Intro to sociology test 2

All over Los Angeles, you can see cars sporting a bumper sticker that says, "My favorite teams are UCLA and whoever's playing USC." What is this an example of?

Hostility toward an out-group

According to Robert Putnam, what does the decline in bowling leagues indicate?

Increasing anomie and a decline in collective bonds

How do sociologists define race?

a social category based on real or perceived biological differences

Activists sometimes advocate living "off the grid," which, in its simplest form, means living without buying electricity and water from utility companies. However, they also admit that living off the grid is getting harder and harder, because there simply isn't enough affordable land in places where it would be feasible to do so. This means that most Americans have to:

deal with utility company bureaucracies.

Many people today argue that convicted sex offenders should be chemically castrated or held in protective custody beyond their original sentences. What is the logic of these punishments?

deterrence

A homeless shelter in Illinois held a "sleep out," a protest to alert members of the general public to the dangers of letting funding for homeless shelters drop, forcing shelters to turn away people in need. The organizers of the rally saw their work as particularly important because they suspected that most residents did not realize just how many poor people existed in their community, a result of what sociologists would call:

the invisibility of poverty.

Sociologists who study deviance tend to focus only on the most extreme and obvious forms of deviance. What is this approach sometimes called?

the nuts and sluts approach

Unlike either traditional authority or legal-rational authority, charismatic authority is rooted in:

the personal qualities of the leader.

Instead of solely examining background factors, what does the sociologist Jack Katz think sociologists should study when trying to understand deviance?

the role poverty plays in encouraging deviance

Which of the following categories of people is most likely to believe in the American Dream?

those with annual household incomes exceeding $75,000

What is the goal of affirmative action?

to increase diversity

Although branding is no longer used as a form of punishment in the United States, some subcultures have adopted it as a form of body art. This demonstrates that:

what is considered deviant changes over time.

According to Chapter 7, what general predictions can sociologists make about a person's life prospects if all that is known is the person's social class?

what quality of education he or she will receive

Robert Merton pointed out that we remember Abraham Lincoln, one of America's great heroes, as being frugal, thrifty, and sparing, yet some people might describe these same traits differently when a member of some other racial or ethnic group possesses them. For example, Merton suggested that some white Americans who would describe Lincoln this way might describe an Asian American who has these same qualities as being stingy, miserly, and penny pinching. What explains this double standard?

For these white Americans, Lincoln was a member of their racial in-group, whereas an Asian American would be a member of the out-group.

Have you ever grumbled because your instructor assigned group work? One of the biggest problems associated with group assignments is that one person often ends up doing most of the work while others take it easy. This is called:

Social loafing

Social networks can influence people through contagion. What does that mean?

The influence of various social networks is contagious. Networks tend to mimic each other over the long run.

Émile Durkheim worried that in an increasingly fragmented modern world, individuals would feel less and less connected to groups, which would lead to:

anomie, or normlessness.

Being born into a lower social class means that an individual will be more likely to:

feel at risk of being harassed by law enforcement.

Social mobility that occurs over the course of an individual's lifetime is called ________ mobility.

intergenerational (Wrong)

What is wrong with treating Oprah Winfrey as the ultimate symbol of the American Dream?

She represents the exception rather than the rule.

Dan Savage, a nationally syndicated sex advice columnist, has repeatedly expressed his frustration with gay men who describe themselves in personal ads as "straight-acting, straight-appearing." He believes that these men need to be open about who they are rather than attempting to manage their stigmatized identities by:

passing

According to the Uniform Crime Report, murder is most likely to be committed by a:

friend or relative.

What school of social thought insists that all social structures, including systems of stratification, are built out of everyday interactions?

functionalism (Wrong)

A reporter who covers the police beat at a newspaper changes careers. She becomes an editor of nonfiction books and is paid the same salary as she was at the newspaper. What has she experienced?

horizontal social mobility

According to Erving Goffman, stigmatized individuals who do not believe that they should have to change or conceal their identities to make "normal" people more comfortable have:

in-group orientation.

In Office Space, the character Peter Gibbons spends much of the movie trying to find unconventional and even illegal ways of making more money. According to Robert Merton's typology, into what category does Peter fit?

innovator

The "Jim Crow" laws in the American South, which mandated separate facilities for whites and blacks, were an example of:

institutional discrimination.

