Sociology Test 1

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Auguste Comte

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French philosopher who coined the term Sociology. He believed there was an urgent need to study systematically the problems of modern society.

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Sociology

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Study of the social, or behavior that occurs between people, groups, and organizations and the outcome of such interactions.

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Nomothetic

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A way for explaining behavior that involves questions that draw out attention to general classes of actions or events. (I.E.- What risk factors increase the chance for divorce?)

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Idiographic

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The aim to enumerate the many perhaps unique considerations that lie behind the reason for a particular observation. (I.E.- Why did my parents divorce?)

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Social Imagination

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Term coined by C. Wright Mills. "The ability to see the real and consistent connection between the individual and society." It holds a promise and power in that it allows us to shift our gaze from impersonal, remote changes, in the public world to the very private and personal features of human character and personality, and then back again. Mills wrote about it to help people make since of their lives. Personal troubles may be intertwined with larger social issues.

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Emile Durkheim

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First credible sociologist. Studied suicide rates and "discovered" something unique that affects human behavior. Discovered "social facts"

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Social Facts

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Manners of acting, thinking, and feeling, external to the individual that are invested with a coercive power over the individual. By virtue of this power, social facts exercise control over the individual.

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Personal Issue

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Things that are a source of worry to the individual, and are the primary result of their own inaction/action.

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Social Issue

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Problems that are experienced as personal issues, but their roots are found in things that extend beyond the individual. (I.E- Unemployment rate)

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Manifest Functions

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Known, expected consequences of social action.

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Latent Functions

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Unknown, unexpected, or hidden consequences of social action.

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Theoretical Approach

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The general approach to the study of society. A set f assumptions and interrelated concepts that provide various ways of interpreting society. They sensitize us to particular features of social behavior.

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Functionalism

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The study of functions associated with the various parts of society and their contributions to the whole. The focus is on social order and consensus; views society as made up of diverse parts, all of which contribute to the overall operation of society. (I.E.- Comte, Durkheim, Merton)

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Karl Marx-Marxism

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Advocated the interrelationship between sociological analysis and political reform. It emphasizes conflict, class division, power, and ideological interests. Society is held together by social structure.

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Class Conflict

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Classes hold different interests, often hidden by ideological beliefs.

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Symbolic Interactionism

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Humans act toward things on the basis of the meanings that the things have for them. The meaning of things is derived from or arises out of social interaction. Meanings of things are handled and modified through and interpretive process.

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Max Weber

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Disagreed with Marx on the driving force of social change. He emphasized the importance of values and ideas over material conditions.

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Harriet Martineau

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First female sociologist. She advocated studying all aspects of society in order to understand selected parts.

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W.E.B. DuBois

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First African American sociologist. He said the sense of self and identity are influenced by historical and social setting.

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Verstehen

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German term meaning "empathetic understanding."

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Anomie

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A concept first brough into wide usage in sociology by Durkheim, referring to a situation in which social norms lose their hold over individual behavior.

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Division of Labor

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The specialization of work tasks, by means of which different occupations are combined within a production system.

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Feminist Theory

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A sociological perspective that emphasizes the centrality of gender in analyzing the social world and particularly the uniqueness of the experience of women. There are many strands of ___________, but they all share the desire to explain gender inequalities in society and to work to overcome them.

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Globalization

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The development of social and economic relationships stretching worldwide. In current times, we are all influenced by organizations and social networks located thousands of miles away. A key part of the study of globalization is the emergence of a world system-for some purposes, we need to regard the world as forming a single social order.

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Ideology

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Shared ideas or beliefs that serve to justify the interests of dominant groups. ___________ are found in all societies in which there are systematic and ingrained inequalities between groups. The concept of _______ connects closely with that of power, since ideological systems serve to legitimize the power that groups hold.

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Macrosociology

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The study of large-scale groups, organizations, or social systems.

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Microsociology

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The study of human behavior in contexts of face-to-face interactions.

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Organic Solidarity

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According to Emile Durkheim, the social cohesion that results from the various parts of a society functioning as an integrated whole.

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Materialist Conception of History

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The view developed by Marx, according to which material, or economic, factors have a prime role in determining historical change.

