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.