When the children of working-class parents manage to attend college and get a job in a professional field, it is an example of ________ mobility.

intergenerational

Ascribed status is usually involuntary and often assigned at birth. Achieved status is voluntary and often based on merit, ability, or achievement. What sort of status would you expect to find in a closed system?

mostly ascribed status

A young doctor fresh out of medical school who looks for a position where he can work about twenty hours a week and make much less money than other doctors might be:

part of the simplicity movement.

How do sociologists distinguish a group from a crowd?

A crowd doesn't necessarily feel a shared identity.

Robert Merton's structural strain theory sees deviance as the result of a person's position in a social structure. What do you think Jack Katz, author of Seductions of Crime, would say about structural strain theory?

A focus on social position misses the emotional appeal that a deviant act has for an individual.

Sociologists are interested in how social groups have changed over time. Of particular note is the degree to which individuals base their identities on group membership. How has this changed in recent American history?

Americans are less likely to identify themselves as group members today than in the past.

How does the FBI's Uniform Crime Report measure crime?

Every crime reported by over seventeen thousand law enforcement agencies in the United States is tabulated.

Why are people more likely to marry individuals with social and cultural backgrounds very similar to their own?

People have greater access to individuals like themselves.

Even though antimiscegenation laws have been struck down, interracial relationships are still relatively uncommon. Why?

Powerful cultural stereotypes discourage them.

What kind of leadership style is typically expected of women in contemporary society?

Proscriptive leadership

A high school decides that its band needs to wear uniforms. To be more efficient, the school only buys uniforms in three sizes and forces students to pick the size that comes closest to fitting. What does this exemplify?

Rationalization

A twenty-eight-year-old woman is on the verge of a big promotion at work. Because she didn't finish college until she was twenty-five, she wonders about getting her career moving, especially because the entry-level job she currently has is not impressive. She decides to attend her ten-year high school reunion only if she is promoted. If her old high school classmates can have this much influence on her decision to attend the reunion, what do sociologists say they represent?

A reference group

How does Tiger Woods describe his own racial identity?

Cablinasian

A working-class straight black man will experience discrimination the same way a wealthy gay black man will because both of them are the same race.

False

A nightclub has several types of employees, each with a specialized task. Bartenders make drinks, bouncers check identification, bussers clear away used glasses, and so on. A shift supervisor is in charge, and a manager is in charge of the shift supervisor. At work the employees check the bulletin board, where their boss posts memos explaining changes in the rules. The bouncers are the most popular employees, because they usually let their friends in for free, even if their friends don't have ID. In many ways, the club is a bureaucracy, but there is at least one significant element of bureaucratic organization missing. What is it?

Impersonality

What does it mean that the states of Texas and California are minority-majority states?

In these states the blacks and the hispanics outnumbers the Whites, but they are still considered the minority group because the whites have the most power in these regions.

A producer for a cable news show is feeling insecure. She complains to her boss that she isn't very smart and that she only does well because she's scared of being yelled at. Her boss tells her to stop whining and not worry about it. He says, "I'm a results-based guy. I don't care why it works, as long as it works!" What leadership style do you think her boss has?

Instrumental

Around the third week of a college class, a professor decides she's had enough, is tired of dealing with bureaucracies, and wants out. So one day, instead of coming to class, she flies to Tahiti and sells souvenirs on the beach. If this happened, the college would simply assign a substitute to finish the course. What does this tell you about the nature of the authority wielded by a professor?

It is a legal-rational authority.

Martha Stewart was convicted of obstruction of justice after lying to the FBI during an investigation of her sale of ImClone Systems stock, whose value dramatically fell immediately after she sold it. Her conviction was unusual, as this sort of white collar crime is much more likely to be dealt with in civil, rather than criminal, court. How does the tendency to deal with white collar criminals in civil court bias our understanding of the demographics of crime?

It leads us to overestimate the relationship between poverty and crime.

How does colorblindness contribute to racial inequalities?

It perpetuates racial inequalities by making subtle forms of racism difficult to recognize and therefore difficult to address.

How do self-fulfilling prophecies work?

Our backgrounds do not determine deviance; rather, the in-the-moment emotional experience of a deviant action makes it seem like a good or bad idea.

A majority of Americans believe that poverty is a big problem, but addressing it is NOT a priority for most. Why NOT?

Many people believe that poor people simply do not try hard enough.

According to labeling theory, why were none of the pseudopatients in David Rosenhan's "On Being Sane in Insane Places" discovered?

