PSU Chapter 4
A traffic cop pulls over a speeder, only to discover that the driver is a close friend. The police officer is torn, because her professional obligations demand that she punish the speeder but her personal obligations suggest that she should give a friend a break. This is an example of:
Role conflict
In 1998 former NFL linebacker Chris Spielman was forced to choose between staying with his sick wife or playing professional football. What sort of sociological phenomenon was he experiencing?
Role conflict
When a parent has to decide between being on time for work or helping his child with a homework assignment, he is experiencing:
Role conflict
A person who leaves her job of twenty years to retire is undergoing what process?
Role exit
How do sociologists define the self?
The experience of an individual's personal identity, distinct from other people
According to the sociological explanation of emotions, which of the following statements about grief is true?
The experience of grief is universal, but expressions of grief are cultural.
Which of the following agents of socialization has the most enduring, lifelong impact on the individual?
The family
Which of the following sources of socialization forms the foundation for all other socializing agents?
The family
Why does the family have such a powerful impact as an agent of socialization?
The family is where we begin the socialization process before there are any other competing influences.
Many of us have fond memories of kindergarten, perhaps because there was more time for activities like making art from macaroni and singing songs. However, a sociologist might point out that kindergartners are not just being taught about arts and crafts. They're also being taught how to be students: how to sit still, take orders, remain in their seats, and behave in school. In other words, they are learning skills that will be necessary for the rest of their education. What are these other things that are taught in kindergarten called?
The hidden curriculum
When we try to understand how other people define a situation, why might expressions given off seem like more trustworthy guides than expressions given?
We tend to believe that it is harder to manipulate expressions given off.
Which of the following is one of the steps in Charles Cooley's model of the looking-glass self?
We try to interpret other people's reactions to our presence and our presentation of ourselves.
If a bride is upset on her wedding day because her family members don't seem excited enough for her, sociologists might argue that the family members are violating:
a feeling rule.
The concept of the looking-glass self explains:
how we develop a self-concept based on our perceptions of others' judgments of us.
Which of the following statements reflects the best understanding of the nature vs. nurture debate?
Nature and nurture are not opposing forces, but they constantly modify each other as part of a larger interactive process.
Why is it increasingly difficult to use sociological models that assume that interaction involves copresence?
New technology makes it much more common to interact with someone without being physically in the same place.
As children get older, which agent of socialization tends to replace parents as their most intense and immediate influence?
Peers
A waitress is hired at the local branch of La Maison de la Casa House. On her first day, she is given strict instructions to always wear black pants with a white shirt, to never carry a notepad, and to always address customers as "Sir" or "Madam." All of these things are elements of the waitress's:
Personal front
What are some examples of things students learn from a school's hidden curriculum?
Punctuality, neatness, and discipline
Someone who has gotten a divorce after a long marriage and now wants to start dating again may find that many of the norms of dating have changed. Behaviors like splitting the check or talking about safe sex may be new for this person. This process of having to learn and adjust to the new rules of dating is an example of:
Resocialization
A female police officer who struggles with commanding respect from male colleagues while also presenting herself in traditionally feminine ways may be experiencing:
Role conflict
What happens to individuals who are not socialized?
They are devoid of many of the qualities we associate with being human.
Which of the following is true of expressions given off, as defined by Erving Goffman?
They are typically nonverbal, but they are observable in various ways.
Which of the following is true of expressions given, as defined by Erving Goffman?
They are typically verbal and intentional.
Recent research by marine biologists suggests that bottlenose dolphins have names for themselves. Scientists played sounds they had identified as the names of particular dolphins, putting them through a synthesizer so that they did not sound like the voices of particular dolphins. The researchers found that dolphins would respond to the names of other dolphins that they were related to or associated with, but they ignored the names of strangers. This discovery suggests a much greater degree of self-awareness in aquatic mammals than was previously suspected. If this research holds up, what does it suggest about dolphins?
They have a sense of self similar to that of humans.
Which of the following is one of the goals of socialization?
To teach norms, values, and beliefs
Which theorist argued that if people define a situation as real, it is real in its consequences?
W. I. Thomas
Kenneth Gergen coined the term "the saturated self" to describe the type of self that results from:
exposure to more and more points of view and sources of information.
