Sociology 1101: Midterm Exam

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Cooley "looking glass self" theory

1 we imagine how we appear to others 2 we interpret the reactions of others 3 develop a self concept "you see yourself as a reflection of how others see you"

Mead's stages of development

1. Preparatory Stage 2. Play Stage 3. Game Stage

Counterculture

A culture with lifestyles and values opposed to those of the established culture.

Authoritarian

A government in which one leader or group of people holds absolute power.

informal group

A group that is neither formally structured nor organizationally determined; such a group appears in response to the need for social contact.

social differentiation

A process in which people are set apart for differential treatment by virtue of their statuses, roles, and other social characteristics; social differentiation: e.g. teacher, taxi driver.

Taboo

A restriction on behavior imposed by social custom.

Scientific Method

A series of steps followed to solve problems including collecting data, formulating a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis, and stating conclusions.

Conformity

Adjusting one's behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard.

Qualitative Research Methods

Aim to understand the nature or meaning of experiences, which cannot be quantified into numbers; research in which the emphasis is placed on observing, describing, and interpreting people's behavior

Ethnocentrism

Belief in the superiority of one's nation or ethnic group; evaluation of other cultures according to preconceptions originating in the standards and customs of one's own culture.

Cultural Relativism

Cultural relativism is the idea that a person's beliefs and practices should be understood based on that person's own culture. Proponents of cultural relativism also tend to argue that the norms and values of one culture should not be evaluated using the norms and values of another.

Popular Culture

Culture found in a large, heterogeneous society that shares certain habits despite differences in other personal characteristics.

Emile Durkheim and Social Cohesion

Durkheim defines social cohesion as a characteristic of society that shows the interdependence in between individuals of that society, and coins to social cohesion, the absence of latent social conflict (any conflict based on for e.g. wealth, ethnicity, race, and gender) and the presence of strong social bonds (e.g. civic society, responsive democracy, and impartial law enforcement)

Mechanical Solidarity

Durkheim's term for the unity (a shared consciousness) that people feel as a result of performing the same or similar tasks

Non-material Culture

Human creations, such as values, norms, knowledge, systems of government, language, and so on, that are not embodied in physical objects

ideas of culture

Ideas are considered as mental representation and are used to organize stimulus. When Ideas are link together it will organize into larger systems of information which will become knowledge

Thomas Theorem

If people define situations as real, they are real in their consequences; how a subjective reality can drive events to develop in accordance with that reality, despite being originally unsupported by objective reality

Control Group

In an experiment, the group that is not exposed to the treatment; contrasts with the experimental group and serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment.

Sociologist/Theorist: Charles Horton Cooley

Looking glass self and the effect of primary groups

Karl Marx and Exploitation

Marx believed that the real danger of capitalism was that it exploited workers. Marxists have since developed his theory to explore how capitalism also exploits the planet and its natural resources. According to Marx, capitalists exploit laborers by paying them less than they are worth -- the excess labor of the laborer is what becomes the capitalists' profits. This "surplus labor" is exploited by the capitalist who also forces the laborer into unfitting and unfair working conditions -- something that was much more obvious and severe during the 19th century Marx was writing.

Karl Marx and Alienation

Marx believed that workers were alienated in several ways. Marx highlighted four elements from which the worker is alienated: the product, the act of producing, himself and others. The main idea behind alienation is that one of the effects of the worker's exploitation by the capitalist is that he is not able to live as he otherwise naturally would. This alienation is a kind of separation or removal from how life "naturally" should be. Capitalism, for Marx, is a perversion that separates man from what he makes and how he makes it as well as he would otherwise "naturally" be as a human and how he would relate to others.

Karl Marx and Revolution

Marx believed that, eventually, workers would unite and overthrow the capitalist ruling class. He thought that the bourgeois-capitalist ruling structure would give way to a revolution led by workers who would replace the order with a more fair system. Marx did not exactly call this "communism," and the "communist" states that emerged after Marx -- the Soviet Union, North Korea, the People's Republic of China -- in no way resembled what Marx was talking about. Marx sought a radically democratic order based on collective decision-making and the shared used of the means of production -- that is, the land, labor, and capital that goes in to producing things.

