Everyday people interact with each other through short-term and close communication, but none of them thinks that every fleeting dialogue and five-minute meeting is an integral part of the development of society. Social relations are a set of interactions between people, groups and the state, social classes that arise according to the type of activity, characteristics of people’s environment, their interests and goals. Another name for this kind of interaction is public relations.
Structure
The system of social relations includes a dialogue between individuals and groups, their joint activities, carried out through unevenly distributed social values. Thanks to uneven distribution, social connections are formed, for example, such as: love, friendship, power, economic relations. Depending on the personal qualities of each individual, certain interactions develop, from which a close circle of people is subsequently created.
For the normal development of social relationships, at least 2 people are needed, since the main engine and connecting link in communication is dialogue. Relationships in society can be both positive and negative (social conflicts).
Interpersonal relationships: types and features
The act of internalization is determined by a number of individual psychological characteristics of each specific bearer of a given role.
Therefore, social relations, although in essence they are role-based, impersonal relations, in reality, in their concrete manifestation, acquire a certain “personal coloring”.
Psychological are subjectively experienced relationships and mutual influences of people.
At the core are emotions and feelings. Interpersonal relationships are a system of attitudes, expectations, orientations, stereotypes through which people perceive and evaluate each other.
Obozov: (according to the degree of emotional involvement) relationship of acquaintance, friendly, comradely, friendly, intimate-personal: love, marital, related.
Aronson: sympathy-antipathy, friendship-enmity, love-hate.
All social relations are permeated by interpersonal ones and mutually determine each other.
The existence of interpersonal relationships within various forms of social relations is, as it were, the implementation of impersonal relationships in the activities of specific individuals, in the acts of their communication and interaction. At the same time, during this implementation, relations between people (including social ones) are reproduced again.
In other words, this means that in the objective fabric of social relations there are moments emanating from the conscious will and special goals of individuals. It is here that the social and the psychological directly collide.
The nature of interpersonal relations differs significantly from the nature of social relations: their most important specific feature is their emotional basis. Therefore, interpersonal relationships can be considered as a factor in the psychological “climate” of the group.
The emotional basis of interpersonal relationships means that they arise and develop on the basis of certain feelings that arise in people towards each other. In the domestic school of psychology, three types or levels of emotional manifestations of personality are distinguished: affects, emotions and feelings. The emotional basis of interpersonal relationships includes all types of these emotional manifestations.
However, in social psychology, emotional manifestations usually characterize feelings, and the term is not used in the strictest sense.
Naturally, the “set” of these feelings is limitless. However, all of them can be reduced into two large groups:
1) conjunctive - this includes various kinds of things that bring people together, uniting their feelings.
In each case of such a relationship, the other party acts as a desired object, in relation to which a willingness to cooperate, to joint actions, etc. is demonstrated;
2) disjunctive feelings - these include feelings that separate people, when the other side appears as unacceptable, maybe even as a frustrating object, in relation to which there is no desire to cooperate, etc.
The intensity of both types of feelings can be very different. The specific level of their development, naturally, cannot be indifferent to the activities of groups.
At the same time, the analysis of only these interpersonal relationships cannot be considered sufficient to characterize the group: in practice, relationships between people do not develop only on the basis of direct emotional contacts.
The activity itself sets another series of relationships mediated by it. That is why it is an extremely important and difficult task for social psychology to simultaneously analyze two series of relationships in a group: both interpersonal and those mediated by joint activity, that is, ultimately the social relations behind them.
Negative relationships
Connections that have a destructive effect on a person’s psyche, his self-esteem, personality and self-esteem, as well as the health of society include: total (hidden or obvious) dependence on a person or group of people, fanaticism, admiration for the leader.
Although psychologists note that such dependence can be not only negative, but also positive. For example, a small child is completely dependent on his parents, and they, in turn, are also dependent to one degree or another on their baby.
Signs
Social relationships are not a manifestation of the individual as such; during everyday interactions, the personal “I” is often hidden under patterned, established and accepted behavior by the person. This contributes to the creation of certain “labels” that are often used by society. For example, a person at the workplace with colleagues behaves modestly and reservedly, does not be rude and does not argue with his superiors. Those around him begin to consider him a “mum,” a weakling and a coward. At the same time, next to close people, the personality of this person is fully revealed, and he turns out to be strong, capable of standing up for himself and his family, and showing firmness when necessary.
Signs of social relations in society are considered to be established, well-coordinated connections with someone from a person’s environment. This could be negotiations at work, meetings with companions or colleagues, friends, family gatherings. Moreover, even short-term communication in the form of a standard “hello” said to an acquaintance is already a sign of social relationships.
