Sociology exam 1

Social Facts

- Products of human interaction with persuasive or coercive power that exists externally to any individual. Social facts include... Ex: the laws, morals, values, religious beliefs, customs, fashions, rituals, and all of the cultural rules that govern social life

Cultivating a Self-Concept

-Our self-concept emerges out of a lifetime of interactions, both real and imagined. -Our selves are stable when our circumstances are stable. -We also stabilize our selves by seeking out others who reflect back at us the people we think we are, even at the expense of thinking better of ourselves.

Between Fact and Fiction

-Our self-narrative is not a true story. -Most of us forget almost everything that happens to us. -Of the events we do remember, we have considerable leeway in deciding which are plot points, which characters play a starring role, and which story arcs to draw out. -Our self-narrative isn't a faithful/objective account of our life; it's one influenced by time, memory, circumstance, and new knowledge. That doesn't mean to say that it is entirely untrue. It is real in its consequences. -We are routinely asked to tell the story of our lives. -We tell different kinds of stories depending on the context. -Our strongest memories are the ones most likely to be edited, because the more often we recall a memory, the less well we remember it.

Interviews

-Polling - quantitative, set of formal quick responses. -Structured interviews - Sit down but stick to a list of interview questions. -Semi-structured - Sit down and use an interview guide but allow conversation to flow more naturally. -Biographical or Life history - Long interviews about the participants experience over time.

How to Form a Research Question: Sociology Edition

-Research Question - What your research is addressing. -Research Question vs Hypothesis - RQ is more broad. A hypothesis may form from the RQ (depending on your methodology). -Be able to be operationally defined - "what do you mean by middle class?" -Sociological research questions are often linked to social theories. It should be adding to that theoretical conversation. -Inspired by other sociological studies - this lets us know what others have done and gives guide posts to the direction we want to take with our question. -Should connect to larger social issues/phenomena/social life. This is true for macro, midrange, and micro.

ETHICS: STANDARDS FOR THE TREATMENT OF HUMAN SUBJECTS

-Research should be of benefit to subjects and should not harm them. -Any risks should be outweighed by potential benefits or the study should not be performed -Any necessary risks should be minimized. -The privacy of subjects should be protected by guaranteeing confidentiality or anonymity. -Selection of subjects should be fair. -Informed consent must be sought and documented.

Probability sampling

A probability or "random" sample is a sample in which - -Each case in the population has some known probability of being included -All segments of the population are represented -Example: Drawing names from a hat or generating a random name.

Coding

A process in which segments of text are identified as belonging to relevant categories. -The codes or categories refer to concrete or abstract features of the conversation that are relevant to the research question. -Researchers generally type out their interviews word for word and the resulting documents are then subjected to coding.

In-depth interview

A research method that involves an intimate conversation between the researcher and a research subject. -Morgan Johnstonbaugh researched the phenomenon of people texting erotic images to one another by conducting 101 in-depth interviews with college students. -Johnstonbaugh found that female-identified interviewees often sent sexts to their female friends with the purpose of eliciting positive feedback. -These young women sought the gazes of friends whom they trusted to be complimentary. -They cultivated looking glasses that would reflect them back as they wanted to see themselves and hoped generalized others would see them that way too.

Validity

Does the study measure what it is intended to measure?

General in Particular (Sociological Perspective)

Elements found in a particular person, interaction, group, etc may be indicative of a wider pattern. Just be careful not to overgeneralize! Example: Going out and finding something/pattern that goes over us

Using Our Sociological Imagination

Definition- The capacity to consider how people's lives - including our own - are shaped by the social facts that surround us. -Question everything! -Taking into account one's social context. Use the sociological perspectives. Investigate the ordinary. Make the "familiar strange". -Position personal experiences within larger sociocultural and historical frames. - "Knowing how social forces affect our lives can prevent us from being prisoners of those forces." (Mills, 1959) -This is the ability to see the connections between the personal, historical, and the social.