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Social Constraint

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The conditioning influence on our behavior of the groups and societies of which we are members. _______ was regarded by Emile Durkheim as one of the distinctive properties of social facts.

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Social Structure

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The underlying regularities or patterns in how people behave and in their relationships with one another.

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Capitalism

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An economic system based on the private ownership of wealth, which is invested and reinvested in order to produce profit.

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George Herbet Mead

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Symbolic Interactionism; he said that we tend to react to our subjective interpretation of situations, rather than a fixed objective situation. He argued that language us important to our understanding of social behavior.

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Empirical Investigations

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Factual inquiries carried out in any area of sociological study.

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Factual Questions

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Questions that raise issues concerning matters of fact (rather than theoretical or moral issues).

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Comparative Questions

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Questions concerned with drawing comparisons between different human societies for the purposes of sociological theory or research.

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Developmental Questions

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Questions that sociologists pose when looking at the origins and path of development of social institutions from the past to the present.

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Theoretical Questions

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Questions posed by sociologists when seeking to explain a particular range of observed events. The asking of theoretical questions is crucial to allowing us to generalize about the nature of social life.

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Causation

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The causal influence of one factor, or variable, upon another. A cause and effect relationship exists whenever a particular event or state of affairs (the effect) is produced by the existence of another (the cause). Causal factors in sociology include the reasons individuals give for what they do, as well as external influences on their behavior.

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Correlation

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The regular relationship between two variables, often expressed in statistical terms. Correlations may be positive or negative. A positive correlation between two variables exists when a high rank on one variable is associated with a high rank on the other. A negative correlation exists when a high rank on one variable is associated with a low rank on the other.

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Independent Variable

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A variable, or factor, that causally affects another

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Dependent Variable

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A variable, or factor, causally influenced by another

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Hypotheses

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Ideas or guesses about a given state of affairs, put forward as bases for empirical testing.

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Ethnography

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The firsthand study of people using participant observation or interviewing.

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Participant Observation

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A method of research widely used in sociology and anthropology, in which the researcher takes part in the activities of the group or community being studied.

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Surveys

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A method of sociological research in which questionnaires are administered to the population being studied.

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Experiment

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A research method in which variables can be analyzed in a controlled and systematic way, either in an artificial situation constructed by the researcher or in naturally occurring settings.

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Random Sampling

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Sampling method in which a sample is chosen so that every member of the population has the same probability of being included.

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Sample

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A small proportion of a larger population.

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Population

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The people who are the focus of social research.

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Representative Sample

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A sample from a larger population that is statistically typical of that population.

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Measures of Central Tendency

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The ways of calculating averages.

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Mean

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A statistical measure of central tendency, or average, based on dividing a total by the number of individual cases.

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Median

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The number that falls halfway in a range of numbers-a way of calculating central tendency that is sometimes more useful than calculating a mean.

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Mode

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The number that appears most often in a given set of data. This can sometimes be a helpful way of portraying central tendency.

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Variable

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A dimension along which an object, individual, or group may be categorized, such as income or height.

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Research Methods

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The diverse methods of investigation used to gather empirical (factual) material. Different ___________ exist in sociology, but the most commonly used are fieldwork (or participant observation) and survey methods. For many purposes, it is useful to combine two or more methods within a single research project.

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Nonprobability Sampling

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Snowball/network sampling; convenience sampling.

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Traditional Ethics

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Morals. (I.E.- Chris confesses a murder to a friend, friend tells the authorities. Fried did the moral thing.)

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Technical Ethics

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Codes of conduct for professionals. (I.E.- Chris confesses a murder to his lawyer, lawyer verifies murder, lawyer urges Chris to confess to police. Lawyer fulfills ethical duty.)

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Professional

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4 criteria: 1. Practitioners for years to acquire skills. 2. Knowledge possessed involves traditions or secrets not shared by others. 3. Knowledge is useful to outsiders and may mean the difference between life or death. 4. Work can't be judged or supervised by anyone who is not a member of the same profession. (I.E.- Emphasis on HOW a job is done, not the outcome)

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Culture

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The values, norms, and material goods characteristic of a given group. Like the concept of society, the notion of ______ is widely used in sociology and the other social sciences (particularly anthropology). _______ is one of the most distinctive properties of human social association.

