Preforms of social formations of people: latent groups as a phenomenon

Abstract

Background. The study considers the features of manifestation of the latent social groups (implicit, hidden, not declared, not supported by social structures and institutions) as a special socio-psychological phenomenon.

Objective. The study had its purpose to reveal the features of the social environment as potential conditions for the formation, functioning and evolution of the latent social groups. Hypotheses: 1) There are pre-forms of social associations of people (which can be conditionally called “latent social groups” (LSG)). 2) Emergence of LSG can have grounds in different conditions of external and internal environment of the subject (including those of the social environment perceived by a person as subjectively significant for him in relation to certain life goals).

Methods: categorical-theoretical analysis, study of literary sources, empirical research (questionnaires), multivariate methods of parametric statistics. By means of the author’s methodology (questionnaire “Dynamics of professional life style” — DPLS), respondents assessed the role of social environment conditions as “professional factors”, the dynamics of their own professionalism since their 20 to 65 years (retrospectively to the current age and prospectively — predicting the dynamics of subsequent evolution). Socio-demographic and job characteristics of the respondents were also recorded.

Sample. 482 people were interviewed, men and women aged 30–50 (132 civil servants, 129 engineers and heads of departments of industrial enterprises, 221 managers). The total sample was repeatedly divided into groups according to research tasks. The division criteria were gender, job position of the subjects, conditions of the meso-environment subjectively perceived to be significant as the factors of their professionalism (circumstances, science, art, religion).

Results. The empirical study results support the initial hypotheses. When dividing the sample according to different criteria, both obvious (men/women, specialists/managers) and environmental conditions assessed as “professionalism factors”, the obtained groups differ significantly in a number of variables.

Conclusions. In the same social space-time, various social associations can coexist different in the degree of their manifestation, development, active functioning as social groups. The phenomenon of “latent social groups” (LSG) appears to be a pre-form of manifested social groups with different trajectories of their possible subsequent development. LSG are possible associations of people who are similar to each other in a number of important aspects of life (value orientations, lifestyle, etc.), potentially capable of integration and interaction in achieving common goals, comfortable interpersonal communication, maintaining typical patterns of behavior, etc. LSG represent the pre-stages of the possible formation and development of various social structures.

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