Culture

Differences in groups' shared ideas, as well as the objects, practices, and bodies that reflect those ideas. -For humans, reality is embroidered with meaning, adorned with significance, and heavy with value. -Humans elaborate their lives with ideas.

Hierarchies

Ideas placed into ranked relationships Examples: Nordstrom is higher and than Kohl's Mammals are more important than insects

Associations

Ideas that have nothing special in common except for the fact that they are connected by a third idea Examples: rainbows and flags (LGBTQIA pride), roses and diamonds (love), red and green (christmas)

Reliability

If you conduct the study again, will you get the same results?

Falsifiable

It is possible to specify predictions or assertions which if found to be untrue in an empirical test would cause us to reject the theory or proposition

Empirically testable

It should be possible to gather empirical data which will show the assertion or theory to be true or false.

Social institutions

Large structures/systems of power that impact our lives. They influence, control, and socialize. The ways in which we interact with, understand, regulate, and uphold these institutions say a lot about us as a whole. (U.S. = Macro, us = micro). Examples: Family, Government and economy, religion, education, health and medicine

WHAT IS A THEORY?

Theory is an organized set of interrelated assertions seeking to account for some phenomenon. It is composed of a set of theoretical concepts and assertions about the relationships among those concepts. -Concept is an abstract idea or theoretical construct usually represented by a word or brief phrase summarizing some meaningful aspect of the real world. A nominal definition is a brief phrase or word naming a concept. Concepts derive meaning from their relationship with other concepts Typology is a classification system typically containing two or more mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories distinguished by one or more conceptual dimensions. -Ideal type (Weber, 1913) is a type used as a model for how something might be, but is not necessarily something that exists or is commonly found. Most types are ideal types.

Cultural objects

These are natural items given symbolic meaning, or natural resources extracted and molded to serve cultural purposes. -like the stop sign.

Cultural cognitions

These are shared ideas and values. -like the idea that red means stop.

Make the familiar strange

Think of the things in your everyday life that often go unnoticed. Why you are sitting where you are sitting, why you eat with a fork or why you eat on a plate. This gets us into the sociological imagination.

Confirmatory research AKA Deductive

When researchers begin with a theory and then collect data to test it. -Example: Academy Award winners. I predict whether they have won previously influences their chances.

Exploratory research AKA Inductive

When researchers begins with data and then develops a theory. -Example: You notice that people, working at the same type of job, earn different wages. Why might this be?

Generalizability

Will the findings of this study apply to some other population or group of people?

Hawthrone effect and red carpet effect example

You want to observe whether music affects work productivity. You go to a business and tell everyone there that you are going to play some upbeat music and want to see how productive they are with it.

Operational definition

a description of procedures used to measure a concept in sufficient detail so that someone else could perform the same procedure and get a similar result.

Systematic observation

a formal, quantitative method of observation in which researchers typically develop a systematic set of codes, use those to code each event observed, and analyze the results statistically. Reactivity must be considered. Often use audiotapes or videocameras to document behavior.

I am

a remarkable thing to think because it demonstrates an awareness of oneself and others and how we maintain a sense of self over a lifetime.

Quota sample

a sample including specific numbers ("quotas") of cases falling in various subcategories. E.g., the first 10 men and the first 10 women you meet on the street

Convenience sample

a sample of people who are selected because they are easy to find. Often not representative of the broader population E.g., the next 20 people who enter through a door or pass by on the street.

Ethnography

a typically detailed descriptive account summarizing and interpreting a culture or a collection of people studied. -usually richly detailed, descriptive accounts of what went on and what the researcher experienced or observed -often read like a novel or diary and give the reader a sense of experiencing the events themselves. Warning: Beware of jungle trope ethnography. Also, heavier emphasis on participation bias.

Independent variable

a variable in a causal relationship thought to affect or cause one or more dependent variables to change whenever its own value changes. Does this (IV) cause that (DV) to change? Does this (IV) affect that (DV)?

Dependent variable

a variable in a causal relationship whose value tends to change as a consequence of some change in the value of one or more independent variables. Did this (DV) change because of that (IV)?

