Sociology exam #1

Anomie: where does it come from? what is it? What is it not? Examples?

-Anomie comes from negative/sin; Durk was trying to say that society is sinning -Anomie is when society wants it all but this causes problems because Some people don't want to share and there is limited resources ‣ Derangement in terms of anomie, he's saying something has gone wrong with society and its not working when it should be going right -Anomie is not normallessness -example:

What are the 3 major perspectives/paradigms on social order

-structural functionalism -conflict theory -symbolic interaction

Sociology

-systematic study of human societies

What is the problem with a triad?

Things get complicated and potential for a coalition

Statuses

any named social position that people can occupy -we have many statuses -Ascribed statuses and achieved statuses

Individualistic explanation

-tendency to attribute people's achievements and failures to their personal qualities -is looking at just the person -focusing on the personal characteristics and attributes of the individual

Where was Emile Durkheim born?

• Born in Epinal which is in France

example of looking at all 3 theories: long line at Starbucks

-Functional answer: everyone loves it or not enough check out people -Conflict: they dont wanna pay more people -symbolic: what time are people getting coffee; talk to people oriented

Someone buys 80 watermelon -what is the individualistic explanation -What is the sociological explanation

-Individualistic: he's hungry and loves watermelon -Social: he has a big party

someone aces a test -what is the individualistic explanation -What is the sociological explanation

-Individualistic: they are smart, awesome IQ -Social: got a study group, worked together

Emile Durkheim was...

-Jewish and a 7th generation arabi -One of the original big 3 sociologist -First professor and first department

Which types of suicide pair together as opposites and why?

-Opposite of anomic is fatalistic (anomic: society says you get everything fatalistic: society says you get nothing and mean nothing) -Opposite of egoistic is altruistic (egoistic: not connected with the world altruistic: someone who is too connected to something)

Fatalistic Suicide

-type of suicide that occurs when people see no possible way to improve their oppressive circumstances -life is miserable, no voice, no hope, chained down, life has no point, environment is so bad, Society tells you that you get nothing and you have no worth -ex: slavery, nauties

Why is sociological imagination important?

-Takes personal problems personal issues and links them with them society -this created a bridge between the two -it allows us to recognize that the solutions to many of our most serious Social problems lie not in changing the personal situation and characteristic of individual people but changing the social institutions and roles available to them

Why do we care about suicide in sociology?

-We care about suicide because its a problem in itself and the rates are rising -mills didn't know why rates were going up but he wanted to figure out why; he looked at society like it was an organism, which made suicide the symptom and he wanted to find the cure for it

• Micro level vs. macro level

-a way to look at society -A more scientific version of social and individualistic

Sociology affects us in many ways, some of which include:

-age at which we can drive, drink, and vote -religion -sleep -personal style -taste -government and politics

How his definition of society differs from textbook

-doesn't agree with it having to be the same geographical area - also open to animals -society is changing

How did C. Wright Mills come to creating sociological imagination?

-first there was Abstract empiricism, which was a branch of sociology as that looked into statistics...Mills said that people were more than numbers and didn't agree with this -then there was Grande theory, which was when Philosophers were involved... Mills felt that they were treating people like robots and didn't agree with this -lastly he decided he wanted to create sociological imagination

In Durkheim's book about suicide, he used the comparative method... what does this mean?

-looking at data across different people -talking to people -comparing existing official statistics and historical records across groups

society explanation

-something else greater than yourself -influencing forces outside of our control

Anomic suicide

-type of suicide that occurs when the structure of society is weakened or disrupted and people feel hopeless and disillusioned -when life explodes because something goes wrong, life feels like its out of your control, losing stuff can be hard when you have a lot because of the greed we have -ex: -people who lose their job, even though they still have their things, they may need to down size or spend less money, but some people just didn't want to do this -Before social media, some people were not able experience anomic because they didn't know there was this better life out there -When you run out of AC, we are so used to the air, where when we don't have it, it feels like the end of the world, even though we lived without it for so long

Mr. Rodgers

??

Social imagination

Ability to see the impact of social forces on our private lives

Who coined sociological imagination?

C. Wright Mills

Norms

Culturally defined standard or rule of conduct -How you perceive your values, Rules that specify how you do things, They make your interactions to others fairly predictable -ex: curse words; when its okay to cuss and when its not -Ex: when you put your hand out, they know your going to do a handshake and not slap them because its a norm

Dyad vs. Triad

Dyad: group consisting of two people Triad: group consisting of three people

Who originally studied that concept that sociological factors can affect suicide?

