1. What makes humans different from other animals?

1. Our author, Luhman, argues that one reason for the success of humans is that we are able to coordinate as groups and through this coordination change in an adaptive way
   1. However, other animals like bees and wolves also coordinate and communicate about tasks they want to complete
   2. What makes humans different is that they are self-conscious about
      1. our need to coordinate and the ways that we coordinate
      2. using symbols as ways of planning how to solve problems.
      3. being self-conscious about how we set up and control our groups
      4. one member of our class noted that a class he is taking in primate behavior suggests that some animals do this and his information shows us that perhaps our author is out of date
      5. historically efforts to show that humans are superior to animals has been an important part of arguing that we can control animals and that we have dominion over the earth---important ideas in some religious traditions.
2. We talked about basic building blocks of social life.
   1. culture: objects, skills, ideas, beliefs and patterns of behavior in a group
   2. values: ideals agreed upon in a group (we talked about the quiz and the fact that this language can be very hard to nail down)
   3. norms: shared rules and practices that occur in and govern group life (they may not be informed by ideals, hence they are different from values).
   4. roles: expected patterns of behavior and responsibilities related to different positions (statuses) in a division of labor.
   5. division of labor as specialized tasks societies must carry out that are assigned to different individuals; individuals carrying out specialized tasks are interdependent with others and they cannot carry out their roles or functions if others do not carry out their functions. This interdependence is a key part of understanding social dynamics.
   6. If people do not carry out the responsibilities expected with their roles, others find it difficult to fulfill their roles and responsibilities and they tend to react to those who have disrupted the system.
      1. the disruption caused by failing to carry out role responsibilities and interfering with others is called deviance
      2. members of other roles and the group with its division of labor try to return deviant individuals to their expected practices using social control
      3. We talked about forms of deviance:
         1. misinformation (information can correct this),
         2. failure of understanding or ability (education or therapy can work on this
         3. willful failure to follow the rules: coercion or punishment can make someone want to obey the rules
         4. willful failure that is dangerous to others: we may isolate or incarcerate individuals
         5. willful failure that is dangrous and attacks the basis of the rules: exclusion from the community or death are responses.
   7. We talked about how people learn to function in a society as the process of socialization
      1. One aspect is that people are given information about the proper roles and behaviors they should carry out as external information
      2. with time and experience people accept these instructions as having meaning and value; they internalize the lessons and instructions so they can figure out how properly to respond and they develop a desire to act according to the ideals and principles of the group.
      3. One way that this happens is through feedback you get about how others view you and whether they approve of your behavior, appearance, and performance; this feedback and our understanding of self that results is the "looking glass self"
      4. While some lessons we learn that become aspects of socialization are taught in very detailed, content-oriented ways so that we feel that our behavior is determined by those who control us, eventually when we internalize our roles our behavior becomes creative.
      5. we may try to explain social behavior in terms of specif cause-effect relationships, but we never expect to explain social life in a deterministic way because people always act with free will and creativity.