Social Environment Theory
Social environment theory attempts to understand how social environments and the individuals who compose them are interrelated. Social environments can include social groups, institutions, social hierarchies or even entire societies and cultures. The role of individuals within such systems and how the collective actions of individuals create and maintain them are of special interest to social theorists.
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Social Determinism
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One of the primary debates surrounding social environment theory is how the social environment determines the goals, desires, personalities and behavior of the individuals living within it. While it is generally agreed that an individual's environment affects him to some degree, that degree and the mechanisms by which such affects take place are a matter of dispute.
Roles and Actors
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Actors are the individuals who make up any social situation. Roles are the set of goals, behaviors and norms that actors within certain situations are expected to fulfill. Roles can be affixed to gender, such as homemakers or breadwinners, or they can be place or situation specific, such as the roles lawyers, judges, defendants and juries play in the courtroom.
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Agency
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Individuals are considered to have some degree of control over their choices and actions within any social setting. This is called agency. Agency is a person's ability to take action toward achieving some end. The amount of agency an individual has within his social environment might depend largely upon what kind of social environment that person inhabits. For example, a prisoner has relatively little agency because his social situation is designed to deprive him of agency.
Social Structures
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Social structures are the relations of individuals to each other that make up social environments. They can include institutions, class hierarchies or even things as simple as families. These structures are partially the result of individuals maintaining them through some combination of their beliefs and purposive actions.
Social Efficacy
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Social efficacy is the capacity of individuals to cause changes in their social environments. While it is generally believed that people are at least partially products of their environments, this belief does not preclude the possibility that individuals will choose, whether individually or collectively, to self-consciously resist environmental influences.
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