Emile Durkheim

What were the 4 types of suicide that Durkheim talked about?

Fatalistic suicide, anomic suicide, egoistic suicide, and altruistic suicide

What bad news did C. Wright Mills receive? How did it make him feel?

Found out he had a disease that would kill him and it gave him troubles knowing he was about to die and made him very impatient

Why is Emile Durkheim mainly known for?

He had 4 big books, the "suicide" one was a big one and tried to to see why people kill themselves

How did C. Wright Mills die?

He kept having heart attacks and died from one of them

Where was c. Wright mills born? What school did he go to? What happen at the school?

He was born in Waco and went to Texas a&m and was in core and punched a senior so get kicked out

In group vs. out group

In group: the groups to which we belong and toward which we feel a sense of loyalty (ex: organizations on campus) Out group: the groups to which we don't belong and toward which we feel a certain amount of antagonism (ex. people that aren't in the organization)

When statuses/roles dont go well, what could you have to deal with?

Role stain or role conflict

role

Set of expectations-rights, obligations, behaviors, duties- associated with a particular status -set of expectations that statuses have; the teacher status has a role to teach

social institutions

Stable set of roles, statuses, groups, and organizations—such as the institutions of education, family, politics, religion, health care, or the economy—that provides a foundation for behavior in some major area of social life

individualistic explanation vs sociological explanation

To understand experiences in our personal lives, we must move past individual traits and examine broader societal characteristics and trends. External features beyond our immediate awareness and control often exert as much influence on the circumstances of our day-to-day lives as our "internal qualities"

What is the problem with individualistic explanation

We are risking overlooking the broader societal factors that may have affected the situation

Society definition from textbook

a population of people living in the same geographic area who share a culture and a common identity and whose members are subject to the same political authority

Ascribed status

a social position a person receives at birth or takes on involuntarily later in life -positions we dont choose to acquire such as race, sex, ethnicity, identity; grandchild

Primary group

collection of individuals who are together for a relatively long period, whose members have direct contact with and feel emotional attachment to one another -ex: person that you lived in dorm room together and they continue being friends and in each other's weddings and know each others kids

social institutions (examples of organizations)

family: people are cared for, children are born, newcomers are proved an identity education: young people need to be taught, going to school to train kids for careers and teach them their place in society economy: gathering resources, converting them into goods and commodities, and distributing them to members... insurance companies, transportation agencies politics and law: enforcing laws, settling disputes, and changing outdated laws or creating new ones religion: belief system for understanding their existence as well as network of personal support in times of need medicine and health care: healing sick and managing the transition to death, doctors, medicine, hospital military: protection of national interests, attack other countries mass media: massive coordinates systems such as tv, radio, internet

Role conflict

frustration people feel when the demands of one role they are expected to fulfill clash with the demands of another role -encounter tensions in trying to cope with the demands of incompatible roles, where the two sides starting butting heads, something has to give, we have to choose, cause problems like stress and anxiety because we don't know what to do

Manifest functions (structural-function perspective)

intended, obvious consequences of activities designed to help some part of the social system -the manifest of heart is to pump; manifest function of law keeps people from violating

Culture: what is it? What is it not? How is culture is made up of norms and values?

language, values, beliefs, rules, behaviors, and artifacts that characterize a society -Society's personality" makes the group the way it is; gives proper, acceptable ways of doing things -what is it not? It's everything and anything -culture has 2 key concepts that are thoroughly implicated in the workings of social structures and social influence: values and norms -ex: Food is a big part (gumbo on thanksgiving for the family)

Organization

large, complex network of positions created for a specific purpose and characterized by a hierarchical division of labor -Net world of statues and groups treated for a specific purpose; each person in an organization occupies a position that has a specific set of duties and responsibilities, and these positions can be ranked according to their relative power and importance's

Globalization

process through which people's lives all around the world become economically, politically, environmentally, and culturally interconnected -makes our lives become bigger and crazier; globalization is changing society -ex: we know what k-pop is -ex: the fact that we can come in contact with Italian food; combining two things, like pizza its American and Italian

Secondary group

relatively impersonal collection of individuals that is established to perform a specific task -much more formal and impersonal -ex: your group project team not cause your close but because y'all need to work together

Group: what is it? What are the different kinds?

