• Society is not only a system of moral norms and defined statuses but also a system in action.
• Statuses and moral norms are the static elements of society, while social interaction is the dynamic element.
• As individuals and groups meet, strive, and solve problems, their statuses and moral norms can change.
• Social interaction reveals the concrete results of striving behavior on roles, statuses, and moral norms.
• Social interaction represents the social dynamics; it is an ongoing process.
• People are always engaged in action, and interaction occurs in some form during this process.
• Social processes are characteristic ways in which interaction takes place.
• Interaction is always subtle, complex, and dynamic; it cannot be completely identified with one social process.
• Any concrete situation involves more than one social process.
• All social processes depend upon the most inclusive social process: social interaction.

Social Processes

• Society is a system of social relationships, which exist among people (e.g., father and son, employer and employee, teacher and student).
• Social relationships represent the functional aspects of society and are among the most obvious features of society.
• Sociology must analyze and classify social relationships because they represent social facts and social data.
• Social relationships involve reciprocal obligations, reciprocal statuses, and reciprocal ends and means between two or more actors in mutual contact.
• Social relationships refer to a pattern of interaction between individuals.
• The school of sociology attempting to systematize thought in relationship terms is called the "formal school" (e.g., Simmel, Von Wise, Park, Burgess, Becker).
• Social relationships can be studied by the kind or mode of interaction they exhibit, known as social processes.
• Social processes are the fundamental ways in which people interact and establish relationships.
• Definitions:
  • Maclver: "Social process is the manner in which the relations of the members of a group acquire a distinctive character."
  • A. W. Green: "Social processes are the characteristic ways in which interaction occurs."
  • Ginsberg: "Social processes mean the various modes of interaction between individuals or groups, including cooperation, conflict, social differentiation, integration, development, arrest, and decay."
  • Horton and Hunt: "Social processes refer to the repetitive forms of behavior commonly found in social life."
• There are hundreds or thousands of socially defined relationships in society, which are beyond measurement.
• It is impossible for one individual to study each social relationship in detail; instead, they are classified as general types.
• Social relationships are classified based on the kinds of interaction they manifest, which are called social processes.
• Examples of social processes: cooperation, competition, conflict, contravention, accommodation, assimilation, accumulation, isolation, differentiation, disintegration.