Talk:Social relation

Latest comment: 2 years ago by SoCarl in topic Merge with 'interpersonal ties' page?

untitled edit

I think the introductory definition of social relation is too waffly. When I wrote an article on "social relations", I tried to be very specific about what social relations are. User:Jurriaan

Waffly is a bit unprecise. If you refer to the this, it was much less specific. The first para stated there is no agreed on definition. Wikipedia:Lead clearly states that The first sentence in the lead section should be a concise definition of the topic. I believe the current definition is all right - I took it from referenced Piotr Sztompka's book. The first section goes deeper into the discussion of the meaning. Of coures, you should be bold and rewrite/improve this if you have a better vision. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:28, 9 August 2005 (UTC)Reply

Society edit

Should there not be talk of society when dealing with social relations, as well as socialization processes? 160.36.192.34 18:25, 5 December 2005 (UTC)Reply


Surely social relations are about how two or more people relate to each other (duh)

You have this heading "types" of social relations but I don't see any recognisable types. Archetypical ones I would recognise are:

1. individualistic reciprocal network where each person has a one-to-one relationship with each other - and those people don't have any relationship with each other. What a person does affects only the people immediately connected. The internet is like that. It's the naive economist's model.

2. hierarchical where there is a chain of command and correspondingly of loyalty. Represent with a pyramid diagram - what one person does affects the person above and the persons below. This is every organisation that runs anything. This is what the internet tries to escape from.

3. egalitarian group where everyone is connected to everyone else and so what one person does affects everyone. This is Wikipedia in principle. It is standard sect structure.

4. isolated people who have to live and intermingle but aren't meaningfully connected because they don't trust each other and hence don't affect each other - Banfield's southern Italy. Many a bunch of barflies.

5. autonomous people who don't need anyone and who decline to be connected by choice (disdain, aloofness, higher reality). A hermit, recluse, the Brahman, Buddhism, are examples.

In sum these are five types whose social relations are characterised by attitudes and behaviours which are to, respectively: interact, intervene, interfere, intermingle and withdraw.

Anyway this is my idea of what "social relations" means. 150.203.2.85 08:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Why you are encouraged to be bold and update the article, please remember that Wikipedia is no place for original research.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 13:32, 4 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Rewrite of this article edit

I spend a lot of time on the sociology portal articles, and somehow never looked at this one and realised just how poor it is. The whole thing is poorly written, wishy-washy, badly referenced, and a slightly embarrassing read for anyone with a serious love and interest in sociology. I propose drastic action. Much should be deleted. The social action page is so good now that this page could be dramatically reduced to a few concise, decent points. --Tomsega (talk) 00:35, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

Proposed change to the role of this article: 'Social interaction' forms a coherent enough concept for discussion in the professional work of proper sociologists, but as wikipedia article can clearly becoming a dumping ground for very vague and pointless information, which says nothing about the academic discipline of sociology. I therefore propose this page should (a) be kept as short as possible, unless a very knowledge person with lots of quotes and references can create something more coherent. It should also (b) act primarily as a springboard to other parts of the sociology project that are far more fundamental and important.
Yeah, the term is so basic the article should either be a couple of sentences long, or include the entire social sciences under one page!! --86.139.158.18 (talk) 09:03, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Reply
I have now completely rewritten the article so that it includes a simple explanation of relation/interaction, links to appropriate pages within the sociology portal (dyads, social structure, community and society, etc), and presents everything in a concise manner. I have also merged all of the information from the former article 'Forms of activity and interpersonal relations' - which consisted purely of the very nice table now present here.--Tomsega (talk) 19:34, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

Criticism edit

I think the rewrite is highly biased, since it prefers a neo-Weberian sociological reading of social relations to ALL other social scientific thinking about this concept. To mention a few faults: what "social" means and what marks out a social relation in contrast to other sorts of relation is not defined; animals do not simply engage in "physical movements" but are socially related and engage in social interaction; social relations can be between individuals or between groups of people; etc. I think the article should at least preserve the valid content of earlier versions, and if it is claimed to be vague, that proof is given that it is vague User:Jurriaan 12:18 18 April 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.136.223.40 (talk)

I agree with the sentiments expressed above. When I examined the chart, presented in such a way that it infers, unintentionally or otherwise, that it is THE "sociological hierarchy", its content seemed to me to be debatable. For instance how can it be held that "behaviours" have no meaning or that they carry no expectation of response etc? I have tagged the reference given for this as it is not specific enough to verify and to indicate that the chart, even if it is an accurate representation of Sztompka's views, portrays only one possible taxonomy of social interactions. LookingGlass (talk) 00:50, 22 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
Agree chart should just be pulled/wiped without a necessity of replacement. Lycurgus (talk) 02:22, 3 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Is sexual behavor social behavior? edit

It seems to me necessarily so as it meets the definition in the lede. So I want to link in See also. Mrdthree (talk) 09:45, 6 May 2014 (UTC)Reply

Quorum sex is, it's among the many shortcomings of the current article. Lycurgus (talk) 02:23, 3 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Merge with 'interpersonal ties' page? edit

There is a much more detailed page named interpersonal ties with discussions of Granovetter's contributions, but also Burt's and Simmel's etc. I believe 'interpersonal ties' and 'social relations' should be discussed in the same article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SoCarl (talkcontribs) 15:17, 4 October 2021 (UTC)Reply