Sociology

According to Robert K. Merton, what are manifest functions, latent functions and dysfunction?

-Manifest functions: the recognized and intended consequences of any social pattern -Latent functions: the unrecognized and unintended consequences of any social pattern -Dysfunction is any social pattern that may disrupt the operation of society.

What is a role?

A behavior expected of someone who holds a particular status.

The Structural-Functional Approach

A framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability.

The Social-Conflict approach

A framework for building theory that sees society as an arena of inequality that generates conflict and change.

What is Multiculturalism?

A perspective recognizing the cultural diversity of the United States and promoting equal standing for all cultural traditions.

What is an Experiment?

A research method for investigating cause and effect under highly controlled conditions.

What is Participant Observation?

A research method in which investigators systematically observe people while joining them in their routine activities

What is Survey Research?

A research method in which subjects respond to a series of statements or questions on a questionnaire or in an interview.

What is the use of Existing Data?

A research method that makes use of data collected by others such as that collected by the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.N. or the World Bank.

What is role conflict?

A role conflict is a conflict among the roles connected to a single status

What is a role set?

A role set is the number of roles attached to a single status.

What is role strain?

A role strain is tension among the roles connected to a single status.

What is a Total institution?

A setting in which people are isolated from the rest of the society and controlled by an administrative staff.

What is ascribed status?

A social position a person receives at birth or takes on involuntarily.

What is achieved status?

A social position a person takes on voluntarily that reflects personal ability and effort.

What is a status?

A social position that a person holds.

What is a Sociological Theory?

A statement of how and why specific facts are related, a theoretical approach is a basic image of society that guides thinking and research.

What is a master status?

A status that has special importance for social identity, often shaping a person's entire life.

What is language?

A system of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another.

What is a status set?

All the statuses a person holds over time.

What is Social structure?

Any relatively stable pattern of social behavior.

What are Symbols?

Anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by people who share a culture.

What is cultural relativism?

Cultural relativism is the practice of judging another culture by its own standards.

What are the key values of U.S. Culture according to Robin Williams Jr., 1970?

Equal opportunity, individual achievement and personal success, material comfort, activity and work, practicality and efficiency, progress, science, democracy and free enterprise, freedom, racism and group superiority.

What is the dramaturgical analysis?

Erving Goffman's term for the study of social interaction in terms of theatrical performance.

What are the methods of Sociological Investigation?

Experiments, surveys, participant observation, the use of existing data.

What are the agents of socialization?

Family, School, Peer group, Mass media

What is "The sociological Imagination" according to C. Wright Mills?

He called his point of view the "sociological imagination," which turns personal troubles into public issues.

What is the Biological theory of Socialization according to Charles Darwin?

Human behavior is instinctive, simply our nature.

What is the Psychological theory of Socialization according to Sigmund Freud?

ID: the human being's basic drives which are unconscious and demand immediate satisfaction; Ego: a person's conscious efforts to balance innate pleasure seeking drives with the demands of society; Superego: the cultural values and norms internalized by an individual.

What is Nonmaterial culture?

Ideas created by members of a society

What is Resocialization?

Radically changing an inmate's personality by carefully controlling the environment.

What are norms?

Rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members.

What is the Sociological perspective?

Seeing the general in the particular. Sociologists look for general patterns in the behavior of particular people.

What is the Sociological theory of Socialization according to George Herbert Mead?

Self is that part of an individual's personality which develops only with social experience by taking the role of the other.

Difference between society and culture

Society is the people who interact in a defined territory and share culture, while a culture is the ways of thinking, the ways of acting and the material objects that together form a people's way of life.

Emile Durkheim's study of Suicide

Some people are more likely to commit suicide than others, he explained these differences in terms of social integration: Categories of people with strong social ties had low suicide rates, and more individualistic people had high suicide rates (men, Catholics, wealthy, unmarried, whites)

What are the characteristics of total Institutions according to Erving Goffman?

Staff members supervise all aspects of daily life, life is controlled and standardized, formal rules dictate daily routines.

What are the elements of culture?

Symbols, language, values, and norms.

What is nonverbal communication?

The communication using body movements, gestures, and facial expressions rather than speech.

What are social functions?

The consequences of a social pattern for the operation of society as a whole.

What is culture lag?

The fact that some cultural elements change more quickly than others, disrupting cultural system.

What is Socialization?

The lifelong social experience by which people develop their human potential and learn culture.

What is Culture shock?

The personal disorientation when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life.

What is material culture?

The physical things created by members of society.

What is ethnocentrism

The practice of judging another culture by the standards of one's own culture.

What is the social construction of reality?

The process by which people creatively shape reality through social interaction

What is the global perspective?

The study of the larger world and our society's place in it.

What is Sociology?

The systematic study of human society.

What is Culture?

The ways of thinking, ways of acting and material objects that together forma people's way of life.

What is the Thomas Theorem?

W.I. Thomas's claim that situations defined as real are real in their consequences.

The Symbolic-Interaction approach

a framework for building theory that sees society as the product of the everyday interactions of individuals.

What are Research Methods?

systematic plan for doing research.

Technology and Culture

technology advances quicker than culture.