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Values

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Ideas held by individuals or groups about what is desirable, proper, good, and bad. What individuals value is strongly influenced by the specific culture in which they happen to live.

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Norms

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Rules of conduct that specify appropriate behavior in a given range of social situations. A _______ either prescribes a given type of behavior or forbids it. All human groups follow definite norms, which are always backed by sanctions of one kind or another-varying from informal disapproval to physical punishment.

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Mores

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Rather important social rules that specify demands. (I.E.- Stop when a traffic light is red.)

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Symbols

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One item used to stand for or represent another-as in the case of a flag, which symbolizes a nation.

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Ethnocentrism

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The tendency to look at other cultures through the eyes of one's own culture, and thereby misrepresent them.

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Society

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A group of people who live in a particular territory, are subject to a common system of political authority, and are aware of having a distinct identity from other groups. Some societies, like hunting and gathering societies, are small, numbering no more than a few dozen people. Others are large, numbering millions-modern Chinese society, for instance, has a population of more than a billion people.

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Language

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The primary vehicle of meaning and communication in a society, language is a system of symbols that represent objects and abstract thoughts.

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Assimilation

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The acceptance of a minority group by a majority population, in which the new group takes on the values and norms of the dominant culture.

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Material Goods

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The physical objects that a society creates, which influence the ways in which people live.

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Cultural Reletivism

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The practice of judging a society by its own standards.

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Cultural Universals

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Values or modes of behavior shared by all human cultures.

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Folkways

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Relatively unimportant social rules that specify expectations rather than demands. (I.E.- Wearing white shoes after labor day)

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Taboos

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Rules that are of the greatest importance, their violations are considered an unimaginable abomination, none are independent of culture and circumstance. Found in words, gestures, topics, social and cultural behavior, body language, and personal space. (I.E.- Cannibalism and Incest)

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Intangible Aspects of Culture

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Who you have heard of? What you consider food? Opinions about what what is, is not funny. Norms and beliefs about marriage. Meanings of body gestures

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Tangible Aspects of Culture

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Clothing styles, types of vehicles used for transportation, electronic technologies, types of candy, residential architecture, etc.

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Subculture

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Values and norms distinct from those of the majority, held by a group within a wider society.

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Semiotics

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The theory and study of nonverbal cultural meanings, especially the symbolic elements of language or other means or communication.

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Signifier

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Any vehicle of meaning and communication.

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Linguistics Relativity Hypothesis

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A hypothesis, based on the theories of Sapir and Whorf, that perceptions are relative to language. (I.E.- Snow example. Eskimos call its 30 different names because of their language.)

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Sapir and Whorf

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1930s anthropologists that studied the Hopi Indians of the southwestern United States. They deduced that language has embedded in it ways of looking at the world. Thinking and perception are expressed and shaped through language. Learning a language takes a particular way of thinking.

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McDonaldization

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The process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world.

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Efficiency

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Choosing the optimum means to a given end. Increasing efficiency means streamlining processes, simpifying products, and having customers do the work.

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Control

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The replacement of human with nonhuman technology. Technology includes machines, tools, rules, procedures, techniques, etc. Both employees and customers are controlled.

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Calculability

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The measurement of the efficient process: calculating, quantifying, and counting. Involves numerical standards for processes and end results. __________ emphasizes quantity over quality, gives the illusion of quantity, and reduces production to numbers.

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Predictability

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Routine, identical, sameness of the processes, products, settings, and interactions all to minimize unpleasantness and danger. Pseudo Interactions: "Welcome to Moe's!"

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Irrationality of Rationality

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Rational systems may become irrational or illogical when 1. people are dehumanized 2. the system becomes inefficient because of the tangles of red tape and other pathologies 3. system creates more problems than it solves 4. McDonaldization best viewed as a "doubled-edge sword"

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Iron Cage Response

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I detest McDonaldization

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Velvet Cage Response

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I will embrace McDonaldization. Frequent the chains, and seek to McDonaldize the new unrationalized venues.

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Rubber Cage Response

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I will see the positives and negatives about McDonaldization

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Fieldwork

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?

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Standardized v. Open-ended Questions

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?