What does interpersonal psychology study?
They reveal the objective dependence on each other of persons performing certain social functions (roles), but at the same time without regard to those specific individuals who, when performing these functions, interact and personify these functions with their personal characteristics (Andreeva G.M., 1980 ).
Psychological relationships are the result of direct contacts between specific people who are capable of expressing their likes and dislikes, recognizing and experiencing them.
They are full of emotions and feelings, i.e. the experience and expression by individuals or their groups of their attitude towards interaction with similar subjects of social life.
Psychological relationships are completely personalized, as they are of a purely personal nature. Their content and specificity are filled, determined and depend on the specific people between whom they arise.
Thus, interaction and psychological (social) relations underlie the correct and initial understanding of all other psychological phenomena.
One should only make a reservation, or rather, always remember that the interaction itself and psychological (social) relationships can be adequately understood through the analysis of mutual perception and influence of people on each other, the nature of communication between them.
Interaction, psychological (social) relations, people’s perception of each other, their mutual influence, communication and mutual understanding between them are one-order, but at the same time multi-level phenomena that are inseparable from one another.
Just as society does not exist in the form of an independent “person”, outside the individuals that make it up, so interaction and psychological relationships cannot but manifest themselves outside their real perception by people, their influence on each other and communication between them.
However, in the interests of a correct understanding and comprehension of each of these phenomena, we must tear them out of their universal connection and consider them in isolation.
The life and activity of people is a social process in which their actions are appropriately distributed and coordinated both in relation to each other, to the means and methods of production, and in relation to joint efforts thanks primarily to material (economic, production) relations.
Kinds
Social relationships are a complex concept that includes several types of interactions, divided by:
- Subjects. This category includes: international, mass, moral, individual, aesthetic, social relations in society between individuals and groups.
- Objects. The following types of objects are distributed: family ties (family and household), religious relations, economic and political interactions, legal.
- Modalities. This subtype is directly related to the emotional state of a person, it includes: competitive and partnership attitudes, conflict and subordination.
- Formalities. According to formalization, social connections are divided into: informal (unofficial) and formal (official). Such relationships can be found among subordinates and their superiors, managers and lower-ranking persons.
A person’s choice of behavior in one relationship or another is significantly influenced by his physical and mental health, as well as a number of factors: level of education, family, field of activity. Sometimes there is duality in relationships, since many of them are interconnected.
Public, social and interpersonal relations: the essence of concepts
The main categories characterizing the specifics of the emerging relationships.
Interpersonal relationships are objectively experienced, to varying degrees perceived, relationships between people.
To denote a system of relations, various concepts of “social relations”, “public relations”, “human relations”, etc. are used. In some cases they are used as synonyms, in others they are opposed to each other.
Social relations are official, formally secured, objectified, effective connections. They are leaders in regulating all types of relationships, including interpersonal ones.
Social relations are relationships between social groups or their members.
Public and social relations are classified on the following basis:
1. From the point of view of ownership and disposal of property;
2. By the amount of power (vertical and horizontal relationships);
3. By sphere of manifestation (legal, economic, political, moral, religious, etc.);
4. From the position of regulation (official, unofficial)
Interpersonal relationships are objectively experienced, to varying degrees perceived, relationships between people. They are based on the various emotional states of interacting people.
Interpersonal relationships include three elements:
1. Cognitive element, which involves awareness of what is liked or disliked in interpersonal relationships;
2. The affective element, expressing the various experiences of people about the relationships between them;
3. Behavioral component, implemented in specific actions.
Interpersonal relationships are built vertically (subordinate - leader, mother - son) and horizontally (sister - brother, friends).
The emotional manifestations of interpersonal connections are determined by the sociocultural norms of the groups to which the communicating people belong and individual differences.
Interpersonal relationships can be formed from the positions of dominance - equality - submission and dependence - independence.
There are a number of categories that characterize the specifics of the emerging relationships.
Social distance is a combination of official and interpersonal relationships that determines the closeness of communicating, corresponding to the sociocultural norms of the communities to which they belong. Social distance allows you to maintain an adequate level of breadth and depth of connections when establishing relationships. Its violation leads to disjunctive interpersonal relationships, and then to conflicts.
Psychological distance characterizes the degree of closeness of interpersonal relationships between communication partners.
Interpersonal compatibility is the optimal combination of psychological characteristics of partners that help optimize their communication and activities.
