Friendship as a Social Institution

Michal McCall

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351518970
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicología
• Subtopic: Historia y teoría en psicología

What is the social organization of love, friendship, rivalry, marriage, admiration, collegiality, parenthood, acquaintance, and clientage? How are these types of relationships similar and how do they differ? Few sociological works exist on relationships between friends, business partners, customers and clerks, mailmen and homeowners, and employers and employees, as social rather than role relationships. This classic book remains of interest because it focuses on voluntary personal relationships relationships that people need not enter, whose content is up to the participants, whose rules are what the participants agree they will be.

The authors create an analytic framework within which to describe and compare the enormous range of relationships between two persons. They detail the shape and structure of such relationships, consider their organizational dynamics, their range and the nature of deviance in them, and point out analytical variables and dimensions upon which relationships can be located for comparative purposes. Organizational change in terms of how relationships are formed, developed, and transformed is covered, as is their function and dysfunction for the individual and society.

By regarding social relationships consistently from the viewpoint of social organization theory, the book assimilates them to sociological concepts in general, but with an eye to the social psychological and organizational features that render them distinctive as a type. Friendship as a Social Institution sustains the study of friendship by making distinctions and outlining the problems connected with the study of social relationships.

Chapter One

George J. Mc Call

The Social Organization of Relationships

The initial essay in this volume is broader in scope than those that follow, providing a programmatic framework for the analysis of social relationships as social organizations. It describes the nature of social relationships and differentiates it from similar phenomena, such as interactive encounters, groups, and role relationships. Having defined the concept of social relationships, the essay examines certain organizational features of relationships—their substance, shape, structure, and culture—and the distinctive forms these features assume in this smallest of enduring social organizations. The life of social relationships is viewed in terms both of organizational dynamics (such as recruitment, socialization, interaction, innovation, social control, and logistics) and of organizational change.

Social relationships have received little explicit attention in modem sociology. In the first twenty-five volumes of the American Sociological Review, not a single article has been indexed as dealing with social relationships (Index, 1961). In the first seventy volumes of the American Journal of Sociology, only six articles have been so indexed, mostly inaccurately (Cumulative Index, 1966).

One reason for this general neglect of dyadic relationships, I propose, is that after the early triumphs of Cooley (1902, 1909), Simmel (1950), Weber (1947), and Waller (1938), the rise to fashion of imported frameworks diverted those sociologists interested in interpersonal phenomena from their concern with social organization. One such diversion was role theory, an essentially culturological approach borrowed from anthropolgy (Nadel, 1957; Parsons, 1951). Role theory changed the focus from the relations among persons to relations among social roles as abstract patterns of expectations, rights, and duties. A second imported framework was interpersonal theory, as presented by Sullivan, Freud, and others (Sullivan, 1964; Mullahy, 1949). Emphasis was placed upon the interplay of psychic dynamics and displaced from the manifold external relations among social actors. A more recent diversion has been balance theory as developed by such social psychologists as Heider (1958), Newcomb (1953), and Cartwright (1956). Balance theory focused on certain relations among people’s attitudes toward one another and toward relevant common objects.

We have learned much from each of these approaches, as I shall show below, but none of them takes aim at the core sociological characteristic of social relationships—namely, that they are a form of social organization, comparable in many respects to small groups, bureaucracies, or communities. It is this aspect that I wish to explore in the present paper.

Following Max Weber (1947, pp. 118-20), a relationship is at base the existence of a substantial probability of interaction between two persons. What makes such a relationship social is the basis for the existence of this probability of interaction and the form the interaction will likely assume. In social relationships the basis for the probability of interaction is that the two persons view themselves as the sole members of a common collectivity—e.g., a marriage—constraining them both to interact in a more or less specific fashion.

At one extreme this common collectivity may be a role relationship. If a person wanders off the street into an ice cream parlor, he will not long ignore the woman behind the counter nor will he lick her nose; he will probably ask about or request some dairy product. Similarly, she will not long ignore him nor will she flick peanut shells in his hair; she will probably ask him if she can be of assistance to him with regard to dairy products. That is, each of them perceives himself and the other to be the members of a particular role relationship (clerk-customer) and feels constrained to interact with the other in a manner befitting their common membership in this collectivity. The social relationship is between the two persons, however, not between the two roles; the role relationship only constrains the form the interaction takes. Where such a role relationship is the primary constraint on the form of interaction, we can speak of a formal relationship between two persons.

At the other extreme, the common collectivity of which they are members may be merely an acquaintanceship—the existence of mutual recognition. That is to say, two persons feel constrained to interact in at least some minimal fashion, as by waving or saying hello, simply because each recognizes the other as a distinctive individual and knows that the other recognizes him. Perception of themselves as members of even such a contentless collectivity is sufficient to constrain them to interact, and the form this interaction takes is constrained by what one knows of other and by what one thinks or hopes the other knows of him. Where knowledge of persons rather than role relationships is the primary constraint on the form of interaction, we can speak of a personal relationship between two persons (McCall and Simmons, 1966, p. 169).