The mirror test

a way to find out whether animals can learn to recognize themselves. -Recognizing one's own reflection is strong evidence that a species has the capacity for self-awareness. -Only a handful of animals pass the mirror test. -Like elephants, magpies, and chimpanzees, humans are self-aware. -However, humans are not born this way and will not notice their own existence until they are sixteen and twenty-four months old.

Binaries

categories we see as opposites or otherwise in opposition Examples: good and evil, friends and enemies

Social Patterns

explainable and foreseeable similarities and differences among people influenced by the social conditions in which they live.

Sequences

ideas arranged into a specific chronological order Examples: outline, draft, edit

Hypothesis

is a testable assertion about the relationship between two or more variables, which is not known to be true but can be tested in research. Hypotheses are used more in confirmatory research. Exploratory research tends to run more on a grounded theory approach, meaning the researchers are open to following emergent themes rather than already having a particular causal agent in mind. -Data are empirically obtained information used to test theories.

me

is the object of thought: This is the self we see in the mirror, our personal person. The me is whom we are proud of being when things go well. It is also whom we're ashamed of when things don't go well.

Social psychology

is the study of the interface between the individual and society. -Social psychologists argue that we can't understand either our psychologies or our societies independently of each other. -Charles Horton Cooley, along with George Herbert Mead, became one of the founders of a field called social psychology.

I

is the subject of thought: This is the person feeling pride or embarrassment. The I is the part of the self that sets goals and evaluates progress. This is the part of the self that judges and makes judgment calls.

Cultural practices

like the fact that most of us stop (or almost stop) at stop signs most of the time. -Practices are habits, routines, and rituals that people frequently perform. -produce cultural bodies, culturally influenced shapes and sizes, capacities, and physiological processes.

Categories

subsets of things that we believe are sufficiently similar to one another to be considered the same Examples: "Pets" (subset of animals), ""blue"(a subset of the spectrum), "blouses" (a subset of shirts)

Causation usually means

the first event somehow leads to, brings about, or produces the second event

Social Sympathy

the skill of understanding others as they understand themselves.

Public Sociology

the work using sociological theory to make societies better.

Signifers

things that stand for other things Examples: emojis, a thumbs up, diamond rings, the Christian cross

Ad populum - bandwagon fallacy

using the popularity to convince another to accept/join.

Dual Inheritance Theory

•Human cultures have evolved along with human bodies since the first Homo sapiens walked the earth. •Anthropologists call this parallel biological and cultural evolution dual inheritance theory. •This is the notion that humans are products of the interaction of genetic and cultural evolution.

Curating Our Looking Glasses

-Christopher Knight, a man who chose to retreat from society and live as a hermit in the woods, showed that without any societal looking glasses to reflect him, he simply lost his sense of self-concept. -Most people don't go to such extreme lengths; instead, we curate our looking glasses by changing ourselves or managing our self-concept. -We seek looking glasses that reflect the person we want to be and, to the extent that we can, avoid the rest.

Types of Statistics

-Descriptive statistics ---These summarize the distribution of a variable -Measures of association ---These examine the relationship between variables -Tests of significance ---These ask whether a result could have occurred by chance

TYPES OF METHODOLOGY: QUALITATIVE

-Emphasizes more verbal, descriptive information; downplays numbers, captures the richness of social life. -Often exploratory rather than confirmatory, developing new theories rather than testing hypotheses. -Often uses participant observation, historical/comparative methods, in-depth interview, ethnography.

TYPES OF METHODOLOGY: QUANTITATIVE

-Emphasizes numbers, things you can count, and statistical analysis -Permits the use of statistics to deduce the implications of theories and test hypotheses -Often uses social surveys, experiments, and systematic observation.

Cultural Evolution

-Every human society has specific practices that guide how we accomplish basic biological necessities like eating, reproducing, and staying warm and dry. -As our cultural practices shift, they put pressure on our genes, newly selecting for some and making others newly disadvantageous. -The cultural innovation of fire is probably why humans became suddenly and substantially smarter around 70,000 years ago. -Cooking made food more digestible, giving humans the ability to consume the extra energy needed to build bigger brains. -As the art of cooking was passed down across generations of people who spread out across the globe, it also evolved. -Human creativity interacted with our diverse environments, producing an incredible range of diets.

