Sociology Exam 1

Researcher Victoria Leto DeFrancisco studied the conversations of heterosexual couples in their homes to determine how power is created and maintained through day-to-day interactions. Which type of approach is she using in this research?

Microsociological

One of the most striking contrasts in restaurants is between the demeanor of cooks and that of servers. Servers are paid to be nice, pleasant, and courteous. On the other hand, cooks are usually not required to act this way. The part of a server's job that does not apply to a cook is called

emotional labor

Young army recruits arriving at boot camp are about to enter a(n)

total institution

There are multiple types of stigma. The type associated with drug addicts and alcoholics is __________ stigma.

tribal

Norms develop out of a culture's value system.

true

Sigmund Freud, Charles Cooley, and George Herbert Mead all contributed to the study of the self.

true

Sociologists claim that culture is the lens through which we perceive and evaluate what is going on in the world around us.

true

Many sociologists have worried that the modern economy demands both geographic and occupational mobility, which, in turn, means that bureaucratic organizations have become the norm. What sort of groups might become weaker or strained if people have to move frequently throughout their lives for work?

Primary Groups

Why was Harriet Martineau considered radical for her time?

She endorsed labor unions, the abolition of slavery, and women's suffrage.

How did Durkheim characterize solidarity in The Division of Labor in Society?

Solidarity is present in all societies but different societies have different types of bonds.

Jewish Americans, African Americans, and Hispanic Americans were not permitted to purchase houses in the suburb of Lakewood, California, when it was first built in 1950. However, the developers reversed this policy within a few years and started selling homes to families regardless of religious faith or ethnicity. What does this tell us about stigma?

Stigmatized identities change over time.

Jill is visiting her boyfriend's family in China. She points at him with her index finger during a conversation, which his family doesn't seem to like. Her boyfriend later explains that she should point with an open hand instead of using a finger. Why is this instruction needed?

The meaning of gestures is not universal.

What does social identity theory suggest about teamwork?

The most efficient teams are made up of members with a strong shared social identity.

The sociologist Joseph Conti studied the World Trade Organization as a social network. According to Conti, how is power measured within this type of social network?

The most powerful members have the most connections to other members.

How is culture transmitted and internalized?

We learn values and beliefs slowly and incrementally.

An example of __________ is Asian American students being more likely to be placed in Advanced Placement classes, earn higher grades, and be treated well by teachers.

a stereotype promise

Members of a table tennis club in upstate New York seem to have come together as much for connections with others as for the love of the game. This club can be viewed as a counterpoint to the message of Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone because it is an example of

a type of civic engagement that brings people together.

Although she made contributions to sociology, Jane Addams is perhaps best remembered for her embrace of praxis, which means that she

acted on her intellectual convictions and applied theory to practical action in the hopes of improving society.

A group of young people dancing their hearts out is a normal and even expected sight at a dance club. However, the same group dancing in the same exact way along the side of a highway in the middle of the day would be seen as strange and possibly disruptive. This is because the dance club, unlike the sidewalk, is a(n)

agent of socialization

A student sitting through a boring class glances over at a friend and rolls his eyes. Erving Goffman would identify this as

an expression of behavior.

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

anomie or normlessness.

Before we can experience role-taking emotions, we must

be able to see things from another person's point of view.

Some researchers have argued that in highly individualistic cultures, such as that of the United States, the emotion of shame is usually triggered by individual actions. However, in more collectivist cultures like Japan's, shame is linked to groups. This would seem to indicate that

emotions are not solely personal, because the expression of emotions can also be social and cultural.

A behavior, trait, or belief can be considered deviant only if it is in violation of a law.

false

Differential association theory is associated with structural functionalism.

false

Formal subjects such as math and reading are part of schools' hidden curriculums.

false

Our social networks include only those with whom we identify and interact with regularly.

false

Primary groups tend to be temporary.

false

Members of a(n) ________ interact with one another and think of themselves as belonging together.

group

When the dominant culture persuades the rest of society, without the use of force, that its ideas are the only or best ideas, it has achieved

hegemony

What does the concept of the looking-glass self help explain?

how we develop a self-concept based on our perceptions of others' judgments of us

We occasionally see stories in the media about a high-profile individual, such as a religious or political leader, who does something the society views as wrong despite the individual often being seen as a moral leader. These stories are examples of a disconnect between which two cultural concepts?

ideal and real culture

Which term describes a policy of honoring diverse racial, ethnic, national, and linguistic backgrounds?

multiculturalism

A set of assumptions, theories, and perspectives that make up a way of understanding social reality is a(n)

paradigm.