Children who are raised without human interaction, or with a minimum of human contact, are referred to as ________ children.
feral
The University of California, Santa Barbara, is located near the Pacific Ocean, and many students live within walking distance of the beach. Although the students feel that it's perfectly normal to wear a bathing suit while at the beach, most of them put on a cover-up, or wrap themselves in a towel, to make the short walk back to their apartments. This is because the beach, unlike the street, is a(n) ________ where wearing nothing but a bathing suit is considered normal and acceptable.
front
Erving Goffman theorized social life as a kind of con game in which we work to control the impressions others have of us. What did Goffman call this process?
Impression management
According to George Herbert Mead, in what way is a game of football like society?
In both football and society, individuals have to take into account the roles and points of view of everyone else.
How does a person come to possess an achieved status?
An achieved status is earned.
What sort of status would a physical disability be?
An embodied status
A student sitting through a boring class glances over at a friend and rolls his eyes. What would Erving Goffman call this?
An expression of behavior
Churches usually teach their members rules, often codifying these rules into formal commandments to be followed. Because of this, churches can be called:
Agents of socialization
Sister Pauline Quinn's dog-training program benefits everyone involved: the dogs, the prisoners, the prisons, and people with disabilities. With this in mind, Quinn called the program:
"Part of a chain reaction of good"
A research study examined how teachers at community colleges handled retirement. The study found that the unique culture of such institutions had a significant effect on how retirees coped with their new situation. Which of the following could be the title of a paper written about this study?
"The Role-Exit Process of Community College Faculty: A Study of Faculty Retirement"
Which of the following is an example of a total institution?
A prison
Which of these statements about roles is true?
A role involves behaviors.
A position in a social hierarchy that comes with a set of expectations is called:
A status
Which of the following is an example of resocialization?
A stay-at-home mother becoming paralyzed in a car accident
Young army recruits arriving at boot camp are about to enter which of the following?
A total institution
Which of the following is an example of a feeling rule?
Boys don't cry
Increasingly, even very significant events in our lives take place online. It is now common to hear stories of couples breaking up through an instant message or even a text message. Compared with similar interactions in the past, what is missing from these interactions?
Copresence
A famous monologue from Shakespeare's As You Like It begins: 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
Because impression management relies so much on strategies of performance, scholars have called Erving Goffman's ideas:
Dramaturgy
What do sociologists call it when a person's job requires him to manage his feelings as part of his official duties?
Emotion work
Resocialization is particularly severe when people are cut off from their previous relations with society and their former identities are stripped away. Which of the following is an example of a life change that would lead to this more dramatic form of resocialization?
Entry into a total institution
When you play high-stakes poker, it is silly to tell your opponents that you have a good hand. However, particularly good poker players say they can read other players' "tells"-the subtle and unintentional facial expressions, mannerisms, and body language that reveal what they are thinking. What would Erving Goffman call tells?
Expressions given off
According to the symbolic interactionist George Herbert Mead, why is playing organized games an important part of an older child's development of the self?
Game playing involves learning to anticipate and coordinate with other players' actions.
Which of the following is one of the most important lessons we learn from the family?
Gender roles
What was Sigmund Freud's greatest contribution to the understanding of the self?
His theory of the unconscious mind
Which of the following is not an example of an altered life circumstance that will require a significant degree of resocialization?
Joining a gym
A high school football coach is worried about how he should handle his roster. On the one hand, it's his job to try to win as many games as possible, which means playing the best players; on the other hand, his contract also requires him to try to allow every member of the team to meaningfully participate. The tension he feels is the result of:
Role strain
Parents often buy their children gender-specific toys. Boys get action figures that encourage active and aggressive play; girls get dolls and toy ovens that encourage domesticity. This is part of what process?
Socialization
Victor of Aveyron was a feral child who wandered out of the woods in 1800 when he was approximately twelve years old. Victor was incapable of talking and he never fully adjusted to life with other humans. This case shows the importance of:
Socialization
What did Harvard Medical School researchers conclude about the effects of the media on young people in Fiji, who until recently lacked widespread access to television?
Television affected young women's body image.
Sociologists examine financial collapses, such as those of the 1930s, in which rumors of insolvency, when believed by enough depositors, resulted in real bank failures. What sociological concept describes this phenomenon?
The Thomas theorem
In 2000 Campbell Soup Company launched an ad campaign that showed prepubescent boys offering soup to prepubescent girls. The girls declined because they were concerned about their calorie intake, but the boys explained that "lots of Campbell's soups are low in calories," which made them OK for the girls to eat. The ads were pulled after parents expressed concern. Why were parents worried?
The ads taught girls to worry about their weight and negatively affected their body image.
