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Does the standard question about the associations to which respondents belong, asked for decades by the General Social Survey (GSS) and many others, miss newer and more diverse forms of group involvement? Claude Fischer discusses group associations in America.

Photo Credit: Raymond Holbert

Image courtesy of interviewee. May 23, 2024

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This video video discusses the long-standing debate in the United States about the decline of American involvement in social groups, particularly following the publication of Robert Putnam's influential book, "Bowling Alone," which argued that associational life has declined. Critics have pointed out methodological issues in measuring participation in traditional formal organizations.

The author introduces a new survey conducted in the San Francisco Bay Area, focusing on understanding social involvement through a broader lens that includes informal groups and diverse forms of participation beyond formal organizations. This video video survey examined young (21-30) and older (50-70) populations, asking about personal relationships, group activities, and informal social networks.

Key findings suggest that while traditional forms of association may have declined, there is a significant increase in diverse, informal social involvements, with many people participating in various social groups outside formal structures. The study challenges the notion that Americans are "bowling alone" and instead suggests a reorganization of social life characterized by more informal and self-selected associations.

Looking to the future, the author emphasizes the importance of adapting research methods to capture evolving social forms and recommends a nuanced understanding of historical trends in American sociability, suggesting that the nature of group life will continue to shift, potentially becoming more focused on informal and transient associations.

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There's been a long debate in the United States about the

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question of Americans involvement in, group life.

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And, the, the concern has been that,

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Americans are increasingly, unable to form

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and, act, participate in social groups.

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The most dramatic part

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of this storyline was a publication in 2000

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of a book entitled Bowling Alone

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by the political scientist Robert Putnam.

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And, a very interesting book, very complex,

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but a major through line in the book is the argument that

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associational life and the United States is in decline.

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Um, when put an asterisk on it, associational life

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has been historically associated with

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Americans in the classic work

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of the Tocqueville on democracy in America.

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So that was the background.

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Uh, sort of the conceptual

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or theoretical issue is, what is happening

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to Americans participation in social life way We've tried

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to understand, membership participation in organizations

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and associations is through a very standard question

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that was developed in the 1950s and 1960s.

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And because it's been measured repeatedly in surveys over

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the decades, it becomes the standard by which people try

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to assess what's happened to American participation.

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And this standard question presents the respondent

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with a list of types of organizations, veterans, group,

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farm clubs, hobby associations, professional clubs, unions,

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veterans, and so forth, about 17 different types.

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And they responded, has asked, well, how many

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of these types do you belong to?

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And the answer to that has been tracked over time.

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And the gross answer is, there's been a decline

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or apparent decline in the involvement.

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Now, that has fueled a lot of the argument

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that Americans have been losing their associational life,

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and they're becoming increasingly people

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who quote unquote bowl alone as opposed to bowling in teams.

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Uh, that was the metaphor, very catching metaphor

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that Robert Putnam used.

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Critics of the argument have focused on this methodological

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issue of how do you know how people are participating

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or how much people are participating?

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They're focused on this question for a couple of reasons.

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One is it presents essentially formal organizations

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as the way people participate in associational life.

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And also it has a list of organizational types that

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as the decades passed seems to be increasingly out of date.

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So, for example, Americans are asked whether they belong

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to a farm organization.

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Very few Americans are farmers,

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but they're not asked in the standard question whether they

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belong to any online

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or web associations, groups, chat links and so forth.

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Um, so that's been the critique.

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And, that was the issue I addressed in the paper

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under consideration here.

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What I think we brought to the topic was a survey,

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which allowed us to look at the way people

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were involved in associations in a variety of ways,

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not just this standard, checklist formation.

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The survey itself, is a survey

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of people in the San Francisco Bay area, about, 1100

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of them in two groups, young people, 21 to 30 years old,

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and older people, 50 to 70 years old, for reasons

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that are not relevant right now.

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And, we inter we surveyed these people,

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in the study, which is called uc, nets, uc for University

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of California Nets for Network Study.

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uc Nets surveyed them largely, most

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of the survey was about their personal relationships,

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who they were involved with, who they spent time with,

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who they discussed personal problems with,

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who they could rely on an emergency and so forth.

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But we did ask some questions that tried

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to get a group life, and we tried

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to do it in a different way, that allowed people to

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tell us about what their social lives were like.