What is Society?

-Everything around you. -Society is a group of people who share culture and geographical space. The devices you cherish, clothes you wear, music you listen to are all products of society. -You are an active agent in society. You may perpetuate it, push against it, attempt to change it. ---Perpetuate is like being a college student. Push against it is like protesting. -Question: Is society shaped by us? Or are we shaped by society?

Constructing Meaning

-Generally, members of the same culture share similar social constructs. -Essentially all human communication depends on social constructs, starting with language. -But human language is far more expressive than mere letters and sounds. Everything is steeped in meaning. -Social constructs are often quite formidable social facts. -For example, money is entirely made up, yet it is also powerful and coercive. People are willing to go to great lengths to get it. -Money is how we survive in the world today, and most of us are forced to do something to make it. If we can't make enough, we suffer.

Meade's Stages of Development of the Self

-Imitation Stage -Play Stage - Taking the role of one other -Game Stage - Taking the role of multiple others -Generalized Other - Taking the role of generalized (non specific) others.

Constructing Reality

-In 1893, the Supreme Court convened to decide whether a tomato was a fruit or a vegetable. -The case was brought by the Nix family who had a tomato-importing business. -At the time, the law required that taxes be collected on imported vegetables but not fruit. -The lawyers for the Nix family argued that the tomato was a fruit and, therefore, exempt from taxation. -Botanists define fruit according to whether the structure plays a role in plant reproduction. -Any plant product with one or more seeds is a fruit, whereas vegetables don't have seeds. -The Court ruled that tomatoes are fruit. -However, Americans prefer to think of them as vegetables. -So, the Nix family had to pay the tax. -The definition of the tomato (as a fruit or a vegetable) affected the experience of the people who interacted with it. -In other words, the way reality is defined has an affect on how people experience it.

Mirror neurons responses

-Mirror neurons respond to physical stimulation and emotions. -If one person watches another scratch their elbow, their mirror neurons will light up as if they scratched their own elbow. -If one person sees another person smile, their brain smiles with them.

An Emerging Self-Concept

-Other people are the source of our first ideas about our selves. -Before we're even born, our caregivers are busy defining us. -Our first sense of self is given to us by the people around us. -As we get older, we look to the people around us—our friends, family, and teachers—to inform our self-concept. -Research shows that we tend to overestimate the extent to which other people like us, so the self-concepts we derive from this process are generally positive.

The Self as a Social Fact

-Our brain has a great imagination. -Our sense of self is not true in the normal sense of the word. -Our looking glasses affirm or refute possibilities for our coming selves. -The precise nature of our consciousness is a product of human interaction. -We are real because social facts are real.

Participant observation

researcher participates in and is directly involved in the lives of those he or she is studying. Typically involves both observation and interviews with participants or informants.

Peer Review Process

-Researchers must take the CITI (collaborative institutional training initiative) https://about.citiprogram.org/ which trains researchers in ethical codes. A researcher must pass to be certified and re-take a modified version every five years. This modified version includes any updates. -Younger scholars in particular must gain approval from an advisor/mentor/or committee. This is primarily for graduate students but even some junior faculty in places will need to run their research by their chair (boss). -IRB - each academic research institute has an Internal Review Board who review all research projects conducted by those affiliated with the university. They decide whether the researcher can continue with collecting data, whether there are things the researcher needs to revise first, or whether it is outright rejected. -Editor - Academic journals and book editors receive submissions of research. They perform a quick review before deciding to desk reject it, pass it on to reviewers, or ask for revisions before reviewers. -The reviewers are comprised of typically 3 confidential experts in the topic of the paper. It is a blind review meaning the reviewers do not know who the author is, who each other are, and the author does not know who they are. Only the editor knows. -The reviewers submit their final evaluation, comments, and decision on whether it should pass, pass with minor revisions, pass with major revisions, or be rejected. They send these to the editor. These may take 3 or more months. -The editor reviews the reviewers notes. Then makes the final decision and sends back to the author to edit, revise, or try somewhere else. -If successful, it is copy editing after that. Then they wait for publication. This can take anywhere between several months to a year plus for the peer review to publication process. -Keep in mind the researcher is not paid from the journals for their work. The reviewers are volunteers, and sometimes the editors are as well.