According to George Herbert Mead, what are children learning when they begin to take the perspective of a generalized other in their games?
The attitudes and expectations of society as a whole
According to Sigmund Freud, which part of the mind is composed of biological drives and consequently is the source of psychic energy?
The id
Here is a quote from Freud, describing a part of the mind as he theorized it: It is the dark, inaccessible part of our personality, what little we know of it we have learnt from our study of the dream-work and of the construction of neurotic symptoms. . . .We all approach [it] with analogies: we call it a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations. Which part of the mind was he talking about?
The id
Which part of the mind of feral children would Sigmund Freud expect to be most fully developed?
The id
According to Sigmund Freud's theoretical perspective, what are the parts of the mind?
The id, the ego, and the superego
What do sociologists call the idea that all individuals act like mirrors to each other?
The looking-glass self
The indie rock band the Halo Benders once sang: Part environment And part heredity What we're born with And what's been fed to me What issue is being referenced in this song?
The nature vs. nurture debate
Which of the following statements about the process of socialization is true?
The process is reciprocal: society shapes the individual and the individual shapes society.
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 resocialize prisoners.
In the psychoanalytic theory developed by Sigmund Freud, which part of our mind is responsible for representing culture within us and serving as the moral component of our personality?
The superego
Which part of the mind would Freud have described as being like a type of conscience that punishes misbehavior with feelings of guilt?
The superego
Why are adults unable to be completely socialized?
There will always be new situations and new roles to learn.
If a college student plans to go to graduate school because she thinks of herself as having excellent critical thinking skills and a brilliant mind, where would Charles Cooley's theory of the looking-glass self suggest that she got these ideas?
These ideas came from fellow students and teachers expressing admiration.
The term "master status" is defined as:
a status that seems to override all other statuses a person may possess.
Appearance, manner, style of dress, race, gender, and age are all elements of:
an individual's personal front.
According to the symbolic interactionist George Herbert Mead, the generalized other is:
an understanding of the rules that govern a network of different players in related roles.
Research on teen smoking and other deviant behaviors has found that the most important factor in statistically predicting whether a teen will take up a particular deviant behavior is the presence or absence of peers who also engage in that behavior. This is probably because the other teens are acting:
as agents of socialization.
Before we can experience role-taking emotions, we must:
be able to see things from another person's point of view.
Sigmund Freud once said that the id was like a wild horse and that the ________ was like a rider astride the horse, struggling to keep it under control.
ego
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. Cooks, on the other hand, are usually not required to act this way. The part of a server's job that does not apply to a cook is called:
emotion work
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, whereas in more collectivist cultures, like Japan's, shame is linked to groups. This would seem to indicate that:
emotions aren't always merely personal, because the expression of emotions can also be social and cultural.
Many people are afraid of picking up hitchhikers. Imagine that to get a ride, a hitchhiker makes a suitcase out of a gasoline can so that he looks like he's a stranded motorist rather than a hitchhiker. A sociologist would say that the hitchhiker was working on:
impression management.
Susie isn't old enough to go to school yet, but she loves to play house. She has a toy stove and she pretends to be a mother. Sometimes, when that gets boring, she goes outside, takes a garden hose, and pretends to be a firefighter. George Herbert Mead would say that Susie is:
in the play stage
"Each to each a looking-glass, / Reflects the other that doth pass." This poem, associated with sociologist Charles Cooley, indicates that our sense of self originates in:
interactions with other people.
Several cases of children who grew up in extreme social isolation, such as the case of Genie in 1970, suggest that:
most of our mental capacities, and perhaps even the ability to think, are learned through social interaction.
When a child can internalize the expectations of other specific people, she has learned to:
take the role of the particular or significant other.
The nature vs. nurture debate helps us understand:
the complex interaction between hereditary traits and social learning
In his book The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud suggested that:
the conscious level of awareness is but the tip of the iceberg and that just below the surface is a far greater area of the mind, the subconscious and the unconscious.
The term "socialization" refers to:
the lifelong process by which people learn the norms, values, and beliefs of their culture.
Imagine a child who consistently gets mediocre grades and is often picked last for a team when games are played at recess. However, he likes to make silly jokes and play pranks, and he notices that people laugh when he does those things. The child starts to think that others are laughing with him, not at him. This is part of the process that Charles Cooley called:
the looking-glass self.
The dual nature of the self, according to George Herbert Mead, refers to the idea that:
we experience the self as both subject and object.
Role conflict occurs when:
we have multiple roles that are in conflict with each other.