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Uh, outside of the constraints of that standard question

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that's been used for decades to measure this,

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phenomenon, quite one is we used the question was,

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which was somewhat similar to the standard question,

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simplified a little, but still, here's a checklist

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of types of organizations.

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Which of these are you active in?

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Uh, we then follow up

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with a question about whether they were,

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people were involved in informal groups like book clubs,

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hiking groups, something like that.

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We also asked them, to

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volunteer other organizations they might belong to.

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Um, and another thing we did was to ask,

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when people told us about their personal relationships,

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they would list and respond to these questions about

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who you do this or that with.

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They would list names, they would, Sam, bill Jane, so forth.

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And we would ask about Sam, bill, Jane, and so on.

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And one of the questions was, how did,

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what ways do you know this person?

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And the respondents were given an option

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of answering questions, like, questions like, like that

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with answers such as,

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we're in the choir together at church, or,

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or we meet, every Thursday for Tai Chi,

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or something like that.

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The promise of this methodology, we thought, was

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that it really allowed us to take a look at

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the variety of ways people are involved with one another.

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Very diverse ways that,

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we given our own social positions might not

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anticipate kinds of things.

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I mean, none

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of us involved in the project were motorcycle

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bike riders, for example.

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But that was cer that was one

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of the groups that was mentioned.

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And, I think in the end, the punchline

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of the study is that we uncovered a wide variety,

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a diverse variety of social involvements that people had at,

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at, on a group basis.

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Not just a diadic one-on-one basis,

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but on a group basis, which one is we've discovered

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or rediscovered.

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And we're not the only researchers in this area,

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but I think we have contributed a picture of a variety

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of kinds of ways people are involved in groups.

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Um, I've mentioned a couple hiking groups,

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religious groups of that are not formally

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religious in a sense

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of having a church building and a minister.

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Uh, people's activity, volunteer activities such

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as being a docent at a museum

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or volunteering weekly,

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to help out children in a homeless shelter, for example.

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Uh, they are things that people do.

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Some people do these individually.

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But the striking thing for us was the extent

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to which we can identify the way people did this as groups.

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Now, the feature

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that's very critical here is the informality

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and the unstructured, in some ways

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unins institutionalized form of these associations.

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The standard question very much relied on the image

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of formal organizations.

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You join, you get a membership card.

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There are weekly meetings.

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There are, there are elected presidents and vice presidents.

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Uh, there's all sorts of forms.

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Uh, and, and,

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and there are, it was a classic era in America where many

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of these kinds of associations were very popular.

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The fraternal orders,

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I don't know if they have similar things they probably do in

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Britain, but the order of the Elks, the order of the moose,

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the order of the Eastern Star.

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Now these have totally gone out of fashion.

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Uh, but to assume that they've gone outta fashion means

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that people are not getting together.

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That's the slip in the logic.

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And so the first set of findings in our study,

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I think is just to describe the diversity.

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And when you, when you

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count up the different ways the individual respondents in

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our survey describe their social involvements,

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their group involvements, the proportion

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who you would say are involved in at least some kind

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of social group increases substantially from

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roughly half to roughly two thirds.

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Once you start to include,

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include things like the weekly sports game

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that's nobody has uniforms and nobody pays dues,

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but everybody gets together, they see each other.

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It's a social time as well as a athletic time.

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Once you start to count those kinds of groups, the,

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just the volume of membership increases.

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Um, and as I said, the variety increases.

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Now the second part of the question is essentially

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what you asked before, which is what does this imply

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for the big research question of historical trends?

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And of course, our survey was just a snapshot in time

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and, we would have to replicate it, later on

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and on to see what the trend lines are.

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But I was also able in this study,

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to take a look at a handful of other surveys

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that were comparable that,

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cast some light on this associational membership going back

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to the 1960s into the 2010s.

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And if you line them up

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and you use a more liberal, open, diverse sense of

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what group life is, the conclusion is

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that there's probably not been a secular trend down

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toward bowling alone.

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What there has been is a diversification

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and to use a term

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that appears in the social science literature in

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formalization of a lot of this social activity.

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And I think it fits well, I think with other things we know,

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other things I've written about social life in America,

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for example, to take a, somewhere of a step set aside.

