Subclass of:

• crm:E39 Actor
• sdh:C40 Intentional Collection
• sdh:C25 Intentional Collective

Superclass of:

• frbroo:F11 Corporate Body
• frbroo:F39 Family

Scope note:

This class comprises any gatherings or organizations of human individuals or groups that act collectively or in a similar way due to any form of unifying relationship. In the wider sense this class also comprises official positions which used to be regarded in certain contexts as one actor, independent of the current holder of the office, such as the president of a country. In such cases, it may happen that the group never had more than one member. A joint pseudonym (i.e., a name that seems indicative of an individual but that is actually used as a persona by two or more people) is a particular case of E74 Group.

A gathering of people becomes an instance of E74 Group when it exhibits organizational characteristics usually typified by a set of ideas or beliefs held in common, or actions performed together. These might be communication, creating some common artifact, a common purpose such as study, worship, business, sports, etc. Nationality can be modelled as membership in an instance of E74 Group. Married couples and other concepts of family are regarded as particular examples of E74 Group.

Examples:

the impressionists (Wilson, 1994)

the Navajo (Correll, 1972)

the Greeks (Williams, 1993)

the peace protestors in New York City on 15^th February 2003

Exxon-Mobil (Raymond, 2006)

King Solomon and his wives (Thieberger, 1947)

the President of the Swiss Confederation

Nicolas Bourbaki [the collective pseudonym of a group of mathematicians, predominantly French alumni of the École normale supérieure] (Aczel, 2007)

Betty Crocker (Crocker, 2012)

Ellery Queen [Ellery Queen is a pseudonym created in 1929 by American crime fiction writers Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee.] (Wheat, 2005)

Greenpeace

Paveprime Ltd

the National Museum of Denmark

Context notes:

In the Descriptions and Situations ontology the Group class is conceptualized as an  "Intentional collective [i.e.] a knowledge community that is unified by a plan shared by member agents.". (Gangemi Aldo, « Norms and plans as unification criteria for social collectives. », Auton. Agents Multi Agent Syst. 17 (1), 2008, pp. 70‑112, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10458-008-9038-9. )

Porello et al. analyse some foundational aspects of groups and group agency to conclude that groups are based on membership norms shared by the participants and that group agency furthermore demands acknowledgment of formal procedures to take decisions by delegation of other members (Porello Daniele, Bottazzi Emanuele et Ferrario Roberta, « The Ontology of Group Agency. », in: Formal Ontology in Information Systems-Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference, FOIS 2014, September, 22-25, 2014, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2014, pp. 183‑196, https://doi.org/10.3233/978-1-61499-438-1-183).

In the SDHSS ontology ecosystem, the ontological substance of a group is considered to lie in the representations of the members of the group that share a plan, however rudimentary, and accept to integrate their individual agency into the group in order to realize collective agency, even if in a very informal way. The specific roles of individuals or sub-groups (e.g. steering comittee, president, etc.) will be expressed using the sdh-so:C13 Social Role Embodiment class.

 

In First Order Logic:

• E74(x) ⇒ E39(x)
• E74(x) ⇒ C40(x)
• E74(x) ⇒ C25(x)

Outgoing properties:

• crm:P107 has current or former member (is current or former member of) → crm:E39 Actor

Incoming properties:

• crm:E66 Formation → crm:P95 has formed (was formed by)
• crm:E68 Dissolution → crm:P99 dissolved (was dissolved by)
• crm:E85 Joining → crm:P144 joined with (gained member by)
• crm:E86 Leaving → crm:P146 separated from (lost member by)
• crm:E66 Formation → crm:P151 was formed from (participated in)