________ are where much of our socialization occurs.

primary groups

According to Marx, an individual who makes money exclusively by selling their own labor must be a member of what social group?

proletariat

Countercultural groups such as the those in the anti-government militia movement

reject the norms of the dominant culture

Janae and Ren are coworkers who recently started dating. One day Janae notices Ren stealing office supplies. She's torn between being a good employee and reporting the theft or helping her new romantic partner avoid getting in trouble. Janae is experiencing

role conflict

In 2021, the richest 1 percent of the American population owned 32.1 percent of the country's wealth, and the bottom 50 percent of the population owned 2.5 percent. Karl Marx would call this

social inequality.

In 1978, cult leader Jim Jones forced more than 900 of his followers to drink poisoned Flavor Aid, which led to their deaths. In the run-up to this event, Jones had strictly enforced discipline, mocked and ridiculed anyone who expressed doubts, and even had doubters sedated. This extreme effort to enforce conformity is an example of

social influence

Symbolic interactionism was established by

the Chicago School of sociology.

According to Sigmund Freud's theoretical perspective, the parts of the mind are

the id, ego, and superego.

Some people think that body and face tattoos are aesthetically pleasing and attractive. In fact, they are central to some cultures such as the Maori of New Zealand. However, others see them as obscene and revolting. This difference in views illustrates the sociological insight that

the line between beauty and deviance is fluid and changes across time and place.

Some argue that individuals who repeatedly commit violent crimes have a genetic flaw that predisposes them to engaging in such acts. Others claim that these individuals are the products of their social environments and learned to act out in these ways. This is an example of

the nature vs. nurture debate.

Simon Langlois studied government employment in Quebec, Canada. He found that more than 40 percent of the people he surveyed found their jobs through personal contacts, even though the government had made efforts to formalize recruitment. The personal contacts were fairly casual acquaintances in the majority of cases, not close friends. What principle is demonstrated here?

the strength of weak ties

According to Karl Marx, class consciousness is developed

through the lower classes recognizing how society works and challenging those in power.

Actual group productivity never equals potential productivity. This is because

time is lost to coordinating and organizing group members.

Postmodernists are interested in ________ or taking apart and examining stories and theories.

Deconstruction

Which of the following situations is an example of deviance avowal?

A man decides to quit smoking but asks his friends and family to identify him as a smoker, not an ex-smoker, because he believes the addiction is lifelong.

What do sociologists call a group that provides standards by which an individual can judge their own accomplishments?

A reference group

Bernard McGrane suggested that individuals adopt a(n) ________ to unlearn what we already know and better understand the social world.

Beginner's Mind

__________ argues that punishments for rules violators are unequally distributed, with those near the top of society subject to more lenient rules and sanctions than those at the bottom.

Conflict theory

Who studied the Hopi of the southwestern United States and concluded that language not only allows us to express our thoughts, but also shapes the way we think?

Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf

Norms are universal across cultures, time periods, and situations.

False

Why does the family have such a powerful impact as an agent of socialization?

Family begins the socialization process before there are any other competing influences.

In an authoritarian regime, a well-known political agitator has been sentenced to house arrest for thirty days because the government fears the possibility of them inciting a riot or other disturbance. What is the logic of this punishment?

Incapacitation

What is the strongest type of conformity that can occur as a result of social influence or peer pressure?

Internalization

In Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn, Karen McCarthy Brown studied practitioners of the Vodou religion living in the United States. However, she went far beyond the usual role of scientific observer and became a member of the religious group she was studying. She also gave her key informant veto power over certain elements of her work. Why would this be helpful?

It helped her set aside preconceived notions about Vodou to understand it on its own terms.

Why would using the wrong fork to eat a salad at a dinner party NOT usually qualify as deviance?