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There does seem to have been,

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and this was one of the things de described in Robert

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Putney's Bowling Alone, a decline in formal entertaining

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and dining in people's homes.

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Americans just don't have dinners with people over

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as often as they used to.

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On the other hand, there's been an increase in the number

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of times people see their friends socially out of doors,

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outside at cafes, restaurants, and social events.

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And so I think the bigger story is not a decline in American

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sociability, but a reorganization.

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And as I said, a more informal,

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more perhaps individually chosen form of sociability.

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And so we have suggestions for how,

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future research on the question of associational life ought

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to be designed.

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And, we make some practical suggestions about how

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to ask the question and how to ask multiple questions.

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So when starts to get a window into these very diverse

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and sometimes eccentric,

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idiosyncratic ways people get together in social groups,

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and then in, in terms of the larger picture,

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it reinforces a message of trying

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to understand historical trend in

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historically grounded ways.

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So the associational life

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of the 1950s in the United States was very much organized

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around formal churches and formal organizations.

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The associational life of Americans,

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maybe in the 2050s will be much more aligned around

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informal, you might call them.

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I don't know if this is a phrase you have in Britain,

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popup associations that, that come into being for a while,

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but perhaps, then go are shut down for later on.

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Uh, these are, these are a couple of the things that,

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I think future researchers are to keep in mind.

Revisiting American Social Participation Trends

00:00:00 - There's been a long debate in the United States about the question of Americans involvement in, group life. And, the, the concern has been that, Americans are increasingly, unable to form and, act, participate in social groups. The most dramatic part of this storyline was a publication in 2000 of a book entitled Bowling Alone by the political scientist Robert Putnam. And, a very interesting book, very complex, but a major through line in the book is the argument that
00:00:38 - when put an asterisk on it, associational life has been historically associated with Americans in the classic work of the Tocqueville on democracy in America. So that was the background. sort of the conceptual or theoretical issue is, what is happening to Americans participation in social life way We've tried to understand, membership participation in organizations
00:01:08 - that was developed in the 1950s and 1960s. And because it's been measured repeatedly in surveys over the decades, it becomes the standard by which people try to assess what's happened to American participation. And this standard question presents the respondent with a list of types of organizations, veterans, group, farm clubs, hobby associations, professional clubs, unions, veterans, and so forth, about 17 different types.
00:01:40 - of these types do you belong to? And the answer to that has been tracked over time. And the gross answer is, there's been a decline or apparent decline in the involvement. Now, that has fueled a lot of the argument that Americans have been losing their associational life, and they're becoming increasingly people who quote unquote bowl alone as opposed to bowling in teams.
00:02:11 - that Robert Putnam used. Critics of the argument have focused on this methodological issue of how do you know how people are participating or how much people are participating? They're focused on this question for a couple of reasons. One is it presents essentially formal organizations as the way people participate in associational life. And also it has a list of organizational types that
00:02:43 - So, for example, Americans are asked whether they belong to a farm organization. Very few Americans are farmers, but they're not asked in the standard question whether they belong to any online or web associations, groups, chat links and so forth. so that's been the critique. And, that was the issue I addressed in the paper under consideration here. What I think we brought to the topic was a survey,

Diversity in Social Associations: A Survey Study

00:03:14 - were involved in associations in a variety of ways, not just this standard, checklist formation. The survey itself, is a survey of people in the San Francisco Bay area, about, 1100 of them in two groups, young people, 21 to 30 years old, and older people, 50 to 70 years old, for reasons that are not relevant right now.
00:03:45 - in the study, which is called uc, nets, uc for University of California Nets for Network Study. uc Nets surveyed them largely, most of the survey was about their personal relationships, who they were involved with, who they spent time with, who they discussed personal problems with, who they could rely on an emergency and so forth. But we did ask some questions that tried to get a group life, and we tried to do it in a different way, that allowed people to
00:04:17 - outside of the constraints of that standard question that's been used for decades to measure this, phenomenon, quite one is we used the question was, which was somewhat similar to the standard question, simplified a little, but still, here's a checklist of types of organizations. Which of these are you active in? we then follow up with a question about whether they were, people were involved in informal groups like book clubs, hiking groups, something like that.
00:04:49 - volunteer other organizations they might belong to. and another thing we did was to ask, when people told us about their personal relationships, they would list and respond to these questions about who you do this or that with. They would list names, they would, Sam, bill Jane, so forth. And we would ask about Sam, bill, Jane, and so on. And one of the questions was, how did, what ways do you know this person?
00:05:19 - of answering questions, like, questions like, like that with answers such as, we're in the choir together at church, or, or we meet, every Thursday for Tai Chi, or something like that. The promise of this methodology, we thought, was that it really allowed us to take a look at the variety of ways people are involved with one another. Very diverse ways that,
00:05:52 - anticipate kinds of things. I mean, none of us involved in the project were motorcycle bike riders, for example. But that was cer that was one of the groups that was mentioned. And, I think in the end, the punchline of the study is that we uncovered a wide variety, a diverse variety of social involvements that people had at, at, on a group basis. Not just a diadic one-on-one basis,

