What’s Your Group?

January 21, 2010  
Filed under Feature

Think about your friends, the people that you interact with on a daily basis. Do you have friends who you could not live without? As there are many different types of people in this world, there are many different types of relationships we share with others.

A person’s social category is a means of classifying them according to a shared trait or common status with others. This would be the friends a person identifies themselves with on a regular basis.

“The secretaries here at OHS, my church family, and my family are all part of my social category,” Kris Wallace, OHS attendance secretary, said.

Usually people have a primary group, or a small group of people who interact over a relatively long period of time on a direct and personal basis. This would generally be someone you grew up with, who you can tell anything to—your best friend.

Peers at school would be considered a secondary group. A secondary group is a group in which interaction is impersonal and temporary in nature. People in your class as who you interact with on a daily basis but do not hang out with outside of that class; they are your aquatints’.

“I don’t believe that there is one specific ‘group’ that dominates me,” senior Jordan Eckman said.

Finally, any group with whom individuals identify and whose attitudes and values they adopt is a reference group. For most people, their reference group is their family or best friends.

“My reference group would be my family. I look up to them because I adopt my values from them. My mom is strict and my dad is laid back; I’m in between,” Eckman said.

No matter the group, the main reason we have groups is to fit in and become comfortable.

“I fit in with everybody. By myself I am different than when I am with everybody else,” Eckman said.

In all reality, it would be difficult for someone to go without one or all of these groups.

“I think it would be rather hard to live without any of my groups because I look to each group for different kinds of support daily,” senior Angela Bruna said.

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Abby New

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