Proletariat

Marx's term for the exploited class, the mass of workers who do not own the means of production

"Iron Cage"

Max Weber's pessimistic description of modern life, in which we are caught in bureaucratic structures that control our lives through rigid rules and rationalization

Game Stage

Mead's third stage in the development of role taking; children anticipate the actions of others based on social rules

coercive organizations

Organizations where members do not have a choice in joining (ex. prisons)

Types of groups in sociology

Primary and secondary groups, reference groups, coalition groups, in-groups and out-groups and formal and non-formal groups.

The Case of Genie

She was kept in a dark room, ignored and neglected, strapped to a potty and fed baby food for 10 years. She was found when she was 13, she couldnt walk or talk, had a deformed body (physical retardation), strange mannerisms, behaved like an infant. After she was found she started to talk (making sounds and repeated words) - in the childrens hospital and she was able to develop an attachment with one of the psychologists. Also after she was found, every year her mental age increased by 1 year.

coalition group

Temporary or permanent allegiance for a common goal

Mead and the emergence of mind and self

The emergence of mind is contingent upon interaction between the human organism and its social environment; it is through participation in the social act of communication that individuals realize their potential for significantly symbolic behavior, that is, thought. Mind, in Mead's terms, is the individualized focus of the communication process. It is linguistic behavior on the part of the individual. There is, then, no "mind or thought without language;" and language (the content of mind) "is only a development and product of social interaction

Independent Variable

The experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect is being studied.

Karl Marx and Materialism

The motivating idea behind Marx's philosophy was the idea of materialism. Materialists believe that it is the material conditions of the world, for instance, the structure of the economy and the distribution of wealth, that give rise to ideas such as who "should" lead and "deserves" to earn what they earn. This idea is contrary to idealism, which states that it is ideas that give rise to material reality.

Dependent Variable

The outcome factor; the variable that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable.

Symbols in Culture

The symbols are considered as the backbone of symbolic interactions. A symbol might be considered as anything that holds a particular meaning and are recognized by the people that shares the same culture. Different cultures have different symbols, it is cross-culturally and it might be change over a period of time.

Language in culture

Through having a language, a group of people interact with one another, socially sharing their thoughts, feelings or ideas to the people with same language. Language forms the core of all cultures throughout society.

types of organizations

Utilitarian, Normative, coercive, and bureaucracy

Quantitative Research Methods

Way of gathering data that can be quantified and analyzing the data to draw conclusions; uses large surveys, questionnaires, secondary research, looking at large samples. Reports data primarily in numerical form; any research method that attempts to precisely measure people's thoughts, feelings, or behaviors using numbers

irrationality of rationality

Weber's concept that rationalized systems can create negative outcomes; rationalized methods may not always lead to the desired outcome

Xenocentrism

a belief that another culture is superior to one's own

Generalized Other

a concept introduced by George Herbert Mead into the social sciences, and used especially in the field of symbolic interactionism. It is the general notion that a person has of the common expectations that others may have about actions and thoughts within a particular society, and thus serves to clarify their relation to the other as a representative member of a shared social system.

formal group

a group in which the structure, goals, and activities of the group are clearly defined

Social Control

a group's formal and informal means of enforcing its norms; attempts by society to regulate people's thoughts and behavior; the techniques and strategies for preventing deviant human behavior in any society

secondary group

a large and impersonal social group whose members pursue a specific goal or activity

Folkway

a loosely enforced norm involving common customs, practices, or procedures that ensure smooth social interaction and acceptance

Participant Observation

a naturalistic observation in which the observer becomes a participant in the group being observed

Social Structure

a pattern of organized relationships among groups of people within a society

Value Neutrality

a practice of remaining impartial, without bias or judgment during the course of a study and in publishing results; Max Weber's term for objectivity of sociologists in the interpretation of data

Anomie

a sense of aimlessness or despair that arises when we can no longer reasonably expect life to be predictable; too little social regulation; normlessness

American Sociological Association's Code of Ethics

a set of guidelines that the American Sociological Association has established to foster ethical research and professionally responsible scholarship in sociology

Primary group

a small group characterized by intimate, face-to-face association and cooperation

reference group

a social group that serves as a point of reference in making evaluations and decisions

out-group

a social group toward which a person feels a sense of competition or opposition

in-group

a social group with which an individual identifies

Interpretive framework

a sociological research approach that seeks in-depth understanding of a topic or subject through observation or interaction; this approach is not based on hypothesis testing

Hypothesis

a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.

