Sociology Final Exam

What type of group is characterized by long term, intimate, face-to-face relationships?

A. A primary group

What are the tastes, habits, and expectations that children "inherit" (or learn) from their parents that help to achieve material success in life called?

A. Cultural capital

In April 2015, Olympic gold medalist and former "World's Greatest Athlete" Bruce Jenner announced that: "for all intents and purposes, I am a woman." Jenner discussed transitioning with Diane Sawyer in a special two-hour edition of the ABC News show 20/20. In the interview, Jenner stated: "As of now, I have all the male parts, but i still identify as female." What does this tell you about gender identity?

A. For many people, primary sex characteristics do not define gender

What sort of group dynamic may have led officials at NASA to ignore warnings and launch the space shuttle Challenger, which exploded shortly after take-off?

A. Group-think

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?

A. Impression management

Organizations designed to raise money to support the interests of a particular group are called:

A. Political Action Committees

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 that 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:

A. Role Strain

Appearance, manner, style of dress, race, gender, and age are all elements of:

A. an individual's personal front.

Coca-Cola was first marketed in the 1860s as a patent medicine, designed to offer the energy boost of cocaine without the vices of alcohol. The new beverage was invigorating and popular. Today, however, cocaine is not just banned but widely demonized. This is an example of:

A. mainstream culture once approving of behaviors that are now considered deviant.

Unlike a folkway, a more is closely related to:

A. the core values of a group

What change caused people to migrate into cities from rural areas?

A. the switch to a manufacturing economy

How are strictly controlled workers within bureaucracies different from robots?

B. Human workers cam resist and undermine the bureaucratic restraints that limit their autonomy.

Why would a company outsource or contract out labor it might otherwise employ its own staff to perform?

B. It is cheaper

What do we sociologists claim is the most significant component of culture?

B. Language

According to the structural strain theory of deviance as articulated by Robert Merton, what is one of the principal reasons people turn to deviant behavior in the United States?

D. The goal of success is shared by a majority of people, but not everyone has equal means for achieving that goal

The "Jim-Crow" laws in the American South, which mandated separate facilities for whites and blacks, were an example of:

D. institutional discrimination

How do we decide when to display situational ethnicity?

D. we do a cost-benefit analysis

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?

B. The Hidden Curriculum

social mobility that occurs over the course of an individual's lifetime is called _______ mobility.

B. intRAgenerational

According to Randall Collins, our educational system is much like a "tribal initiation rite," a "secret society," or a "closed occupational caste": not a rational system that produces more efficient production, but a mechanism for:

B. reproducing the existing class structure

In the 1980s, many politicians argued that listening to heavy metal music led teenagers to commit suicide. Though you might find this statement silly, it is still a guess about about a relationship between two variables, also called a:

C. Hypothesis

The intersex Society of North America recommends that "surgeries done to make the genitals look 'more normal' should not be performed until a child is mature enough to make an informed decision for herself." Usually, doctors would always try to involve a patient in his or her treatment, so why is this advice necessary?

C. In our society, the prospect of an ambiguously sexed person seems so threatening that surgical procedures are performed long before a child is old enough to know what is happening.

Symbolic Interactionism argues that people act towards things on the basis of their meaning. According to this perspective, how does meaning arise?

C. Meaning is negotiated through interaction with others.

Who led campaigns to end child labor and increase workplace safety?

C. Unions

A society where social mobility is highly restricted by formal or informal rules, like those of a caste system, is called:

C. a closed system

Intrinsic religiosity can be defined as:

C. a person's inner religious life

Emile Durkheim worried that in an increasingly fragmented modern world, individuals would feel less and less connected to groups, which would lead to:

C. anomie, or normlessness

On any given day, within ten minutes of waking up, you probably depend on more than 100 strangers to provide electricity, water, natural gas, weather forecasts, and other services. According to Durkheim, this interdependence gives rise to:

C. organic solidarity

Imagine a child who consistently gets low grades ad is a 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:

C. the looking-glass self

In the early 1900s, native-born Americans, usually Protestants, did NOT consider Irish, Italian, or Jewish immigrants to be white. What does this illustrate?

C. the social construction of race

What effect did the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 have on unions?

C.It instituted limits on secondary strikes and boycotts

The textbook cites the example of a DUI offender who attends AA meetings in accordance with a court order but is doing so to avoid a jail sentence of hefty fine, not because he believes it truly matters. What do sociologists call this kind of conformity?

D. Compliance

What is the definition of "culture"?

D. Culture is the entire way of life of a group of people, and it acts as a lens through which we view the world.

What does a sociological perspective tell us about education in the United States?

D. Educational success often has a much to do with social stratification as it does with individual ability.

How are informal norms different from formal norms?

D. Informal norms are considered common sense and are usually unspoken.

According to Emile Durkheim, industrialized societies function via an organic solidarity. What is the basis for organic solidarity?

D. Interdependence and individual rights

How does colorblindness contribute to racial inequalities?

D. It perpetuates racial inequalities by making subtle forms of racism difficult to recognize and therefore difficult to address.

Although they make very little money , priests, ministers, rabbis, imams, and clergy are often very prestigious members of their communities. Which social theorist first suggested that this is an important element of class status?

D. Max Weber

The Egg McMuffin is a vastly more efficient version of eggs Benedict. Egg McMuffins are cheaper, are ready almost instantly at a drive-through windows, and can be eaten with one hand while driving. However, they do not improve on the taste or the experience of eggs Benedict. Max Weber might have described the Egg McMuffin as the _______ of breakfast.

D. Rationalization

In 2008 and 2009, the united states government initiated a large-scale economic bailout of the banking and auto industries, in which the government invested enormous amounts of money, becoming the majority shareholder in some corporations. According to the text this means that:

b. the United States is a mostly capitalist nation, but it also has a degree of socialism in government subsidies to businesses