Sociology Midterm

Sociology first appeared as a formal discipline in ________

France

Thomas Hobbes's idea that society reflects a selfish human nature illustrates the thinking common at which of Comte's historical stages?

Metaphysical stage

Which of the following examples illustrates a micro-level focus?

Two people on an airplane getting to know one another

What might a sociologist say about people's selection of marriage partners?

Typically, a person marries someone of similar social position.

Which early U.S. sociologist studied the African American community and served as a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)?

W. E. B. Du Bois

Which early sociologist received the first doctorate ever awarded by Harvard University to a person of color?

W. E. B. Du Bois

The early U.S. sociologist who described the difference between folkways and mores was ________

William Graham Sumner.

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.

Using the symbolic-interaction approach, sports becomes ________

less a system than an ongoing process of interaction.

In the period of life called "middle adulthood," people typically experience _______

life circumstances becoming more or less set.

According to Emile Durkheim, categories of people with a higher suicide rate typically have ________

lower levels of social integration.

Robert Merton explained that what is functional for people in one category of a society's population ______

may not be functional for people in another category.

Robert Merton explained that what is functional for people in one category of a society's population ________

may not be functional for people in another category.

Countries in which average people's income is typical for the world as a whole and in which people are as likely to live in a rural area as in an urban area are categorized as ________

middle-income nations

Culture acts as a constraint, limiting human freedom because ________

much culture is habit, which members of a society repeat again and again.

The United States is the most _______ of all countries.

multicultural

Critics of Erikson's theory of personality development point out that _______

not everyone confronts the stages in the exact order given by Erikson.

Most of today's sociologists agree with Auguste Comte's claim that ________

science has an important place in sociology.

If you were to put together the lesson learned from the cases of Anna, Isabelle, and Genie, you would correctly conclude that _______

social experience plays a crucial part in forming human personality.

The "framework for building theory that sees society as an arena of inequality that generates conflict and change" is the ________

social-conflict approach.

The term Homo sapiens, the name of our species, comes from Latin meaning ________

"intelligent person."

According to scientists, Homo sapiens first appeared on Earth about how long ago?

250,000 years

More than ______ people have immigrated to the U.S. between the years 1820 and 2014.

82 million

What type of society engages in large-scale farming based on the use of plows drawn by animals or more powerful energy sources?

Agrarian

Which theory, developed by the psychologist John B. Watson, claims that human behavior is not instinctive but learned within a social environment?

Behaviorism

What is the term sociologists give to a category of people with a common characteristic, usually their age?

Cohort

If social marginality encourages sociological thinking, we would expect people in which category listed below to make the most use of the sociological perspective?

Disabled persons or people who are a racial minority

Cultural change is set in motion in three general ways. What are they?

Invention, discovery, and diffusion

_______ had an important influence on the development of the social-conflict approach.

Karl Marx

What effect did industrialization have on life expectancy in the United States and Western Europe?

Life expectancy went up.

Which concept is used to describe relatively stable patterns of social behavior?

Social structure

_____ is a way of understanding the world based on science.

Positivism

Who was the U.S. sociologist who distinguished between the manifest functions and the latent functions of social patterns?

Robert K. Merton

According to Auguste Comte, the type of thinking favored by people such as Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb, becomes common in a society at which stage of societal development?

Scientific stage

What concept refers to the lifelong social experience by which human beings develop their potential and learn culture?

Socialization

The region of the United States where the largest percentage of people speak a language other than English at home is the ________

Southwest

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

What does the idea that the social world guides our actions and life choices just as the seasons influence activities and choice of clothing describe?

The essential wisdom of the discipline of sociology

Which theoretical approach is linked to the philosophical doctrine of materialism?

The social-conflict approach

Which theoretical approach gives an evolutionary explanation of why the sexual "double standard" is found around the world?

The sociobiology approach

The ancient Romans saw the stars as being gods. Auguste Comte would classify Roman society as being in which of the following stages of history?

Theological stage

Based on what you have read in this chapter, how would sociologists explain the fact that many young people in the United States experience adolescence as a time of confusion?

There are cultural inconsistencies in the definition of this stage of life as partly childlike and partly adultlike

Telling jokes is an example of ________

a cultural universal.