Meritocracy

a system in which promotion is based on individual ability or achievement

Democracy

a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.

Language

a system of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another

Looking Glass Self

a term coined by Charles Horton Cooley to refer to the process by which our self develops through internalizing others' reactions to us

Degradation Ceremony

a term coined by Harold Garfinkel to refer to a ritual whose goal is to remake someone's self by stripping away that individual's self-identity and stamping a new identity in its place

Organic Solidarity

a type of social order based around an acceptance of economic and social differences

Norm

a value or attitude deemed acceptable by a group

Cultural Universal

a value, norm, or other cultural trait that is found in every group

Macro-level analyses

a wide-scale view of the role of social structures within a society; focusing on social structures, such as studies of political and economic systems

Mores

accepted standards and customs of a social group

Total Institution

an institution in which one is totally immersed and that controls all the basics of day-to-day life; no barriers exist between the usual spheres of daily life, and all activity occurs in the same place and under the same single authority

Case Study

an observation technique in which one person is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles

Normative Organization

an organization having a voluntary membership and that pursues goals; examples are the PTA or a political party

Bureaucracy

an organization of non-elected officials who implements the rules, laws, and functions of their institution

Nonreactive research

another term for naturalistic observation in the social sciences, emphasizing that the subjects are unaware that they are being studied; using secondary data, does not include direct contact with subjects and will not alter or influence people's behaviors

Symbols

anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by people who share a culture

Folkways in culture

are considered as behavioral patterns of a particular society that is repetitive and organize

Accounts in culture

are considered to be a way on how people use the language for their explanation, justification, or to rationalize, excuse, or legitimize a behavior towards themselves or to the others.

Predictability and standardization

are found in repetitive and routinized production or service delivery processes and in the consistent output of products or experiences that are identical or close to it (predictability of the consumer experience).

Rituals in culture

are those highly scripted ceremonies of interactions which follows a sequence of actions. Examples are baptism, holidays and more

Beliefs in culture

assumes that a proposition, statement, description of fact are true in nature. These acceptance were influenced by the external authorities such as government, religion, or science rather than proven true from the individual's direct experiences

Leadership types

authoritarian, democratic, laissez-faire; instrumental and expressive

High Culture

classical music, opera, ballet, live theater, and other activities usually patronized by elite audiences

4 major components of culture

communication, cognitive, material, and behavioral

Behavioral component of culture

component of culture that is concerned about on how we act. It includes norms which further categorizes into Mores, Laws, Folkway, and Rituals.

Sociologist/Theorist: Solomon Asch

conformity

Norms in culture

considered as rules and expectations eventually set by a particular society that serve as guides to the behavior of its members. It varies in the terms of the degrees of importance and might be change over a period of time. It is reinforced by sanctions in the forms or rewards and punishments. These are standards accepted by society culturally and serves as obligatory and expected behavior's of the people in different situations in life.

Different types of roles in society

cultural roles, social differentiation, situation-specific roles, bio-sociological roles, and gender roles

Field Research

descriptive or experimental research conducted in a natural setting outside the laboratory

Mills and Power Elite

elites are products of the distinct institutions within which they arise, whether it be the military, politics, or business.

Sociologist/Theorist: George Herbert Mead

emergence of mind and self

agents of socialization

family, schools, peers, and mass media

Alienation

feeling isolated and separated from everyone else

Theoretical Perspective: Feminist

focuses on the study of power and inequality of power, much like conflict theory but focuses on these concepts concerning gender.

Micro-level analyses

focusing on individuals, such as studies of small groups and attitude change

Sociologist/Theorist: Max Weber

formulation of the connection between ​culture and economy; conceptualizing how people and institutions come to have authority, and how they keep it; and, the "iron cage" of bureaucracy and how it shapes our lives.

