In n' Out-Groups

What groups are you in? Imagine all the different groups that you are a part of. Friends, family, race, gender, school, sports, religion, culture, and many more. Many people don't realize how many in-groups they are a part of. An in-group is a group that an individual feels as though they belong, like a member, due to common interests and hobbies. An out-group are basically a group that an individual is not a part of, maybe even takes complete opposite opinion on them. Members of an in-group immediately get along due to their common interests, and also develop favoritism and judgements against groups that are not "them". For example, we did an activity in class where our teacher split us up into 2 groups depending on the color shirt you were wearing, black or colored shirt. A leader in each group was to right down ideas on why the other group was wearing a shirt that was not same colored as theirs. When the whole class got together again, the leaders shared their lists. To surprise, much of the list were judgements that probably weren't true. The groups assumed things about the other group without a logic reason, just "because". A personal example was when I was involved in a sport. Whenever we had competitions, our team would make mean remarks about the others performance, but we don't really know their issue. Maybe they had a migraine that day, or sprained their ankle and tried their best but couldn't do their best. People should treat others the way they want to be treated.

Social Groups

This week in Sociology was very short due to Odyssey, a fine arts exploration that the whole school takes part in. It showed me that everyone can work together to create something bigger and took me out of my 'bubble' to discover new things. We also did an activity in class called "Abandon Ship" where we had 16 members on a boat, and 7 of them had to be thrown overboard. Since I was an old woman, I knew that I was not going to stay on the boat since I had no use and was very weak and could not hold onto expectations. This proved that in our society we view strength and youth as more valuable, then the old and wise. When I made a list of all the groups I was apart of, it was strange to see that II had an influence on many people in my life and I didn't really realize it. It was very interesting to view that I am one person involved in many different things with many different people. 

Social Creation

This week, we learned about how our society affects the way that we see certain things and how we perceive them, which is called Social Construction of Reality. An example of Social Construction of Reality is the way society perceives saliva and spit. It's considered 'weird' if someone spits onto a spoon and puts it back in their mouth, (if they were to do that), but it was just in their mouth, so what's so weird about it? The activity in class really helped me understand what this term meant. It's not considered right because society made everyone think that it's just not normal. This really helps me understand how much of an impact society really has on me and everyone around me. An example that connects to my life is how all of the students at my high school have a high tech cell phone, like the newest iPhone, and if someone doesn't have a touch screen, or a QWERTY keyboard, then they wouldn't accept it and find it odd. This week in class truly showed me how big of an impact society has on everyone.