Sociology Chapter 1-4
About how many adults in the United States speak a language other than English at home?
15 million
Examine the following series of numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 10. What is the median value?
3
Imagine that you were going to measure the age of a number of respondents taking part in a survey. As you record the data, you are using the concept "age" as ________
A variable
The term "sociology" was coined in 1838 by ____________
Auguste Comte
Identify the three sociologists who played a part in the development of sociology's structural-functional approach.
Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim
"A mental construct that represents some aspect of the world in a somewhat simplified form" is the definition of a _______
Concept
The fact that texting is based on a new and evolving set of symbols shows us that _______
Culture changes over time
The pioneering sociologist who studied patterns of suicide in Europe was _________
Emile Durkheim.
The language widely spoken by people in more nations of the world than any other is _______
English
While one dominant value of U.S. culture is the right to equal opportunity and freedom, another is _______
Equality of condition
The claim that U.S. culture is wrongly dominated by a European, and especially English, way of life characterizes our culture as ________
Eurocentric
An act of kindness, such as opening the door for an elderly man, illustrates conforming to ________
Folkways
The Unites States falls within which category of the world's nations?
High-income nations
A social-conflict approach to sports would be an analysis of ________
How sports affect social inequality
____________ had an important influence on the development of the social-conflict approach.
Karl Marx
Unrecognized and unintended consequences of a social pattern are called ________
Latent functions
The recognized and intended consequences of a social pattern are referred to as ________
Manifest functions
What term refers to the value that occurs midway in a series of numbers arranged from smallest to largest (that is, the middle case)?
Median
The nations of Western Europe, Israel, Japan, and Australia fall into which category of countries?
Middle-income nations
What is the term for the value that occurs most often in a series of numbers?
Mode
Which of the following concepts refers to deciding exactly what is to be measured when assigning value to a variable?
Operationalizing
Cultural patterns that are widespread among a society's population are referred to as ________
Popular culture
_________ is a way of understanding the world based on science.
Positivism
W. E. B. Du Bois claimed that ________ was the major problem facing the United States during the twentieth century.
Race
Who was the U.S. sociologist who distinguished between the manifest functions and the latent functions of social patterns?
Robert K. Merton
Most of today's sociologists agree with Auguste Comte's claim that _____________
Science has an important place in sociology
Which discipline defines itself as "the systematic study of human society"
Sociology
The concept "cultural lag" refers to the fact that ________
Some cultural elements change more quickly than others
Other than English, which is the most widely-spoken language in the United States?
Spanish
Sociologists refer to tangible or physical human creations as ________
Technology
A constant danger to people living in hunting-and-gathering societies is ________
The forces of nature, including storms and droughts
What term refers to the arithmetic average of a series of numbers?
The mean
What might a sociologist say about people's selection of marriage partners?
Typically, a person marries someone of similar social position.
Which early sociologist received the first doctorate ever awarded by Harvard University to a person of color?
W. E. B. Du Bois
In the United States today, the suicide rate is highest for which of the following categories of people?
White males
The dominant values of U.S. culture include ________
a belief in individuality
What type of society engages in large-scale farming based on the use of plows drawn by animals or more powerful energy sources?
agrarian
According to Auguste Comte, people living in Europe during the Middle Ages thought of society as _____________
an expression of God's will
Sociologists define a symbol as ________
anything that carries meaning to people who share a culture
Cultural universals are elements of culture that ________
are part of every known culture.
Learning more sociology can help you ____________
assess the opportunities and constraints in our lives
Which of the following statements best illustrates the career advantage a person gains by studying sociology? a. A researcher discovers a new and effective vaccine. b. A person in retail sales knows how to exceed the monthly sales target. c. A police officer understands which categories of people are at high risk of becoming victims of crime. d. A financial services worker devises a new type of hedge fund.
c.A police officer understands which categories of people are at high risk of becoming victims of crime.
According to Lenski, the term "sociocultural evolution" refers to ________
changes that occur as a society acquires new technology
Counterculture refers to ________
cultural patterns that oppose those that are widely held.
Subculture refers to ________
cultural patterns that set off a part of a society's population.
The practice of understanding another culture on its own terms and using its own standards is called ________
cultural relativism
Telling jokes is an example of ________
cultural universal
What is the term for the beliefs, values, behavior, and material objects that together make up the way of life for a group of people?
culture
The concept of ________ refers to a shared way of life, and the term ________ refers to a political entity.
culture; nation
Low-income countries have cultures that value ________
economic survival
The social standing of women and men in hunting-and-gathering societies is _______
fairly equal, with men and women each making a vital contribution to survival.
