What is Aggregation?
Aggregation is a tertiary sociological action. It occurs when large numbers of people are simultaneously mobilized in new, ad hoc ways.
Aggregation associates people by building on the fact the large numbers of them are synchronized, typically by being members of the same generation. Recall that synchronization is a secondary unit of social action. (See Synchronization.)
Both aggregation and synchronization build on people’s primary communication, which is through objects that they perceive as attractive because of the dreams they contain. (See Object Users.)
An example of aggregation is the dating market which people create when they follow a sociological courtship process that pair-matches people by their attractiveness.
Dating singles are doing things at the same time (synchronized) and looking for the same goal (object dream) because, in their late teens and twenties, they shared the same dream – that of finding a romantic mate, a soul-mate.
The dating market operates through whatever courtship process a generation opts for. This typically involves a series of steps which select and narrow down potential mates. Its procedures are unique to each generation. The process takes different forms that are all temporary organizations with rules known only to their participants. This is made possible by the synchronized norms (rules of behavior) that emerge when people share the same dreams and ideals because they are seeing and reading the meaning of the same attraction objects (gender objects that express people). The dating market pairs up single people who are of equal value, building on (aggregating) the generational culture they all share.
The dating market is an example of an aggregated sociological action. Aggregated associations disappear the moment their members stop using them – typically because the members of a generation have moved on to the next phase of their lives.