What is Sociology?

-Socio = Society -Ology = The study of. -The science of society, human behavior, and the structures that influence us. Sociologists look at human behavior and the patterns and trends over time among groups of people.

Confidentiality

-Sociologists are ethically obligated to protect their research subjects' identities. -Usually this means ensuring confidentiality. Researchers refrain from releasing the names of people who've participated and keep data in secure locations.

in-depth interview benefits

-The in-depth interview is a useful research tool. -Interviews are designed to capture the responses of a few people in great depth. -Interviews tend to be semi-structured: Questions are decided ahead of time but can be adjusted during the interview. -The questions are usually open-ended: They are designed to elicit lengthy, free-ranging answers.

The Mechanism of the Looking Glass

-The looking glass is like a fun-house mirror. -With each reflection we must guess as to whether or not the image is accurate. -Studies show that our self-concepts have more in common with what we think other people think of us than what they actually think. -We also act as looking glasses for other people. -Other people are trying to discern from us who they are at the same time we're seeing a vision of ourselves. -This is like having two mirrors facing each other. Each mirror reflects the other infinitely. -The only way to opt out of the infinity mirror is to opt out of social interaction altogether.

Culture Shock

-The same variety characterizes our architecture, fashion, rituals, and routines. -This cultural diversity makes travel captivating, but also quite disorienting, as our cultural competency becomes compromised. -We call this feeling culture shock, and it's a reminder that we aren't born knowing how to get along as a member of a human group.

more of social learning

-Though humans are not the only animals to have culture, it's probably fair to say that we're especially cultural. -When we speak of culture, we're really talking about cumulative culture. -Those of us alive today are merely at the forefront of hundreds of thousands of generations. -We're modifying, advancing, and revolutionizing what we've inherited.

The I and the Me

-To think I am is to make oneself the subject and the object of thought at the same time. -We think about ourselves in the same way we think about other things. -In the early 1900s, George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) described this dual thinking by differentiating between the "I" and the "me." -A good example of the navigation between the I and the me would be how people manage their social media accounts. -When people post on their social media accounts, they consider how others will perceive their text or images. -The image they choose to present is their me. The person doing the considering is their I. -The I decides what to post. The me is then represented. It's the me your I decides to present to the world.

Reasons why we need ethics

-Wartime research on prisoners -The Tuskeegee Syphilis study -Tearoom trade -Standford Prison experiment

Acceptance or rejection of someone's opinion of us is influenced by whether:

-We like the opinion. -It is already part of our self-concept. -It is reinforced by other available looking glasses. -We have an intimate relationship with the person. -We identify with a person as being similar to ourselves or see them as someone who can fairly evaluate us.

mirror neurons (biology perspective)

-While most people have mirror neuron systems that are just sensitive enough, some have systems that are either too hot or too cold. -Some scientists think that a cool system helps to explain some of the symptoms of autism spectrum disorder, as people with autism may struggle to understand what other people are feeling. -Other people may have a hot system where their responses are too sympathetic. -Our biology has provided a way to bring the minds of others close. Paradoxically, this closeness is where our individuality emerges.

mirror neurons

-Within the first few months of life, our brains use mirror neurons to reach into the brains of other people and close the distance between them and us. -Mirror neurons are cells in our brains that fire in identical ways, whether we're observing or performing an action. -Mirror neurons don't differentiate between the self and others. They link one brain to another as if they were one mind.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

A phenomenon in which what people believe is true becomes true, even if it wasn't originally true -If enough people consistently reflect us in a certain way, their impressions will shape our impression of ourselves, and we will act accordingly. -Despite our power to shape others' perceptions, and our ability to reject some of the ones we don't like, our self is still dependent on looking glasses. -In this way, the looking-glass self is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Macro sociology

= Sociological study of larger groups and phenomena, the society as a whole. Think organizations and systems of power. Often relies on statistics. Example: Rates of alcohol consumption among American college students

Micro sociology

= Sociological study of smaller more specific groups. Think individual interactions and relationships. Alcoholism among group X at Mizzou. Often relies on more qualitative methods. Example: What drinking means to the person.