Redefining American Group Participation Dynamics

00:06:24 - or rediscovered. And we're not the only researchers in this area, but I think we have contributed a picture of a variety of kinds of ways people are involved in groups. I've mentioned a couple hiking groups, religious groups of that are not formally religious in a sense of having a church building and a minister. people's activity, volunteer activities such as being a docent at a museum
00:06:56 - to help out children in a homeless shelter, for example. they are things that people do. Some people do these individually. But the striking thing for us was the extent to which we can identify the way people did this as groups. Now, the feature that's very critical here is the informality and the unstructured, in some ways unins institutionalized form of these associations. The standard question very much relied on the image
00:07:26 - You join, you get a membership card. There are weekly meetings. There are, there are elected presidents and vice presidents. there's all sorts of forms. and, and, and there are, it was a classic era in America where many of these kinds of associations were very popular. The fraternal orders, I don't know if they have similar things they probably do in Britain, but the order of the Elks, the order of the moose, the order of the Eastern Star. Now these have totally gone out of fashion.
00:07:57 - that people are not getting together. That's the slip in the logic. And so the first set of findings in our study, I think is just to describe the diversity. And when you, when you count up the different ways the individual respondents in our survey describe their social involvements, their group involvements, the proportion who you would say are involved in at least some kind of social group increases substantially from
00:08:28 - Once you start to include, include things like the weekly sports game that's nobody has uniforms and nobody pays dues, but everybody gets together, they see each other. It's a social time as well as a athletic time. Once you start to count those kinds of groups, the, just the volume of membership increases. and as I said, the variety increases. Now the second part of the question is essentially what you asked before, which is what does this imply
00:09:04 - And of course, our survey was just a snapshot in time and, we would have to replicate it, later on and on to see what the trend lines are. But I was also able in this study, to take a look at a handful of other surveys that were comparable that, cast some light on this associational membership going back to the 1960s into the 2010s.

Redefining American Social Involvement Trends

00:09:32 - and you use a more liberal, open, diverse sense of what group life is, the conclusion is that there's probably not been a secular trend down toward bowling alone. What there has been is a diversification and to use a term that appears in the social science literature in formalization of a lot of this social activity.
00:10:07 - other things I've written about social life in America, for example, to take a, somewhere of a step set aside. There does seem to have been, and this was one of the things de described in Robert Putney's Bowling Alone, a decline in formal entertaining and dining in people's homes. Americans just don't have dinners with people over as often as they used to. On the other hand, there's been an increase in the number
00:10:39 - outside at cafes, restaurants, and social events. And so I think the bigger story is not a decline in American sociability, but a reorganization. And as I said, a more informal, more perhaps individually chosen form of sociability. And so we have suggestions for how, future research on the question of associational life ought
00:11:08 - And, we make some practical suggestions about how to ask the question and how to ask multiple questions. So when starts to get a window into these very diverse and sometimes eccentric, idiosyncratic ways people get together in social groups, and then in, in terms of the larger picture, it reinforces a message of trying to understand historical trend in historically grounded ways. So the associational life of the 1950s in the United States was very much organized
00:12:08 - The associational life of Americans, maybe in the 2050s will be much more aligned around informal, you might call them. I don't know if this is a phrase you have in Britain, popup associations that, that come into being for a while, but perhaps, then go are shut down for later on. these are, these are a couple of the things that, I think future researchers are to keep in mind.

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