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200 Social Examples

John Spacey, updated on September 10, 2024

Social examples include social behavior starting at the individual level all the way up to the behavior of large groups such as a complex modern society. This includes social life, social goals, interactions, activities, relationships, social status, social identity, social groups, institutions and socioeconomic classes. The following is a reasonably comprehensive list of social examples.

Social Life

Elements of an individual's life that involve other people. Social life is viewed as a basic human need as we are considered social beings who thrive on positive interaction with others. Relationships and group memberships are also important to social life whereby you feel that you are interconnected with others and have social support.

Social Goals

Goals related to your social life or social behavior. In this context, it is also possible to adopt intentions as opposed to goals. Intentions focus on what you can control such as being friendly whereas goals are concerned with outcomes such as making friends.

Social Behavior

Behaviors adopted by individuals to navigate social situations and achieve other social goals such as building and sustaining relationships. Social behavior can also be examined at the level of groups with phenomena such as social cohesion or conformity that are viewed as group behavior.

Social Interaction

The building blocks of social behavior are interactions between two or more people. Social interactions are viewed as a series of modes such as conversation, providing feedback or play. These are transactional but can also be part of relationships such as friendship or shared goals such as coworkers collaborating on a project.

Social Activities

Making plans with other people and other structured social interactions. This can include things planned by businesses and institutions such as a fitness class. Social activities can also encompass regular activities that don't involve much planning such as hanging out with the same friends every night.

Social Relationships

Getting to know other people and sustaining this connection over time. This includes relationships you choose such as a marriage partner and relationships that are born of situations and common memberships such as a neighbor or classmate.

Social Groups

Groups of people bound together by some common membership, purpose or identity. This term is defined loosely and includes people who actually know each other such as a team and people who share some aspect of social identity such as a fashion clique.

Social Institutions

Durable features of a society that provide structure and stability. Families are considered the primary type of institution that sustain support and connectedness for family members over time.

Social Identity

The tendency to define yourself and others in terms of group memberships such as nationality, ethnicity or gender. Social identity is one aspect of identity where other aspects are more personal such as your name and your character.

Social Status

Social positions and characteristics that are viewed as commanding respect in a society. People are social beings that commonly desire respect and admiration from others. Social status are things that signal that you are respectable and admirable.

Social Class

Large social groups defined by their economic and social position. These are typically depicted as the layers of society. The large groups here are traditionally the upper class, middle class, working class and the lumpenproletariat.

Society

A society is a comprehensive structure and set of practices for organizing life across a large social group. This mostly equates to nations and similar structures that are the top level system for organizing social cooperation across a geographical area. Societies are pretty much the most complex type of social thing.

Social Issues

Problems, challenges and risks that face a society or community. Social issues can also include opportunities that can nonetheless be an issue because it can be difficult to come to political agreement on how to do things. For example, expanding public services could be an opportunity but could also be an issue due to the expense and impact on taxation and debt levels.

Social Responsibility

The expectation or requirement that organizations and individuals consider their impact on others in society and make efforts to do the responsible thing. Social responsibility involves taking reasonable steps to avoid negative impacts to people and planet such as pollution or workplace safety incidents.

Social Change

Society isn't a static thing but is rather a fast changing system that is constantly emerging in new directions. Social change is driven by technological, economic and cultural change that generally accelerate with time.

Summary

Social examples include social behavior at the individual and group level all the way up to complex structures known as societies that organize life across very large groups.