Seven Days, Five Countries:The Making of a Group
Abstract
Seven Days, Five CountriesThe Making of a Group SAGE Publications, Inc.1979DOI: 10.1177/089124167900700403 Benjamin Gorman THE HUMAN NEED to sustain the self by obtaining support and identity from intimate group contexts has long been noted in sociology and social psychology (Cooley, 1956: 23-29; Schachter, 1959; and many others). An ever-increasing portion of modern life consists of transitory encounters with strangers (Park, 1952: 32-5 1; Goffman, 1963) in which the interaction is narrowly based on specialized and stylized roles (Tonnies, 1957; Stein, 1960). Substantial controversy developed concerning whether such trends signaled the demise of the primary group and the emergence of a new urban model of anonymous and unattached persons. It is now well-established that this is not the case-that people in contemporary society find and sustain and are sustained by intimate group relations (Gans, 1962; Suttles, 1972). It is also clear that conditions of modern society rend this process problematic. Paths and centers of interaction undergo ecological change, producing different personnel mixes over time. Many life episodes offer only fixed period or uncertain duration. Even job, community, and family may terminate or alter as group contexts. A substantial and pivotal portion of urban industrial living, then, rests in cultivating