Once a person has been labeled "mentally ill," it is very hard for anyone to see past the label.

Google has implemented employment policies like increasing the use of women interviewers for female job applicants and expanding maternity leave from three months to five in order to hire and retain more female employees. Which characteristic of bureaucracy is Google attempting to address with these changes?

Specialization

Plantation owners in America often argued that the Africans they imported were better off as slaves because they did not have the mental capacity to run their own lives. Today, this seems both racist and crazy. How could such racist beliefs flourish?

Such beliefs justify social arrangements between dominant and minority groups that benefit those who accept them.

In the 1900s, there was a strong prejudice against Irish immigrants and their descendants. Editorial cartoons often depicted the Irish as physically distinct and as looking like apes. What does this tell you about the history of race in the United States?

The Irish were once considered to be a separate race.

If an upper-middle-class, white college student is sentenced to rehab for the same drug crime that a lower-class, black man is sentenced to jail for committing, what might a conflict theorist conclude about deviance?

The rules are applied unequally, and those with power or influence are punished much less harshly.

In 1994 mass killings occurred in Rwanda, as members of the Hutu majority killed more than a million members of the Tutsi minority, many of them murdered with machetes. Although many Hutus later claimed that they were just trying to defend themselves, which of the following indicates that it was really genocide?

There was a discussion at the highest levels of government about the need to kill as many Tutsis as possible.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, since 2004 Texas has had a minority population of at least 11.3 million, comprising 50.2 percent of its total population of 22.5 million. The primary minority group is Mexican Americans. However, despite this numerical prominence, Texas has never had a Mexican American governor and the percentage of Mexican Americans in its state House has never been higher than 26. Why would a sociologist still call Mexican Americans a minority group?

They are denied access to power and resources.

According to Angela Davis, why are African American teenage girls disproportionately likely to have children?

They are less educated about methods of contraception.(Wrong)

According to Robin Leidner in Fast Food, Fast Talk, how do fast-food restaurants rationalize the process of providing food to customers?

They have developed standardized scripts for employees to use when dealing with customers.

According to Jack Katz in Seductions of Crime, why might teenagers shoplift?

They want the thrill of getting away with breaking the rules.

Construction crews are constantly annoyed at the way people, mostly teenage boys, steal orange cones and flashing pylons that mark construction zones. According to Jack Katz, why does this sort of deviance happen?

This sort of deviance produces a rush of energy and excitement.

How did the G.I. Bill of Rights, which provided funds for home loans, affect African Americans?

Though it was written to help all veterans regardless of race, African Americans were typically excluded from home ownership.

According to Max Weber's typology of power, what type of authority is wielded by a king?

Traditional authority

A person who is not prejudiced may still participate in discrimination.

True

DuBois considered the question of whether one could be black and at the same time claim one's rights as an American to devise the concept of double-consciousness.

True

Homogamy, a term sociologists use to mean the tendency to choose romantic partners based on similarities in background and group membership, is very common. Why?

We tend to have more access to people like ourselves.

How is Max Weber's idea of social class different from Karl Marx's?

Weber believed that wealth, power, and prestige could all affect a person's social class.

Although individuals always feel loyalty toward their in-group, under what circumstances would this loyalty be particularly strong?

When the differences between the in-group and the out-group are sharply defined

Which of the following authority figures still derives legitimacy from traditional sources?

Your parents

A society where social mobility is highly restricted by formal or informal rules, like those of a caste system, is called:

a closed system.

How do sociologists define a minority group?

a group whose members suffer from unequal treatment

How do sociologists define ethnicity?

a group with a shared ancestry or shared cultural heritage

In the United States, the federal poverty line is calculated using food costs, based on the cheapest possible diet that can still provide basic nutrition. What sort of measure of poverty is this?

a measure of absolute deprivation

People who associate with each other on a regular basis for no other reason than to spend time together are usually members of a:

a primary group

In his book Streetwise, Elijah Anderson argues that young African American men are more likely to be arrested because:

both police and community members perceive them as more criminal than others.

An individual who works at a bookstore routinely takes home ballpoint pens and Post-it notes, uses the copy machine to make personal copies, and makes long-distance phone calls on the store's line. However, he would never consider stealing money from the cash register, even if he knew he could get away with it. What is this behavior called?

business nonconformity

All left-handed people in the United States would be classified as a(n):

category

In 2009 Barack Obama became the first black president. Some feel that this election demonstrates that racism is a thing of the past. This way of thinking is evidence of:

colorblindness.