A feminist theoretical analysis of language in the U.S. suggests that cultural patterns support ________
gender inequality
The flow of _______ from country to country adds to the creation of a global culture.
goods
In terms of social inequality, agrarian societies generally ________
have much more inequality than less productive societal types.
If you were to attend a New York Ballet performance, you would be experiencing ________
high culture
The first type of society to generate a material surplus was _________
horticultural and pastoral
Sociology differs from the older discipline of philosophy by focusing on ___________
how society actually operates
An accurate criticism of the structural-functional approach is that it ________
ignores inequality that can generate tension and conflict
Gaining a global understanding is __________
important for college students because most new U.S. jobs involve international trade.
Which type of human society has existed only since about the year 1750?
industrial societies
The term Homo sapiens, the name of our species, comes from Latin meaning _______
intelligent person
Ethnocentrism refers to ________
judging another culture using the standards of your own culture.
Building social relationships and creating tens of thousands of jobs are two of the _________ of sports.
latent functions
The chapter-opening story of the diversity initiative at Charles Schwab & Co. shows us that _______
learning more about cultural diversity can help a company boost sales.
Cars, computers, and iPhones are all examples of which of the following?
material culture
Almost all of Latin America (excluding Mexico) and almost all of Asia falls into the category of __________
middle-income nations.
Social problems in the US, such as poverty and gender inequality, are ____________
more serious in poorer countries.
________ distinguish between right and wrong; ________ distinguish between right and rude
mores; folkways
The United States is the most ________ of all countries.
multicultural
As a part of human culture, religion is an example of ________
nonmaterial culture
Cultural transmission refers to the process of ________
passing cultural patterns from one generation to another
The social conflict approach draws attention to __________
patterns of social inequality
The Sapir-Whorf thesis states that ________
people see the world through the cultural lens of their language
C. Wright Mills claimed that the "sociological imagination" transformed __________
personal problems into public issues.
A manifest function of sports is ________
providing recreation and physical conditioning
The fact that some married men and married women are sexually unfaithful to their spouses is an example of ________ culture, while the fact that most adults say they support the idea of sexual fidelity is an example of ________ culture.
real; ideal
By stating that the sociological perspective shows us "the strange in the familiar", the text argues that sociologists __________
reject the familiar idea that people simply decide how to act in favor of the initially strange idea that society shapes our lives.
Among all forms of life, humans stand out as the only species that________
relies on culture to ensure survival
According to Auguste Comte, people begin to try to understand how social life operates as their society enters which stage of development?
scientific stage
Social structures sometimes have negative consequences for the operation of society as a whole. Which of the following concepts refers to these negative consequences?
social dysfunctions
Which theoretical approach gives an evolutionary explanation of why the sexual "double standard" is found around the world?
sociobiology approach
The region of the United States where the largest percentage of people speak a language other than English at home is the ________
southwest
The theoretical approach in sociology that assumes society is a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability is the ________
structural-functional approach
Sociologist Lenore Weitzmen carried our research showing that women who divorce _____________
suffer a significant loss of income.
Which theoretical approach claims that it is not so much what people do that matters as much as what meaning they attach to their behavior?
symbolic-interaction approach
According to Gerhard Lenski, which of the following has the greatest power to shape a society?
technology
The distinction between high culture and popular culture is based mostly on _______
the social standing of the people who display the cultural pattern.
A statement that explains how and why specific facts are related is called a(n) ________
theory
If we state that children raised in single-parent families are at high risk of being single parents themselves, we have constructed a ________ of family life.
theory
Which of the following examples illustrates a micro-level focus?
two people on an airplane getting to know one another
By definition, horticultural societies are those in which people ________
use simple hand tools to raise crops
_________ refers to measuring exactly what one intends to measure.
validity
Standards by which people who share culture define what is desirable, good, and beautiful are called ________
values
In the process of measurement, reliability refers to ________
whether repeating the measurement yields consistent results
This chapter's sociological analysis of childbearing around the world suggests that's the number of children born to a woman reflects __________
whether she lives in a poor or a rich society.
Sociologists use the term "empirical evidence" to refer to ________
information we can verify with our senses.
If you were trying to measure the "social class" of various people, you would have to keep in mind that ________
it is necessary to specify exactly what variable you are measuring.
Science can be defined as a ________
logical system that bases knowledge on direct, systematic observation.
The sociological perspective coupled to research reveals that ________
much of what passes for "common sense" in the United States turns out to be at least partly wrong.
Lois Benjamin's research on the life experiences of high-achieving African Americans suggests that ________
racism remains a burden even among privileged African Americans.