It is not a serious enough norm violation to provoke sanctions.

Why might teenagers shoplift, according to Jack Katz's Seductions of Crime?

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

What is the relationship between Sister Pauline Quinn's program, in which prison inmates train service and therapy dogs, and sociological concepts of the self and of interaction?

The process of training dogs helps to resocialize prisoners.

What might a conflict theorist conclude about deviance 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?

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

Why might Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim be placed far apart on sociology's family tree?

The theoretical approaches they founded are very different.

How do self-fulfilling prophecies work?

We respond not only to the objective features of a situation but also to its meaning. Once meaning has been assigned to our behavior, the consequences of that behavior are determined by the meaning.

Why might expressions given off seem like more trustworthy guides than expressions given when we try to understand how other people define a situation?

We tend to believe that it is harder to manipulate expressions given off.

How do sociologists observe society?

by studying the various parts of a society and the ways they interact and influence one another

Which theoretical perspective would suggest that group memberships are used to separate and differentially treat individuals on the basis of their categorization?

conflict theory

Western companies are powerful enough to impose their products on markets worldwide because of their economic strength. This phenomenon is known as

cultural imperialism.

When Patti traveled around the world, she had lunch at McDonald's in Tokyo, ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe in Hong Kong, purchased clothes at Macy's in London, and was entertained at a Disney show in Paris. This homogenization of cultures around the world is called

cultural leveling

Imprisonment was a rare type of punishment before the nineteenth century because earlier societies

did not have sufficient resources to operate prisons.

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 in which such interpersonal relationships help to predict deviant behavior?

differential association

A famous monologue from Shakespeare's As You Like It begins as follows: All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts. Which theory of social life could be seen as taking its inspiration from these lines?

dramaturgy

Google has implemented employment policies like increasing the use of female 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?

impersonality

According to the Uniform Crime Report, which of the following is the most common type of crime?

larceny

Folkways are

loosely enforced norms involving common customs, practices, or procedures.

Coca-Cola was initially marketed in the 1860s as a patent medicine, which was designed to offer the energy boost of cocaine without the vices of alcohol. The new beverage was invigorating and popular. Today, however, cocaine is not just banned, but widely demonized. This is an example of

mainstream culture once approving of behaviors that are now considered deviant.

What is one of the weaknesses of being an everyday actor when it comes to understanding everyday life?

making assumptions and failing to investigate or verify those assumptions

Museum curators have recently experienced problems with the preservation of plastic objects, almost all of which disintegrate over time. The Smithsonian collection contains the first-ever plastic toothbrush, which one day will be nothing more than a pile of plastic particles. This problem is leading many historians to worry that we will lose the history of our

material culture

Works of fiction such as The Jungle Book are retellings of myths about feral children. These stories highlight the sociological concept of ________, but some real-world examples of kidnapping and abuse are no myth.

social isolation

Students often complain when they hear their instructor assign 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

In all probability, the sociology professor who is giving this test would be totally unable to grade a test given in the chemistry department. What aspect of bureaucracy does this illustrate?

speicalization

Right before Carly took a standardized mathematics exam, she was reminded that many people believe women are inherently less capable of mathematical reasoning than men. She began to worry that she would not do well on the exam and thereby confirm these beliefs about women. The stress and anxiety this caused diminished her performance and she scored poorly on the exam. Which concept does this story exemplify?

stereotype threat

Robert Merton developed structural strain theory to explain why deviance occurs. What is the cause of the strain suggested by the name of the theory?

strain between socially approved goals and the means of achieving them

The social analyst must take the perspective of a(n) ________ to verify what the everyday actor might just accept or assume to be true.

stranger

The mother of a university student encourages her son to join a fraternity. She hopes that peer pressure and groupthink may lead her son to do things he hasn't tried before, such as volunteering and attending formal events. What perspective best describes her views?

symbolic interactionism

Many people in the United States express disgust at the idea of people snacking on grasshoppers and crickets despite the fact that people do so in places such as Thailand. This suggests that, in the United States, eating insects is a

taboo

Ethnocentrism refers to

using one's own culture as a standard by which to judge others.

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

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