1. Societies and Nations Key Terms
Chapter 4
Societies and Nations Key Terms

2. Society A population that is organized in a cooperative manner to carry out the major functions of life.
Social structure The recurring patterns of behavior that people create through their interactions, their exchange of information, and their relationships.

3. Group Any collection of people who interact on the basis of shared expectations regarding one another’s behavior.
Status A socially defined position in a group.

4. Role The way a society defines how an individual is to behave in a particular status.
Role expectations A society’s expectations about how a role should be performed, together with the individual’s perceptions of what is required in performing that role.

5. Institution A more or less stable structure of statuses and roles devoted to meeting the basic needs of people in a society.
Differentiation The processes whereby sets of social activities performed by one social institution are divided among different institutions.

6. Pastoral society A society whose primary means of subsistence is herding animals and moving with them over a wide expanse of grazing land.
Horticultural society A society whose primary means of subsistence is raising crops, which it plants and cultivates, often developing an extensive system for watering the crops.

7. Social stratification The process whereby the members of a society are sorted into different statuses.
Open society A society in which social mobility is possible for everyone.

8. Closed society A society in which social mobility does not exist.
Capitalism A system for organizing the production of goods and services that is based on markets, private property, and the business firm or company.

9. Gemeinschaft A term used to refer to the close, personal relationships of small groups and communities.
Gesellschaft A term used to refer to the well-organized but impersonal relationships among the members of modern societies.

10. Primary group A small group characterized by intimate, face-to-face associations.
Secondary group A social group whose members have a shared goal or purpose but are not bound together by strong emotional ties.

11. Role conflict Conflict that occurs when in order to perform one role well, a person must violate the expectations associated with another role.
Role strain Conflict that occurs when the expectations associated with a single role are contradictory.

12. Ascribed status A position or rank that is assigned to an individual at birth and cannot be changed.
Achieved status A position or rank that is earned through the efforts of the individual.

13. Master status A status that takes precedence over all of an individual’s other statuses.
State A society’s set of political structures.

14. Nation-state The largest territory within which a society’s political institutions can operate without having to face challenges to their sovereignty.