Interpersonal attractiveness is a complex psychological property of a person, which, as it were, “attracts” a communication partner and evokes a feeling of sympathy in him. The formation of this property is influenced by a number of factors:
- § physical attractiveness;
- § spatial proximity;
- § accessibility in communication;
- § expectation of continued interaction;
- § reciprocity;
- § similarity;
- § complementarity;
- § empathy;
- § promoting the achievement of personally significant goals;
- § personal harmony.
Emotional attractiveness is the ability of an individual to understand the mental states of a communication partner and, especially, to empathize with him.
The concept of “attraction” is closely related to interpersonal attractiveness. Some researchers consider attraction as a process and at the same time a result of the attractiveness of one person to another; distinguish levels in it (sympathy, friendship, love) and connect it with the perceptual side of communication.
Others believe that attraction is a kind of social attitude in which a positive emotional component predominates.
Attraction is understood as the process of preferring some people over others, mutual attraction between people, mutual sympathy.
Attraction is determined by external factors (the degree of expression of a person’s need for affiliation, the emotional state of communication partners, the spatial proximity of the place of residence or work of those communicating) and internal, actually interpersonal determinants (physical attractiveness, demonstrated style of behavior, the factor of similarity between partners, the expression of personal attitude towards partner in the process of communication)
Most common types
Social social relations in society can only develop through complete reciprocity, but it is not necessarily mutually beneficial for both parties. For example, one person wants to “tie” another to himself through coercion and imposition of unnecessary joint activities, and the second pushes away the first, not needing him, provoking a quarrel. In sociology, four types of frequently occurring relationships are defined: conflict, competition and cooperation, complete or partial dependence.
About the criteria
Before giving examples of social relations, we should talk about what types they are divided into.
The most common criterion is regulation. What in this case determines the legal situation. And in terms of regulation, relationships can be official or unofficial. The first include those that develop between individuals due to their official position. Let's say between a boss and subordinates. Or teacher and student. And unofficial relationships are those that are also commonly called personal. They have no legal basis and are not limited by formal rules. This could be a relationship between friends, for example. Or between a guy and a girl.
Addiction
Social dependence represents the dominance of one of the parties in a relationship; its actions and instructions entail the actions of the other, weaker party. Mostly there are interdependent connections, such as: parents-children, teacher-student, state-neighboring countries. Social dependence is also observed in groups consisting of people occupying a low position and those with a higher status. For example, subordinates are completely dependent on their leaders, and in politics, the people are legally and constitutionally dependent on the ruling persons.
Rivalry
Market and socio-economic relations cannot exist without competition and rivalry, since these relationships are their basis. Rivalry is a kind of competition, a struggle using all kinds of methods and means for material wealth, capital, resources or power, a high position in society. This type of relationship is formed under the condition of strong negative feelings and emotions (hate, hostility, envy, fear) caused by a competitor in a person (group of people), and an irresistible desire to be first at all costs, to work ahead.
Cooperation
Mutual assistance, partnerships - all this is cooperation. In relationships of this kind, the prerogative is to achieve a common goal. People who are united by cooperation take into account not only their own desires, but also the needs of their companions and partners. Participants usually have common interests and values that contribute to joint fruitful activities.
What relationships in managing society are most preferable?
For the normal functioning of management, the prerogative is considered to be social relations of people based on any impact on a person. In a democratic society, legal ties, respect for the individual and human freedoms, and instilling love for the homeland come first.
Power, submission, dominance, dependence, dominance, instilling fear - all these aspects can be seen in the official, competitive, political, economic and legal social relations in a society ruled by dictators. This model of social relations leads to increased tension in society, frequent conflicts and outbreaks of discontent among the middle and lower classes.
Types and characteristics of interpersonal relationships
Strategy is the subject’s methods of action to achieve the main goal of psychological influence on the recipient. Tactics is the solution of intermediate tasks of psychological influence through the use of various psychological techniques.
In social psychology, verbal (speech) and nonverbal (paralinguistic) features of means of influence are distinguished.
Methods of influence include persuasion and coercion (at the level of consciousness), as well as suggestion, infection and imitation (at the unconscious level of the psyche).
The last three methods are socio-psychological. Forms of interpersonal influence are verbal (written and oral) and visual. The argumentation system involves both ideological (abstract) evidence and information of a specific nature (numerical and factual information is easier to remember and compare).
It is advisable to take into account the principles of selection and presentation of information - evidence and satisfaction of the information needs of a particular object, as well as communication barriers (cognitive, socio-psychological, etc.)