A simplified description unfairly applied to every person in the same category is called ________

a stereotype

Three campus roommates are talking about why they are in college. A sociological view of going to college highlights the effect of ________

age, class, and our place in history, because of these are all ways in which society guides college attendance.

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.

The social-conflict approach sometimes receives criticism for ________

being openly political.

Goffman's idea of the resocialization process includes _______

breaking down an old identity, then building up a new identity.

Making use of the sociological perspective encourages ________

challenging many commonly-held beliefs.

Cultural integration refers to the fact that ________

change in one cultural pattern is usually linked to changes in others.

Key values of U.S. culture ________

change quickly, even from year to year.

In a total institution, staff members _______

closely supervise all the daily life of inmates.

A majority of people over the age of sixty-five in the United States ________

consider their health "good" or "excellent."

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.

The concept of _____ refers to a shared way of life, and the term ____ refers to a political entity.

culture; nation

The spread of cultural traits from one society to another is called ________

diffusion.

Following the thinking of C. Wright Mills, we would expect the sociological imagination to be more widespread in a population ________

during times of social crisis.

Sarah is spending a summer living in another country where people have a way of life that differs from her own. A sociologist might expect that this experience would lead her to ________

end up with a greater understanding of both a new way of life and her own way of life.

We would expect the sociological perspective to be most likely to develop in a place that was _______

experiencing many social changes

An act of kindness, such as opening the door for an elderly man, illustrates conforming to ________

folkways

To evaluate a theory using evidence, sociologists ________

gather facts or data

A feminist theoretical analysis of language in the U.S. suggests that cultural patterns support ________

gender inequality.

Carol Gilligan extended Kohlberg's research, showing that _______

girls and boys typically assess situations as right and wrong using different standards.

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.

The nations of Western Europe, Israel, Japan, and Australia fall into which category of countries?

high-income nations

Mead would agree that _______

if you won $100 million in a lottery, your "self" might change.

An accurate criticism of the structural-functional approach is that it ________

ignores inequality that can generate tension and conflict.

By "taking the role of the other," Mead had in mind _______

imagining a situation from another person's point of view.

Gaining a global understanding is ________

important for college students because most new U.S. jobs involve international trade.

A sociologist using the gender-conflict approach might state that ________

in many ways, men are in positions of power over women.

Sociology provides an advantage to students preparing for later careers by preparing them for work _______

in teaching, criminal justice, business, and many other careers.

The United States is multicultural because ________

in this country we find many different languages and ways of life.

Understanding the differences between countries encourages ________

increasing our understanding of both of our own lives and the lives of others.

An inmate who loses the capacity for independent living is described as _______

institutionalized.

In her research, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross found that death ________

is an orderly transition involving specific stages.

In deciding what kinds of questions to ask in their research, sociologists are guided by ________

one or more theoretical approaches.

Looking at the operation of U.S. schools guided by the social-conflict approach might lead a sociologist to conclude that ________

our society provides some students with far better schooling than others.

The Sapir-Whorf thesis states that ________

people see the world through the cultural lens of their language.

A social-exchange analysis states that ________

people typically seek mates who offer as much as they do.

According to Erving Goffman, the goal of a total institution is to _______

radically alter a person's personality or behavior.

The main characteristic of the _____ approach is its view of society as being orderly and stable.

structural-functional

The _____ approaches are macro-level, describing societies in broad, structural terms.

structural-functional and social-conflict

Sociologist Lenore Weitzman carried out research showing that women who divorce ________

suffer a significant loss of income.

Understanding marriage using the structural-functional approach might prompt you to consider _______

the consequences of marriage for the operation of society.

A constant danger to people living in hunting and gathering societies is ________

the forces of nature, including storms and droughts.

Agrarian technology developed based on the use of ________

the plow, animal power, and the development of metals.

Racial discrimination in professional sports is evident today in ________

the positions typically played by white and black players.

A Marxist analysis of U.S. culture suggests that our competitive and individualistic values reflect ________

this nation's capitalist economy.

Karl Marx, speaking for the social-conflict approach, argued that the point of studying society was

to bring about greater social equality.

Examples of people applying their knowledge of sociology at work include people in medicine ______

understanding patterns of health in a community.

Examples of people applying their knowledge of sociology at work include people in medicine ________

understanding patterns of health in a community.

Standards by which people who share culture define what is desirable, good, and beautiful are called ________

values