Instrumental Leadership

group leadership that focuses on the completion of tasks

Expressive Leadership

group leadership that focuses on the group's well-being

Sociologist/Theorist: Emile Durkheim

idea of social cohesion

Lassiez Faire

idea that government should stay out of business and economic affairs as much as possible

Utilitarianism

idea that the goal of society should be to bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people

Communication in culture

include language and symbols

cognitive component of culture

includes Ideas, Knowledge and Belief, Values and Accounts

Material component of culture

includes materials or objects created by humans for practical use or for artistic reasons. These objects are called as "material culture". Material components serves as an expression of an individual culture.

Calculability

is a focus on quantifiable objectives (counting things) rather than subjective ones (evaluation of quality).

Theoretical Perspective: Symbolic Interactionism

is a micro-level theory that focuses on the relationships among individuals within a society. Communication—the exchange of meaning through language and symbols—is believed to be the way in which people make sense of their social worlds. Theorists Herman and Reynolds (1994) note that this perspective sees people as being active in shaping the social world rather than simply being acted upon

Role Play

is a socio-logical concept referring to a social function which all people holding a particular position or status are expected to perform in overt conduct.

knowledge of culture

is considered as a storage of information fact or assumption, and these knowledge can be passed down from one generation to another

Sociology

is the study of groups and group interactions, societies and social interactions, from small and personal groups to very large groups

Mores in culture

kinds of norms that are considered to be as a customary behavior patterns which have taken from a moralistic value.

Structures of Society

laws, political systems, marriage practices, kinship, religion, economic practices, customs/traditions, etc. all work together to function

Sociologist/Theorist: Karl Marx

materialism exploitation alienation revolution

Latent Functions

not consciously intended, but that, nonetheless, has a beneficial effect on society

Max Weber and Social Class

one's position in society relative to others is about more than how much money one has. He reasoned that the level of prestige associated with one's education and occupation, as well as one's political group affiliations, in addition to wealth, combine to create a hierarchy of people in society.

Roles

patterns of behavior that are representative of a person's social status

Society

people who share a culture and a territory

Statuses

positions in society that are used to classify individuals

Survey vs Interpretive Research

positivist or deductive methods, such as laboratory experiments and survey research, are those that are specifically intended for theory (or hypotheses) testing, while interpretive or inductive methods, such as action research and ethnography, are intended for theory building.

Sociologist/Theorist: C. Wright Mills

power elite

Secondary Data Analysis

reanalysis of data, often survey data, collected by others, including other sociologists

cultural roles

roles given by culture (e.g. priest)

situation-specific roles

roles that are created through situations; e.g. eye witnesses

bio-sociological role

roles that occur through organisms living in a certain society; human in a natural system

Theoretical Perspective: Functionalism/Structural Functionalism

sees society as a structure with interrelated parts designed to meet the biological and social needs of the individuals in that society

values in culture

serve as guidelines for social living. Culturally, it can be defined as the standards of desirability, goodness and beauty.

Laws in culture

serve as the formal and important norms that translated into legal formalizations.

gender roles

sets of behavioral norms assumed to accompany one's status as male or female

Cultural Lag

situation in which some aspects of the culture change less rapidly, or lag behind, other aspects of the same culture

Leader

someone who can influence others and who has managerial authority

Sanctions

something that forces obedience with a law or rule

main components of culture

symbols, language, values and beliefs, norms, and material culture and technology

Material Culture

tangible, physical items produced and used by members of a specific culture group and reflective of their traditions, lifestyles, and technologies

Max Weber and the "iron cage"

technological and economic relationships that organized and grew out of capitalist production became themselves fundamental forces in society. Thus, if you are born into a society organized this way, with the division of labor and hierarchical social structure that comes with it, you can't help but live within this system. As such, one's life and worldview are shaped by it to such an extent that one probably can't even imagine what an alternative way of life would look like. So, those born into the cage live out its dictates, and in doing so, reproduce the cage in perpetuity. For this reason, Weber considered the iron cage a massive hindrance to freedom.