Virtually all concrete social relationships are, of course, blends of formal and personal relationships. Even where a role relationship is the major constraint on interaction, the actors know a good deal about one another (such as age, sex, class, beauty, etc.) and take this knowledge into account in forming their respective lines of action. Similarly, personal relationships almost always involve knowledge and assumption of role relationships between the members (e.g., those of age peers or friends) (Hughes, 1945; Strauss, 1959, pp. 69-76; McCall and Simmons, 1966, pp. 130-46).

If the views expressed above are correct, then the variations and vicissitudes of social relationships must be approached by considering the organization, dynamics, and changes of dyadic collectivities constraining their members. We turn now to each of these aspects successively.

Organizational Components of Relationships

In treating the social organization of a relationship, we will examine its substance (the bonds uniting the persons in a relationship), its structure (or shape), and its culture.

Bonds

If a social relationship is to be viewed as a form of social organization, the participants or members must be bound together into some unit larger than themselves. Analysis of such binding forces reveals at least five types of social bonds (McCall and Simmons, 1966, pp. 170-75).

First, there is in many relationships an element of ascription. That is, owing simply to the social positions two persons happen to occupy, and quite independent of any individual characteristics, these persons may be linked by a role relationship. The prototypical case is of course those social relationships based upon blood relation or kinship, as described by anthropologists. In modern societies the force of kinship has become attenuated, but even here individuals inherit many social ties and have many others foisted upon them by their social groupings. For example, many teacher-pupil, supervisor-employee, and colleague or peer relationships are, in this fashion, ascribed.

In addition to these passive forms of ascription, people actively strive to achieve many social “ascriptions.” They seek to have their relationships legitimated and consecrated by being conferred upon themselves and alter by officials of their social groupings. Many social positions thus “ascribed”—a doctorate, a licensed occupation, a military rank—exist and are largely defined in terms of specifying the ascriptive component of a whole set of relationships to other positions.

Second, there is in many if not most social relationships the factor of commitment. To a varying extent a person has privately and publicly committed himself, or been committed, to honoring a restrictive covenant, a trade agreement, with the other party. He has pledged the semi-exclusive use of the other party as a source of certain specified behaviors, role supports, and other rewards. He has committed himself to the legitimation of certain aspects of certain role-identities¹ by endorsing the other party as a partner in enacting them and as an audience whose opinions about his performances of these identities are given primary weight.

Commitments are a strategy for increasing and insuring the dependability of a source of exchange rewards (Becker, 1960). But they are much more. They are frequently entered into because of moral convictions, as well as, or even instead of, opportunism or desire. If in a relationship there are no elements except commitment based upon moral convictions, the relationship is literally only a duty. Even if the commitment is not made on moral grounds, the person is under some moral obligation to fulfill it. To have made a commitment is to have bound oneself, and it requires a very good excuse to withdraw from alter without losing face. Even personal relationships are thus at least partly public affairs.

Although ascriptions and commitments often blend, we must be careful to distinguish between them. Persons often enter into what they think are commitments (e.g., going steady) only to discover later that they have effectively recruited themselves into “ascribed” relationships they cannot dissolve without the formal consent of their social groupings (e.g., marriage).

Third, the members of a relationship may be bound by the factor of attachment. Attachments to others are formed as the individual’s identities evolve and change. One’s dreams of oneself, the idealized pictures he has of himself in certain social positions, are seldom constant over long periods of time. As a person faces new tasks and new alters, these tasks and alters become incorporated into his daydreaming about himself in these social roles. Consequently, specific persons and their behaviors get built into the contents of role-identities and become crucial to the legitimation and enactment of these identities. This building of specific others into the very contents of role-identities is what we mean by becoming “attached” to particular alters.

Such attachments make the individual vulnerable to the decisions, reactions, and whims of these others and to all the physical and social vicissitudes that may befall them. As the Buddhists put it, to become involved with another is to surrender a hostage to the fates. When one becomes attached to a particular other, the resulting relationship tends to become“nontransferable.” Any competent clerk or repairman will do, but one cannot so easily go looking for another mother, another brother, another child. The less transferable a relationship, the more vulnerable the members are.

Fourth, investment is a ubiquitous and powerful bond between persons. When someone has expended such scarce resources as money, time, and life chances in establishing and maintaining a relationship, he cannot afford to throw them away without realizing substantial returns. The normative standards involved in most relationships—sometimes termed the“norm of reciprocity” (Gouldner, I960)—demand that we also show some consideration for alters investments as well, for the tie is, after all, a joint venture.