Because laws represent the interests of those in power, crimes committed by the upper classes are typically treated more leniently than crimes committed by the lower classes. This argument is consistent with:

conflict theory.

According to social psychologists, when people encounter a situation that seems to be unfair and they cannot or will not act to make things right, what do they tend to do?

convince themselves nothing bad has happened

Nowhere to Grow by Les Whitbeck and Dan Hoyt explored the lives of homeless and runaway teens in the Midwest. The authors found that "associating with deviant peers" had a dramatic effect on a wide range of deviant behaviors, including increasing "the likelihood of serious substance abuse almost 32 times." What theory of deviance considers the way such interpersonal relationships help to predict deviant behavior?

differential association

Why are there differences in life expectancies for people of different races?

disparities in access to health care

According to William Julius Wilson, racism has created a black underclass, but this underclass is perpetuated by:

economic factors.

Graduate students almost never attend graduate school at the institution where they were undergraduates, which means that a new graduate student is almost always living in a new and unfamiliar town. Therefore, it's logical that many new grad students form social bonds among themselves and share activities, such as gathering after class for beer and pizza. If a new grad student doesn't like beer or pizza but accompanies the group anyway because he wants to make friends, this is an example of:

internalization

When Barack Obama was a presidential candidate, he argued that racial prejudice is one of America's defining social problems. He was implicitly acknowledging that:

membership in socially constructed categories of race and ethnicity can affect people's life chances in many ways.

A person arrived at a company party dressed in a bunny costume, only to discover that the party was not a costume party. Although he had been tricked by a co-worker, from then on everyone saw him as crazy and eccentric, and eventually he came to think of himself in this way too. The initial mistake at the party is an example of:

primary deviance.

Apartheid is a specific example of what system of social stratification?

racial(Wrong)

A set of beliefs about the superiority of one racial or ethnic group compared to another is:

racism

The Bell Curve by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray generated an enormous amount of controversy when it first came out, largely because it suggested that racial differences in IQ scores were due to genetically driven differences in intelligence and argued that "both genes and the environment have something to do with racial differences." For those who disagreed, this seemed like a very familiar argument, because:

racist beliefs are often rooted in the assumption that differences between groups are genetic.

Groups that we use as standards to evaluate ourselves—either positively, in terms of the qualities we aspire to achieve, or negatively, in terms of the qualities we wish to avoid—are called:

reference groups.

According to Jack Katz, there are several reasons why adolescents might shoplift, the first being the material appeal of the objects that are taken, but more importantly, they:

regard "getting away with it" as a demonstration of personal competence.

In "On Being Sane in Insane Places," David Rosenhan describes how:

researchers posing as "pseudopatients" in a mental hospital, but otherwise acting normally, were nonetheless treated as insane by the hospital staff.

After the Civil War, most southern states passed laws that barred African Americans and whites from sharing most kinds of public facilities. This is an example of:

segregation

In 1993 six African American Secret Service agents filed a complaint with the Department of Justice against Denny's for refusal of service because the restaurant took much longer to serve them than other customers. After they filed the complaint, thousands of other African Americans came forward with similar allegations. What are these allegations evidence of?

situational ethnicity(Wrong)

What system of stratification is commonly used in capitalist societies?

social class

Mother Teresa was a person with tremendous power and prestige, yet she was very poor. Mother Teresa is an example of which of the following?

status inconsistency

Robert Merton developed structural strain theory to explain why deviance happens. To what sort of strain does the theory's name refer?

strain between socially approved goals and the means an individual has for realizing them

Although the United States lost many jobs in the recession of the late 2000s, many people are optimistic that the lost jobs will be replaced with others. However, even if the optimists are right, the shift in the economy may permanently alter the class status of many, as the jobs being lost are largely in manufacturing and new jobs are often in information technology, suggesting that the newly unemployed will have trouble competing for newly created jobs. If this is the case, what is it called?

structural mobility

Although we usually think of social mobility as a result of individual effort, during the "dot-com boom" of the late 1990s, many people became instant millionaires. This is an example of:

structural mobility.

According to one study, in Pennsylvania, black defendants on trial for murder were 40 percent more likely to receive the death penalty than whites convicted of similar crimes. This indicates that:

the criminal justice system has a racial bias.

For what is the Uniform Crime Report used?

to make comparisons in crime rates between years and geographic regions