense of loyalty. An ingroup exists in relation to an outgroup. which is a social group with which people do not identify and toward which they feel a sense of competition or opposition. Defining social groups this way is commonplace. A sports team is an ingroup to its members and an outgroup to members of other teams. The Democrats in a certain community may see themselves as an ingroup in relation to Republicans. In a broader sense, Americans share some sense of being an ingroup in relation to Russian citizens or other nationalities. All ingroups and outgroups are created by the process of believing that «we» have valued characteristics that «they» do not.

This process serves to sharpen the boundaries among social groups, giving people a clearer sense of their location in a world of many social groups. It also heightens awareness of the distinctive characteristics of various social groups, though not always in an accurate way.

Sociology. Unit IX I ^4I3

Research has shown, however, that the members of ingroups hold unrealistically positive views of themselves and unfairly negative views of various outgroups. Ethnocentrism, for example, is the result of overvaluing one's own way of life, while simultaneously devaluing other cultures as outgroups.