Sociology Midterm

Which research method asks subjects to respond to a series of items in a questionnaire or an interview?

A survey

sociology first appeared as a formal discipline in

France

Which of the following types of society has the most productive specialization?

Industrial

What concept refers to any change in a subject's behavior that is caused by the awareness of being studied?

The Hawthorne effect

The dominant values of US culture include ________

a belief in individuality

Compared to an industrial society, a postindustrial society is based on ____________

an information based economy

Durkheim called the condition in which society provides little moral guidance to individuals

anomie

Sociologists define a symbol as

anything that carries meaning to people who share a culture

making use of the sociological perspective encourages

challenging many commonly held beliefs

"A statement of a possible relationship between two or more variables" is the definition of which concept?

correlation

The concept of __________ refers to a shared way of life, and the term _______ refers to a political entity

culture and nation

That fact that instant messaging is based on a new set of symbols shows us that

culture changes over time

When Weber used the concept "rationality", he had in mind ___________

deliberate, matter of fact calculation of the most efficient way to accomplish any task

Low income countries have cultures that value ____________

economic survival

_____________ are rules about everyday, casual living; ____________ are rules with great moral significance

folkways; mores

Peter Berger describes using the sociological perspective as seeing the _________ in the ___________.

general in the particular

Gerhard Lenski claims that the development of more complex technology __________

has both positive and negative effects

if you were to attend a New York City Ballet performance, you would be experiencing _________

high culture

the first type of society to generate a material surplus was ________

horticultural and pastoral

understanding the differences between countries encourages

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

what is the term for the value that occurs most often in a series of numbers?

mean

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

social problems in the United States, such as poverty and gender inequality, are

more serious in poorer countries

It is difficult to establish all the cause and effect relationships in a social situation because __________

most patterns of behaviors are caused by many factors

Regarding ethical research guidelines, the American Sociological Association states that researchers ______________

must protect the privacy of subjects taking part in a research project

Cultural transmission refers to the process of

passing cultural patterns from one generation to another

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

In hunting and gathering societies, the ________________

population is small and nomadic

Imagine that you are repeating research done by someone else in order to assess the accuracy of that research. You are doing which of the following?

replication

as the suffering of workers became worse, Marx predicted that they would ________

rise up against the capitalist system

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

science has an important place in sociology

people who interact in a defined territory and who share a culture are part of what sociologists call a

society

the early sociologists August Comte and Emile Durkheim used the

structural functional approach

According to Gerhard Lenski, which of the following has the greatest power to shape a society

technology

Qualitative research has special appeal to investigators who favor

the symbolic interaction approach

A statement that explains how and why specific facts are related is called a(n)

theory

Two variables are said to display correlation if __________

they vary together

________ 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