Society & Welfare
Basic Concepts of Sociology
Basic Concepts of Sociology — Quick Revision
One-page CGPSC quick revision for Basic Concepts of Sociology: every definition, thinker, book and distinction in tables for last-minute Mains GS-IV revision.
This sheet covers the sociology vocabulary of GS-IV: society, community and institution, socialisation, status and role, and culture. For explanations, go back to Society, Community and Institution, Socialisation, Status and Role and Culture.
How to use this sheet
Scan top to bottom the week before Mains. Bold lines are the definitions and thinker–concept pairs examiners return to most often. In every answer: definition with name → distinction → Indian or Chhattisgarh example.
Timeline / Key Facts
Thinkers in date order
| Year | Thinker | Concept | Work |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1871 | E. B. Tylor | Culture as a “complex whole” | Primitive Culture |
| 1887 | Ferdinand Tönnies | Gemeinschaft / Gesellschaft | Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft |
| 1893 | Émile Durkheim | Mechanical / organic solidarity | The Division of Labour in Society |
| 1902 | C. H. Cooley | Looking-glass self | Human Nature and the Social Order |
| 1906 | W. G. Sumner | Folkways, mores, in-group / out-group; popularised “ethnocentrism” | Folkways |
| 1909 | C. H. Cooley | Primary group (“nursery of human nature”) | Social Organization |
| 1922 | W. F. Ogburn | Cultural lag; material / non-material culture | Social Change with Respect to Culture and Original Nature |
| 1934 | G. H. Mead | I, me, generalised other (posthumous) | Mind, Self and Society |
| 1936 | Ralph Linton | Status and role; ascribed / achieved | The Study of Man |
| 1936 | W. H. Wiser | Jajmani system | The Hindu Jajmani System |
| 1945 | Everett C. Hughes | Master status | “Dilemmas and Contradictions of Status” |
| 1949 | MacIver and Page | Society, community, association, institution | Society: An Introductory Analysis |
| 1952 | M. N. Srinivas | Sanskritisation | Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India |
| 1952 | Kroeber and Kluckhohn | 164 definitions of culture | Culture: A Critical Review |
| 1954 | Gerhard Lenski | Status crystallisation / inconsistency | American Sociological Review |
| 1955 | McKim Marriott | Universalisation / parochialisation | Kishan Garhi study |
| 1957 | R. K. Merton | Role-set vs status-set | British Journal of Sociology |
| 1960 | W. J. Goode | Role strain | “A Theory of Role Strain” |
| 1961 | Erving Goffman | Total institution; re-socialisation | Asylums |
| 1966 | M. N. Srinivas | Westernisation | Social Change in Modern India |
Definitions
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Society | “A web of social relationships” (MacIver and Page) |
| Community | “An area of social living marked by some degree of social coherence”; locality + community sentiment (we-feeling, role-feeling, dependency-feeling) |
| Association | Organisation deliberately formed for the collective pursuit of shared interests |
| Institution | “Established forms or conditions of procedure” (MacIver and Page); “a concept and a structure” (Sumner) |
| Socialisation | Learning to conform to group norms (Ogburn); internalising norms so a distinct self emerges (Horton and Hunt) |
| Status | A position with rights and duties |
| Role | “The dynamic aspect of a status” (Linton) |
| Culture | “That complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom…” (Tylor); “the man-made part of the environment” (Herskovits) |
Types and stages
| Topic | Points |
|---|---|
| Cooley’s primary groups | Family, children’s play-group, neighbourhood |
| Looking-glass self | Appear → judge → feel |
| Mead’s stages | Imitation → play → game (generalised other) |
| Freud | Id, ego, superego (conscience) |
| Piaget | Sensorimotor → pre-operational → concrete operational → formal operational |
| Socialisation types | Primary, secondary, anticipatory (Merton), re-socialisation (total institutions), developmental, reverse, gender |
| Agencies | Family, peers (Ghotul), school, religion, media, workplace, state, folk performance |
| Norms | Folkways → mores → taboos → laws; customs |
Chhattisgarh illustrations
| Concept | Example |
|---|---|
| Community | A Muria or Gond village of Bastar |
| Association | Women’s SHG; primary agricultural co-operative society |
| Institution | Marriage forms (lamsena, gurawat); Gram Sabha under PESA; jajmani-type grain payments |
| Fictive kinship | Ritual friendships: mitan, mahaprasad, gangajal, bhojali |
| Agency of socialisation | Ghotul (Muria): peer-group socialisation |
| Role conflict / master status | Woman sarpanch vs daughter-in-law; “sarpanch pati” |
| Achieved status for women | 50% panchayat reservation (since 2008); mitanins (since 2002) |
| Cultural lag | Smartphones vs fraud awareness; tonhi belief despite modern medicine (law of 2005) |
| Parochialisation | Bastar Dussehra: no Ravana; Danteshwari; Muria Darbar |
| Great → Little tradition | Pandavani retelling the Mahabharata |
| Assertion vs Sanskritisation | Satnam Panth (“मनखे-मनखे एक समान”) rejects hierarchy |
Don’t Confuse
| This | vs | That |
|---|---|---|
| Community: spontaneous, whole life | vs | Association: deliberate, specific interest |
| Association: you belong to it | vs | Institution: a procedure you follow |
| Gemeinschaft / Gesellschaft: Tönnies 1887 | vs | Mechanical / organic: Durkheim 1893 |
| Mechanical: likeness, repressive law | vs | Organic: interdependence, restitutive law |
| Looking-glass self: Cooley 1902 | vs | Primary group: Cooley 1909 |
| I: spontaneous (Mead) | vs | Me: socialised (Mead) |
| Anticipatory socialisation: before joining | vs | Re-socialisation: unlearn and relearn |
| Status-set: all statuses of a person | vs | Role-set: all relationships of one status |
| Role conflict: between statuses | vs | Role strain: within one status (Goode) |
| Master status: Hughes 1945 | vs | Status inconsistency: Lenski 1954 |
| Folkways: mild sanction | vs | Mores: strong moral sanction |
| Ethnocentrism | vs | Cultural relativism |
| Sanskritisation: 1952 | vs | Westernisation: 1966 (both Srinivas) |
| Universalisation: local → up | vs | Parochialisation: all-India → down (Marriott) |
| Assimilation: identity lost | vs | Integration: identity kept |
Favourite MCQ trap
- Role-set ≠ many roles of one person. That is the status-set (or multiple roles). Merton’s role-set is many relationships attached to one status.
- Cooley did not coin “secondary group”. He described primary groups; the contrasting term came later.
- Cultural lag: material culture changes first; non-material culture lags.
- Age is ascribed, even though it changes.
Advertisement