Soc 5 - Haveman - Week 1 & 2 - Spring 2013

Front 1

What is scientific research?

Back 1

1. Makes descriptive or explanatory inferences
2. Uses public methods
3. Recognizes uncertainty in conclusions
4. Follows rules of inferences

Front 2

What common errors are there in inquiry and how do we avoid them?

Back 2

1. Inaccurate observations: be conscious, use precise measures
2. Overgeneralization: use large samples, replicate studies
3. Selective observation: specify number and type of observations to be made, try to find deviant cases
4. Illogical reasoning: follow proven system of logic

Front 3

What is a theory?

Back 3

Is:
1.logically interconnected propositions
2. derived from axioms
3. and causal mechanisms
4. that yields empirically testable hypotheses about social phenomena

In comparison to paradigm: logically interconnected set of predictions about the world.

Front 4

What are 3 common objections to social regularities? What is the response?

Back 4

1. Triviality . Response: common beliefs can be wrong.
2. Exceptions. Response: exceptions do not break a general pattern.
3. People can interfere. Response: Does not occur often enough to challenge social regularities.

Front 5

What is an attribute?

Back 5

Characteristic or quality of a social actor (individual, family, class, group, region, organization, industry, ...)

Front 6

What is a variable?

Back 6

Logical grouping of attributes that describe the unit of analysis.

Front 7

Unit of Analysis

Back 7

Types of entities we are analyzing. (Ex. Individuals, groups, organizations & social artifacts).

Front 8

What is the logic of causation?

Back 8

Trying to find which attributes of the independent variable are associated with which attributes of the dependent variable.

Front 9

Independent Variable

Back 9

Variable not problematic in analysis but taken as a given. Presumed to determine the dependent variable.

Front 10

Dependent Variable

Back 10

Assumed to depend on another variable.

Front 11

What are common Sociology dialectics?

Back 11

1. Idiographic vs. Nomothetic
2. Inductive vs. Deductive
3. Determinism vs. Agency
4. Qualitative and Quantitative Data

Front 12

What is idiographic?

Back 12

An approach to explanation in which we seek to exhaust all the causes of a single event or condition.

Front 13

What is nomothetic?

Back 13

Explanation in which we identify a few causal factors.

Front 14

What is the wheel of science?

Back 14

1. Theories lead to...
2. Hypotheses, which lead to...
3. Observations, which lead to...
4. Empirical Generalizations, which lead to...
5. Theories, which lead to...

Deduction: Theories to Hypotheses to Observations
Induction: Observations to Empirical Generalizations to Theories.

Front 15

What was the point of doing the "The Sex Life of the Whiptail Lizard" reading?

Back 15

It was to demonstrate how paradigms clash.
David Crews occupies a space between paradigms

Front 16

Babbie Ch. 4
What 3 factors are most important in determining Nomothetic causation?

Back 16

1. Correlation
2. Time order
3. Nonspuriousness - the relationship is not a coincidental statistical correlation due to a third variable.

Front 17

Two common fallacies about units of analysis?

Back 17

1. Ecological fallacy - assumption that something learned about an ecological unit says something about the individuals making up that unit.

2. Reductionism - strict limitation of kinds of concepts to be considered relevant to the phenomenon under study.

Front 18

Types of Longitudinal Studies?

Back 18

1. Trend: given characteristic of some population is monitored over time.
2. Cohort: some specific sub population is studied over time although data may be collected from different members in each set of observations.
3. Panel: data are collected from the same set of people.

Front 19

Paradigm

Back 19

Framework within which scientists think. Intellectual perspective shared by a group of scientists that guides their formulation of theories and their empirical research.

Front 20

Positivism

Back 20

1. Introduced by Auhuste Comte

2. Philosophical system grounded on the rational proof/dosproof of scientific assertions.

3. Assumes knowable, objective, reality

Front 21

Social Darwinism

Back 21

1. One main proponent was Herbert Spencer.

2.Society evolves into a progressively "fitter" forms of society.

Front 22

Conflict Paradigms

Back 22

1. Human behavior is attempts to dominate or avoid being dominated.

2. Proponent: Karl Marx

Front 23

Symbolic Interactionism

Back 23

Human behavior is:
1. creation of meaning
2. through social interaction
3. with those meanings conditioning subsequent interactions

Front 24

Ethnomethodology

Back 24

Studies:
1. creation of social structure
2. through actions & interactions

Front 25

Feminist Paradigms

Back 25

View and understand society through:
1. experience of women
2. and/or examine general deprived status of women

Front 26

Critical Race Theory

Back 26

Grounded in:
1. race awareness
2. Intention to achieve racial justice

Front 27

Postmodernism?

Back 27

!uestions the assumptions of positivism & theories describing an objective reality.

Front 28

Critical Realism?

Back 28

Things are real in so far as they produce effects.

Front 29

Normal Science

Back 29

1. Science that falls within a paradigm.
2. No need to constantly reiterate fundamental assumptions.
3. Effectiveness & Efficiency of research increases greatly.
4. Don' invent new theories.
5. Doesn't pay attention to new sorts of phenomena.

Front 30

How does science evolve?

Back 30

1. Normal science leads to...
2. Anomalies piling up, which leads to...
3. A crisis erupting, which leads to...
4. A scientific revoliton, which leads to...
5. Pres-science, which leads to...
6. Normal science, which leads to...

Front 31

What are the 3 major sociological paradigms?

Back 31

1. Symbolic Interactionism - meaning created through interaction.
2. Structural Functionalism - every piece contributes to system.
3. Conflict - domination and avoiding domination/

Front 32

Intersubjectivity

Back 32

1. We all see world through individual subjectivites
2. If we agree on what we see it is objective reality
3. called the "Social Cosntruction of Reality"

Front 33

Social Facts

Back 33

Things that are because everyoen agrees that they are. Ex. Money

Front 34

Elements of Social Theories

Back 34

1. Concepts/Variables - Classes of phenomena
2. Hypotheses - explanations of relationships between concepts.