social systems
How groups organize
Social systems are the organized patterns of relationships, institutions, and practices that structure how groups of people live together.
The term encompasses everything from family structures to economic arrangements to government—any framework that shapes human interaction on a collective scale.
Sociologists study social systems to understand how societies maintain stability or undergo change.
The phrase often appears in discussions of reform: The social system is rigged against working people.
- hierarchyRanked authority structure
- pecking orderSocial dominance arrangement
- institutionsEstablished organizations or practices
- communityCollective of connected people
- networksInterconnected groups or channels
old boys club · in crowd · norms · unwritten rules · structure · power structure · power · class · tribe · tribal ties · governance · culture · order · collective · organization · customs · stratification · roles
- systemsecosystems, transportation network, neural network, neural networks, power grid
- sociologystratification, norms, class, habitus, deviance
- organizational behaviorgroup dynamics, employee relations, job satisfaction, morale, teamwork
- functionalismMerton, Durkheim, dysfunction, Malinowski
- structuralismLevi-Strauss, structuralism, structural analysis, signifier, signified
- interdisciplinescognitive science, bioinformatics, bioethics, neuroscience, data science
social systemspersonal agency
Power to act independently
private life · individual autonomy · hermit lifestyle · self-reliance
social systemsanarchy
Disorder from absent authority
chaos · disorder · state of nature · lawlessness · anomie
social systemsecosystems
Interdependent organism-environment systems
biological systems · mechanical systems · natural order · natural phenomena · computer systems
social, system, society, societal, socialize, socialization, socialized, socializing, socialism