Fifth, reward dependability is a major reason for the existence and continuation of many relationships. As a consequence of our recurring needs for role-support and the other commodities of social exchange, we are disposed to seek dependably recurring sources of them. And when we locate or are thrown together with individuals or groups that for whatever reason are able, willing, and ready to afford us supplies of such exchange commodities, we are disposed to seek to“comer the market” by establishing further and more durable bonds with those alters—bonds of ascription, commitment, attachment, and investment.

These five bonds are, then, perhaps the most important forces serving to bind two persons together, making it likely that they will continue to interact on a personal basis in the future. Ascription, commitment, attachment, investment, and reward dependability are the social psychological glue that cements individuals into the units we know as social relationships.

These bonds usually blend and run together in most continuing relationships. Nevertheless they are distinct factors; they are present in different proportions in different relationships, and they often vary independently of one another. For example, we sometimes have commitments that differ from those ascribed to us; we frequently forgo the potential rewards of exchanges because of “prior commitments”; we fret over interpersonal investments that have not yet yielded dependable reward sources; we seek to secure our attachments through mutual commitments and formal ascriptions; and conversely, we may resignedly fulfill commitments that no longer reflect our attachments.

Individuals are most preoccupied with their attachments, bût the societies they live in are most concerned with their ascriptions and commitments. At the least, social forces seek to produce in the individual a set of commitments that correspond to and implement his ascriptions. If ascriptions, commitments, and attachments are all aligned, conventional social opinion regards this consistency as even better. But the person is not simply left on his honor in these matters. Such ascriptions and commitments, once made, are enforced by a host of informal social pressures and formal social controls, and ordinarily the individual cannot seriously violate them without incurring retribution.

A wide divergence between one’s commitments and one’s attachments is likely to engender a good deal of personal discontent, and the person will be motivated to reduce the divergence, either by giving up his attachments or by changing his commitments— his job, his spouse, his style of life. But neither of these strategies is easily brought off, and most of us carry around some freight of discontent and restlessness because the two sets of factors are not mutually aligned. Most frequently we attempt compromise solutions of moderate divergences by negotiating redefinitions of the contents of the commitments and by reshuffling the intensities of our attachments.

People tend to make investments on the basis of their attachments, particularly in the early phases of relationships, in attempts to secure commitments from the other parties as dependable sources of exchange rewards. In later phases, however, a person must often continue to invest in the relationship even though his attachments may have shifted to some extent or even though alter proves somewhat unreliable as a source of reward. His resources are quite limited, as we have seen, and hence he cannot afford simply to throw away what he has already “put into” the relationship and start anew. This dilemma is, in fact, particularly common in many of the deepest and most intimate associations, like marriage, parenthood, and career ties. After a certain point, many such investments are virtually irreversible.

Structure

Having briefly examined some bases for the likelihood of continuing interaction between two persons—some bonds that unite people in a social relationship—we turn to a consideration of the shape and structure of such relationships.

Shape is perhaps more easily defined in relatively formal relationships, where we may conceive of it as the fit between a pair (or more likely several pairs) of social roles, such as district attorney and judge, that serve as the primary constraints on the form of interaction between the two persons. There are several points in the definition. First, we are talking about social roles, sets of expectations commonly held concerning the conduct, rights, and duties of any occupant of specified social positions. As such, social roles are essentially cultural objects of which individuals may have learned more or less. Second, the fit between such social roles is a matter of functional fit—the manner in which the expected conduct, rights, and duties of one social position facilitate or impede those of the other position. Third, such a fit between social roles constrains the form of interaction between two persons only insofar as the social situation or the limits of their knowledge of one another makes this pair of social positions the most salient guide to shaping their lines of conduct toward one another.

All this may seem to be a laborious way to say that the shape of a formal relationship ’s roughly bounded by the role relationship ) between the members’ social positions as outlined (rather sketchily) by the prevailing local culture. And so it may be, but I have spelled it out in this fashion in the hope that it might, one, remind the reader that the role relationship is not identical with the formal relationship but only bounds its structure, and, two, might facilitate definition of the personal relationship.

It is here assumed that the self-structure of each individual is a complexly organized set of role-identities—conceptions of himself as an occupant of a number of social positions, conceptions not perfectly or equally compatible. It is further assumed that no other person is acquainted with the entire set either of social positions or of role-identities and that for reasons of economy and security the individual reveals somewhat different subsets of these positions and/or role-identities to different alters. I will refer to any one of these revealed subsets of identities as a persona presented by that individual (McCall and Simmons, 1966, pp. 76-94,181-83).

With these preliminaries, we may define the shape of a personal relationship as the fit between the personas ...