HSP 3M - Unit 3

Social Institutions

Bain, C.M., & Colyer, J.S. (2001). The Human way. Toronto: Oxford University Press.

Social Institutions

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

What did you notice? Why did this happen? What were the peoples reaction in the video? What institutions are responsible?

Restaurant Experiment

Study•Two physiologists took a fast food restaurant and changed half the restaurant into a fine dinning restaurant. The other half of the restaurant remained to same.•During a lunch hour the filtered half the people that came in into the fine dinning side and half into the fast food side. Each side had the same food.

•How do you act when your in a restaurant, does the environment matter? What institutions are responsible?•What did they find?•How did the customers react?

Impact of the fast food industry:

Prediction: The psychologists believed that people in the fine dinning side would linger at their tables and order more food.

Results: They found that the people in the fine dinning side stayed longer in the restaurant, but they consumed less. And they rated what they ate as more enjoyable.

Relevance: •The environment of a restaurant influences how much we eat.•The lighting, music, and words on the menu cue us to indulge.•Canadians spend almost $2000 on food in restaurants in a year.•Social institutions like the fast food industry can easily manipulate us on what we choose to eat, how fast we eat it and how much we think we enjoy it.

Unit 3 Social Institutions

So far in the course we have been focused on:

Forces that influence and shape human behaviour (age, gender, mental illness, ethnicity…)

How we are socialized (agents of socialization (family, school, peers, media, workplace, religion)

In a nutshell, the forces within our self (nature), and in others (nurture)

Unit 3 Task - To look at how these forces fit into society

Social structures

Social Institutions

Definition Social Institutions: are patterned set of behaviours and operations constructed by societies to satisfy basic human needs. •http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOFFqClLR3I

What are social Institutions?Social Institutions are social structures in a society that:

shape values and beliefs maintain order help society to function efficiently

FamilyMarriage Peers

SchoolChurches

Legal systemMilitaryMedia

Government

Personal Institutions Impersonal Institutions

Because they affect large groups of people

Affect individual’s lives intimately

Characteristics of Social Institutions

Legal system

Govern-ment

military

media

work

church

peers

family

Society

Have usually existed for a long time Have well established or entrenched patterns of functioning (change usually

occurs slowly) Have a specific purpose Members are joined together by shared values and beliefs

Purposes of Social Institutions Act as an agent of socialization maintain order and security

What is the purpose of education?

Is education to help you think and pursue interests or is it to prepare

you for the world of work?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

List as many institutions as you can?

• WHAT human needs (maslow's hierachy) are met by institutions.

• HOW they do they meet those needs.

Are Canada's social institutions successful?

Discuss using examples:

Total InstitutionsCharacteristics of Total Institutions:

•All aspects of daily life and all daily tasks are planned and monitored.

•All aspects of life (work, play and sleep) are carried out under one roof in a place completely isolated from the outside world.

•A privileged system operates in which residents can earn small rewards and preferential treatment by complying with the rules.

Goals of Total Institutions: Re-socialization: Radically altering residents’ personalities through deliberate manipulation of their environment.

Re-socialization occurs in two-part process:1)To erode the persons identity and independence

-Subject prisoners to humiliating and degrading procedures, like strip searches.

2) Systematic attempt to build a different personality or self.

-The privilege to watch TV or read a book can be powerful motivation for conformity.

Conspiracy theories came from a lack of trust of our social institutions. There is a lack of trust in the church, government, FBI…etc.

Is there a time we can justify the government withholding information from the rest of society?

If the government is making a decision that will benefit the country then should it be acceptable to slightly deceive the public for the greater good.

Some examples of this… Undercounting causalities in the Iraq war

"They do it on purpose," he says. "I would go home and look at the news. The ministry would say 10 people got killed all over Iraq, while I had received in that day more than 50 dead bodies just in Baghdad. It's always been like that — they would say one thing but the reality was much worse”(Garcia-Navarro, NPR).

Benefits to keeping public in the dark:-continues public support of war-leaves people hopeful-does not allow irrational people to react

(soldiers hurting civilians)-keeps racism at by in the home front

• Doe v. Metropolitan Toronto Board of Commissioners of Police.

• Did the police make the right decision?