Understanding Social Dynamics | Realization.Systems (2024)

1. What are Social Dynamics?

With the term of social dynamics, we refer to a systematic view of social interactions between individuals or social groups. Examples of this are intimate relationships, friendships, family, communities, corporations, nations, etc.
Viewed from this systematic point of view, there is a dynamic happening between these interactions and encounters. That means they are neither random nor unpredictable. It is just as with every other system, to fully grasp it, one has to unveil all the details of it. Only by beginning to doing this, you will see the structure in it and lose the sense that social encounters work randomly or out of your control.

Notice, that most of the time, for most human beings, social encounters happen on a subconscious level. That means they are not aware of the structure upon which they operate their social encounters. Still, it is nothing you make up, it is simply what is already there. And you can see it if you are willing to look at it carefully.

2. Understanding Social Dynamics

Many professors and doctors have researched these social dynamics, but actually, you don’t need a master’s degree to understand social dynamics.
You can understand social encounters for yourself, by watching and analyzing them. You can learn and understand them for yourself, to understand yourself and others better in social encounters. It doesn’t matter if you are in the encounter yourself or you watch the social encounters of others. You can learn from both. Of course, information, insights, and practice tips are very useful and speed things up.
That’s exactly what we will share with you in this category. We will share precise and compact information, which will help you understand this topic better and in more depth.

3. Challenges and obstacles with Social Dynamics

One big challenge with social dynamics is the depth in which it is viewed. Social Dynamics got multiple layers to it and every layer is a deeper or different view on it. But the deeper we go, the more individual the systems, which are at work, become. And as it gets more individual, we have to grasp more individual information and understanding for that specific social encounter.

With that, the first obstacle is always to be aware, on which layer your view of social dynamics is.
The second challenge arises from the first.
If there are multiple layers and we have to differ between them, we have to know what layers are there. So, we have to learn a bit about them, to know what we are talking about.
We will tackle these obstacles in our future posts, to give you the information you need to understand these layers.

4. Examples of Social Dynamics

To give you a bit of understanding, what this looks like, you’ll find a few examples below. Keep in mind, as mentioned above, all these dynamics happen in a systematic view. Even to see or understand simple dynamics, there is a bit of looking at this topic needed.

One great example is, that the behavior of an individual, changes, dependent on the group or individual they encounter. That is to say, that your behavior changes depending on who you encounter in your life. You act differently if you meet a teacher, a child, your family, your friends, and so on. For some encounters, there are major changes, other changes are more small and subtle, but they are still there. In some traditions, this phenomenon is ascribed to wearing a mask. That is to say, that for every encounter, you wear a different mask. A mask, that can make you change your behavior, your tonality, even what you say and how you say it. Can you see this in your own life? How you change your behavior and how others do? Everyone acts differently, depending on who is around them. Why that is and what we can learn from it, are topics that we will cover in the future.

Another example of social dynamics, concerning ‘social norms’, is the principle of “giving and taking”. There is a polar bond between these two when it comes to social encounters. For example, have you ever noticed, that people are more willing to help you after you did them a favor? This might seem very obvious for you, but still, notice that there is a dynamic. Or the even more general notion of trade. It is always: I give you something and get something in return. Be it buying a meal in a shop, a car, or a massage. You always give something and get something in return. Can you see this dynamic in your life? What do you do to get something you want?

A few more little examples are:

• That every organic group has an alpha figure. The person with the most authority in the group.
• Shanking hands, giving kisses on the cheek or bowing, are culturally different social dynamics for greetings, and saying goodbye.
• Flirting is a social dynamic, like the ‘giving and taking’, it is polar bonded. It’s a pull and push between the involved individuals.
• In families, the oldest member holds the most authority. This is a dynamic, which I feel is fading a bit, but it certainly had its part in multiple different cultures, to be a good example.

Can you see more clearly now what is meant by social dynamics? Of course, these are very simple examples, just to give you a little glimpse of what this is about. The deeper and more elaborate topics will be covert in extra posts.

5. Models and topics for the future

Because this is the intro post for our category “Social Dynamics”, we will share this preview of important topics, which we will cover in the future. (Once these posts are online, we will backlink them here, for quick access.)

Future Topics include:

• Spiral Dynamics from Clare W. Graves
• Ego Development Theory: “Nine Levels Of Increasing Embrace In Ego Development: A Full-Spectrum Theory Of Vertical Growth And Meaning Making”, from Susanne R. Cook-Greuter
• Ken Wilber’s AQAL model of human consciousness evolution
• Loevinger’s Ego Development Theory
• Pyramid of needs by A. Maslow
• Archetypes from Carl Jung
• DISG Modell by William Moulton Marston
• Understanding your own preconditioning in social dynamics
• NLP – Neuro Linguistical Programming
• Everyday interactions from Erving Goffman
• Social group behavior
• Understanding logic and reasoning of others
• Understanding Social norms
• Understanding collective development – At what stage of development are groups, communities, and countries?

This category also includes all the information needed to understand and practice what we share above.

These are, among others:

• Understanding personal and external self-image
• Understanding thinking in systems
• Understanding preconditioning
• Understand meaning-making
• Understanding personal growth
• Understanding open-mindedness
• Understand radical honesty towards self-growth
• Understanding Ego development
• Understanding (egoic) survival

All topics above are useful to understand how all social encounters happen, on a personal level. You can’t relate to them if they don’t make sense for you. To make sense, you have to see these connections for yourself. You have to understand where they come from and why they are, the way they are. As with all personal development tasks, this is nothing done in a month, but rather an ongoing challenge.

6. Conclusion

To wrap things up let’s summarize what we talked about and what this category is about.

Social Dynamics are the study and understanding of social encounters. Be it individuals or groups.
Firstly, everyone can train their understanding of it. Simply by watching and analyzing social behavior. Be it groups or individuals. You can watch others and yourself in social encounters and how they happen. – What is happening? Why is it happening? What is the other person’s motivation? What is my goal in this encounter? How do I approach this goal? How do others approach them? And so on. -With time you will begin to understand them.
Secondly, there are already a lot of people that analyzed and studied social behavior and encounters. We can learn from them.
By studying their work and by learning what they discovered, we can brighten our understanding of social encounters even faster.

The first point is your own task. It is, what you must do yourself to understand social dynamics fully. The second point is what this category is for. We will share information, tips, and insight concerning all sorts of social dynamics. Everything useful for you, to understand social dynamics better and deeper.