Asch and conformity

tendency to go along with the views and actions of others, even if you know they are wrong; social acts needed to be viewed in terms of their setting. His famous conformity experiment demonstrated that people would change their response due to social pressure in order to conform to the rest of the group.

Role strain

tension among the roles connected to a single status

Sociological Imagination

the ability to understand how your own past relates to that of other people, as well as to history in general and societal structures in particular; as an awareness of the relationship between a person's behavior and experience and the wider culture that shaped the person's choices and perceptions. It's a way of seeing our own and other people's behavior in relationship to history and social structure

Institutionalization

the act of implanting a convention or norm into society

Gender Socialization

the aspect of socialization that contains specific messages and practices concerning the nature of being female or male in a specific group or society

Collective Conscience

the common beliefs and values that bind a society together

Cultural Imperialism

the deliberate imposition of one's own cultural values on another culture

Culture

the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next

Validity

the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to

Reliability

the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternate forms of the test, or on retesting

Culture Shock

the feeling of disorientation experienced by someone who is suddenly subjected to an unfamiliar culture, way of life, or set of attitudes.

Preparatory Stage

the first stage in Mead's theory of the development of self wherein children mimic or imitate others

Values

the ideas, beliefs, and attitudes about what is important that help guide the way you live; Beliefs of a person or social group in which they have an emotional investment (either for or against something)

McDonalidization of Society

the increasing presence of the fast food business model in common social institutions; efficiency, calculability, predictability and standardization, and control.

Manifest Functions

the intended function of social policies, processes, or actions that are consciously and deliberately designed to be beneficial in their effect on society.

Social Fact(s)

the laws, morals, values, religious beliefs, customs, fashions, rituals, and all of the cultural rules that govern social life

Survey Research

the measurement of public opinion through the use of sampling and questioning; gathering primary data by asking people questions about their knowledge, attitudes, preferences, and buying behavior; the most popular technique for gathering primary data, in which a researcher interacts with people to obtain facts, opinions, and attitudes

Ethnography

the method by which researchers attempt to understand a group or culture by observing it from the inside, without imposing any preconceived notions they might have

Bourgeoisie

the middle class, including merchants, industrialists, and professional people

Cooley and primary groups

the more advanced a society became, the more individualistic people became. He witnessed the breakdown of social cohesion and traditional family. He was convinced that it was the small, intimate groups which influenced behavior the most, and with a breakdown of these primary groups, we also had a breakdown of human behavior. Cooley coined the term primary groups, which is defined as groups characterized by intimate, face-to-face association and cooperation. Primary groups come together for expressive reasons - to provide emotional support, love, companionship and security. It is through these groups that one begins to develop the sense of self.

Theoretical Perspective: Conflict

the perspective that society is all about competing for limited resources; is a macro-level approach

Socialization

the process by which individuals internalize the values, beliefs, and norms of a given society and learn to function as members of that society

social construction of reality

the process by which our perception of reality is largely shaped by the subjective meaning that we give to an experience

Rationality

the process by which traditional methods of social organization, characterized by informality and spontaneity, are gradually replaced by efficiently administered formal rules and procedures

Resocialization

the process of adopting new norms, values, attitudes, and behaviors

Efficiency

the property of society getting the most it can from its scarce resources; entails a managerial focus on minimizing the time required to complete individual tasks as well as that required to complete the whole operation or process of production and distribution.

Positivism

the scientific study of social patterns; the theory dealing with only that which can be scientifically verified through logical or mathematical proofs

Play Stage

the second stage in Mead's theory of the development of self wherein children pretend to play the role of the particular or significant other

Ideal Culture

the standards a society would like to embrace and live up to

Self-fulfilling Prophecy

the tendency for people to behave as they are expected to behave; an expectation that causes you to act in ways that make that expectation come true

Subculture

the values and related behaviors of a group that distinguish its members from the larger culture; a world within a world

Anticipatory Socialization

the voluntary process of preparing to accept new norms, values, attitudes, and behaviors

Control

wielded by the management to ensure that workers appear and act the same on a moment-to-moment and daily basis. It also refers to the use of robots and technology to reduce or replace human employees wherever possible


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