of behaviors. An example of a role is an occupation. There are various categories of social systems like formal organizations that have goals in mind and attempt to achieve them (ex: nations) or like informal organizations that are less goal oriented as in a community or a family. Human communities provide social systems that serve the function of providing the daily requirements of life to a population. Social systems have four basic types of roles; production of goods and services, distribution of the goods and services, recruitment and training of new members, and control functions. Population affects the roles of the social system. An example of this would be if the birth rate increased then there would be a greater need to train these new people and the recruitment and training role would be affected. The training of an individual to become one of the group is termed socialization and is carried out by church, family, and school, among other sources.Individuals then are Homo Sapiens that vary in sex, age, and lifecycle. Humans have the ability to lay out avenues to achieve a goal and then through thought processes make a choice on which avenue to follow. Humans are differentiated from animals in that all animals can sign (reacting to something) but only humans can symbol (the ability to place meaning into something). To be human you must be able to symbol and to symbol you must have at least two people, which leads to a social system. The result is that in order to be human you must be in a social system. Helen Keller was an example of someone who was not a human until she was able to symbol. Social systems affect individuals by the process of socialization. Socialization instills the norms of the system into the individual. The norms are all the proscribed and prescribed forms of behavior in the social system. Norms vary in importance from the folkway of wearing a tie to a formal dinner party to the mores of adult...