set of people who interact more or less regularly and who are conscious of their identity as a unit -in-group vs. out group -dyad vs. triad -primary group vs. secondary group

Role strain

situations in which people lack the necessary resources to fulfill the demands of a particular role -we can have difficult meeting our role expectations when we occupy two conflicting statuses; dont have the resources like dont have time to do stuff which can build to role conflict; we feel like we have to do something

Achieved status

social position acquired through our own efforts or accomplishments or taken on voluntarily -such as being a student or a Spouse or an engineer

Symbol (symbolic interaction)

something used to represent or stand for something else

Value

standard of judgement by which people decide on desirable goals and outcomes -cultures say one thing but we may a valued judgement about what we do; when you decide... what is important to you and what isn't or when will you be mad and when will you give people a pass -ex: we value personal property which is why thefts is against the law; They went and asked what people would do if they found a wallet. Then asked what people would do if they saw an atm was overflowing with money. People were more likely to do this because wallets gave a face and name and made it more personal so they wouldn't steal

Coalitions

subgroup of a triad, formed when two members unite against the third member -two individuals pair up and perhaps conspire against the third -ex: mom and dad and child. Mom says no and dad says yes so child makes coalition with dad

Symbolic Interactionism: what is symbol? How it works? Weaknesses?

theoretical perspective that explains society and social structure through an examination of the microlevel, personal, day-to-day exchanges of people as individuals, pairs, or groups -Looking at both theories then having a new one; his favorite; predicted when something is gonna happen based off symbols and how people interact; took surveys -key concepts: symbolic communication, social interaction, subjective meaning -main assumption: society is structures and maintained through everyday interactions and people's subjective definition of their worlds -weakness: very micro small scale, which makes it hard to look at; takes a while to answer the question

Feminist perspective (conflict perspective)

theoretical perspective that focuses on gender as the most important source of conflict and inequality in social life

Structural-functionalist perspective: what is structure? How is it used? Weaknesses?

theoretical perspective that posits that social institutions are structured to maintain stability and order in society -if Society is line a machine or organism, its like Taking it apart and seeing what the different parts do, things working together to keep it alive -Key concepts: manifest and latent functions, dysfunctions, social stability -main assumption: social institutions are structures to maintain stability and order in society Weakness: doesn't know what to do with unintended consequences

conflict perspective: what is conflict? How it works? Weaknesses?

theoretical perspective that views the structure of society as a source of inequality that always benefits some groups at the expense of other groups -Looks at society as the people who have stuff and the people who dont; looks at Bob Ross -key concepts: power, inequality, conflict, dominance -main assumption: the various institutions in society promote inequality and conflict among groups of people -weakness: there will be people who will be getting stuff

Egoistic suicide

type of suicide that occurs in settings where the individual is emphasized over group or community connections -we pull away from the things that are important to us, feeling disconnected and Alone, no more tight bonds, feeling like there is nowhere for them to belong -ex: depressed from chemical imbalance

Altruistic suicide

type of suicide that occurs where ties to the group or community are considered more important than individual identity -so connected, motivated, or loyal to another group that you will kill yourself, Strong sense of social duty to die for your beliefs ◦ "but it will be... extreme energy" -ex: dying in heroic way like in school shooting, deep religious motivations such as 9/11 bombers, mother starves herself so kids can eat

Latent functions (structural-function perspective)

unintended, unrecognized consequences of activities that help some part of the social system -stuff that happens under the surface; intended; thinks that if something is society isn't work, then it will work itself out or disappear -ex: back during prohibition when people would go to the "shoe stores" to get alcohol

Macro level

way of examining human life that focuses on the broad social forces and structural features of society that exist above the level of individual people

Micro level

way of examining human life that focuses on the immediate, everyday experiences of individuals -Micro example: roommates, classroom, relationships

Why did Emile Durkheim have a rough life?

• He had a rough life where he had to be somebody he wasn't and lost a lot of family from world war 2 • He had a roommate that killed himself

What is Emile Durkheim's real name and why does he not go by it?

• His real name is David not Emile • He needed a French name and not a Jewish name (they were being racist at the university because they don't like Jews)

What happen after Emile Durkheim changed his name?

• People thought that he just hated his Jewish sounding name and since he "wasn't Jewish" but he was really just dealing with racism • People forgot about him

Sleep sociology

• Society acts upon you for how long you sleep, how we sleep, where we sleep, with whom we sleep, when we sleep • Micro and macro level of looking at a society • So many different sleep variations that society is effecting