Symbolic structure

A constellation of social constructs connected and opposed to one another in overlapping networks of meaning. -Taken together, the universe of ideas and their relationships to one another form a symbolic structure. -We call it a structure because it is a complex and relatively rigid network. -The meanings it contains allow us to communicate with each other, but the symbolic structure is unyielding, making it difficult to communicate in ways that it doesn't support.

Self-narrative

A story we tell about the origin and likely future of our selves. -Our self-concept is reliant on our ability to reassemble our reality. -Many of the self-narratives we employ are prepackaged, including familiar characters and plot lines. -We sometimes even nest our narratives in the narratives of others.

Culturally competent

Able to understand and navigate our cultures with ease.

Social construct

An influential and shared interpretation of reality that will vary across time and space. -Example: The tomato presented at the beginning of the chapter means different things to different people -Social constructs emerge out of social construction.

Midrange

Falls between macro and micro. It is more than the individual interactions but not trying to explain an entire society. Think how particular groups interact with institutions. Example: How alcohol consumption is regulated or maintained at Mizzou.

Social Forces or Social Currents (used interchangeably)

Human creations that influence, pressure, or force individuals to behave, think, and interact with others in specified ways. Like social facts, social forces exist outside any one individual and how their own reality consequences. People may choose to adapt to them, resist them, or outright challenge them. Examples: -Societal values, Trends, Traditions, Religious practices -Concern for the environment

Socialization

The lifelong learning process by which we become members of our cultures. -Through socialization, we become culturally competent.

Social construction

The process by which we layer objects with ideas, fold concepts into one another, and build connections between them.

Theory of mind

The recognition that other minds exist, followed by the realization that we can try to imagine others' mental states. We begin developing this when we are babies. Toddlers discover that not only do they exist, but that other people exist as well.

Looking-glass self

The self that emerges as a consequence of seeing ourselves as we think other people see us. -Cooley developed a new theory of the self by arguing that our self-concepts could only arise socially. ---This became known as the looking-glass self. -According to this theory, other people are looking glasses (or mirrors) reflecting a vision from which we form our self-concepts

Ad hominem - Against the person

arguing a stance a person holds is "bad" therefore the person is bad, therefore don't listen to anything they say.

Spurious relationship

occurs when two variables are related and appear to have a direct causal connection, but actually both of the variables are affected by a third variable -In other words, spurious relationships occur when there is a hidden third factor at play. -Example: Ice cream sales and murder both increase in the summer time. Therefore, it is more reasonable to consider that something about the summer months (heat, vacations, free time) causes ice cream sales to increase and, unrelatedly, causes a spike in homicides. -can lead to a logical fallacy.

Social learning

or the transmission of knowledge and practices from one individual to another via observation, instruction, or reward and punishment—has been documented in rats, birds, whales and dolphins, nonhuman primates, and more. -Human beings are not unique in having cultures.

self-concept

our understanding of who we are based on our personality traits, physical characteristics, ancestry, and biographies. -Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929) used a different mirror metaphor to explain how humans come to understand themselves or develop a self-concept.

Standpoints

points of view grounded in lived reality.

Generalized Others

represent types of people, with a greater or lesser degree of specificity, and we easily divide up the generalized others into categories. For example, teenagers, musicians, NASCAR-lovers, dog people. -We also learn to speculate as to what generalized others, or imagined members of specific social groups, might think of us. -When we think it's relevant, we tap into our ideas of how an average member of one of these groups might evaluate us.