Sociology Quizzes

According to the scientific method, what are the steps in research and in what order are they competed?

1-Define variables 2- Form hypothesis 3- Predict outcomes 4- Collect data 5- Analyze data

In discussing gendered division of paid work, Elizabeth Higginbotham points out that ___

African American professorial women find themselves limited to employment in certain sectors of the labor market.

Secondary groups are characterized by which of the following?

All of the above -Larger than primary -More formal -Based on specific roles or activities -Members sometimes become primary groups

What general predictions can be made about a person's life chances if all that is known about them is their social class?

All of the above -Education they will receive -Job -Who they will marry -How long they will live

Which of the following would be the best sociological definition of deviance?

All of these -Action that are harmful to society -Violations of social norms -Criminal activities -Immoral or unethical behavior

Which is true of socialization?

All the above -It never stops -Reciprocity; society shape individual and visa versa -It changes over time and from place to place -It teaches the skills needed for life

Regarding gender issues and tv, which is false? (Which are true)

An equal number of male and female roles are showed (TV programs are sex-types and white-male oriented, most characters in educational programs are male and the media is a powerful source of gender stereotyping)

Max Weber believed that as the Industrial Revolution progressed, society became more rationalized. How did he define rationalization?

An increasing number of rules that limit personal freedom

If you didn't have enough money to complete your college education and decided to counterfeit the money to pay for your books and tuition. which sort of deviant would you be?

An innovator

How would sociologist define family?

An interdependent social group bound by legal, biological or emotional ties

In Durkheim's work, Suicide, he reported that suicide rates went up when the economy slumped but also spiked when the economy boomed. Which of these concepts explain why both positive and negative condition s could influence an increase in suicide?

Anomie

According to Conflict theory, why are vagrancy laws passed?

As a way of targeting and controlling groups which may threaten societies elite

Which of the following is not a group in the sociological sense? (Ones that are?)

Audience at a play (baseball team, chess club and bird-watching club are groups)

Max Weber contended that religion had an additional function of:

Being a catalyst to produce social change

What has science determined about racial categories?

Biologically, there is no such thing as pure race.

How is a sub-culture different from a counterculture?

Both are distinct from mainstream culture but a counterculture actively opposes important aspects if the mainstream culture

Arlie Hochschild was concerned that her sample of interviewees was too small to guarantee representativeness. How did she attempt to overcome this problem?

By comparing demographic data about her interviewees with info about the target population

Poverty can be defined either relative or absolute terms. How does relative deprivation measure poverty?

By comparing the poor to more affluent members of society

The use of beliefs, rituals and symbols that make the values of society sacred and places the nation in context of religion as the ultimate system of meaning is called:

Civil Religion

What kind of power is a football coach wielding when he threatens to remove a player from the team unless the player works harder?

Coercive

Which theorists believe that tracking seriously and negatively affects students' educational performance and overall academic accomplishments?

Conflict theorists

If you possess a sociological imagination and are studying unemployment in a city where the unemployment population is 20% of the population, what would you do?

Consider the economic and political structures

George Murdock compiled a list of over 70 things that all people have had to develop rules to deal with such as food, marriage, death, work , and housing. These are called:

Cultural Universals

According to Pierre Bourdieu, students from diverse backgrounds come to school with differnt amount of ___, referring to the social assets that include values, beliefs, attitudes and competencies in language and culture

Cultural capital

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

Cultural capital

What do sociologists call it when cultures that were once distinct become increasingly similar?

Cultural leveling

Which of the following describes how deviance can be explained from a functionalist perspective?

Deviance helps clarify moral boundaries and affirms norms

The parents of a deviant child may explain the behavior by saying "she fell in with the bad crowd" Which symbolic interationist theory of deviance is this most likfe?

Differential Association Theory

A study on gender bias in schools suggests girls' self esteem is undermined, which is not a reason why? (which are)

Direct rejection by teachers (Relative lack of attention from teachers, stereotyping and invisibility of females in textbooks and test bias on assumptions about relative importance of visual-spatial ability compared to verbal ability)

What is "cash register honesty"?

Drawing the line at stealing money, but it is okay to do other things that are less calcuable (employee eating meal without paying or texting while working)

The analysis of other cultures in terms of its own norms and values, without reference to other cultures is called:

Ethnocentrism

Which method of social research might involve moving between being an observer and participating in a social situation?

Ethnography

Independent of what method is used, what are all sociologists trying to do?

Explain the connection between the individual and society.

In horticultural and agricultural societies, ___ are important. Having a large number of family members participate in food production may be essential for survival.

Extended families

A person's blood type is closely associated with race (T/F)

False

If you pick your method carefully, you will not have to sacrifice any type of info or advantage.

False

Sociology has developed a single comprehensive theory about how the self develops (T/F)

False

The social class system is more rigid than the caste system (T/F)

False

Whites and blacks tend to have similar opinions about the state of race relations in the US (T/F)

False (whites don't believe there is a lot of racism, blacks do)

Which of these statements about female offenders is true?

Female arrests have risen over the last few years

How are informal norms enforced in everyday settings?

Folkways

According to Mead, why is playing organized games important to older children's development?

Game playing involves taking on multiple roles and learning to anticipate and coordinate with other's actions

Every society uses ___ to assign certain tasks and rewards those who preform the duties differently.

Gender

In the US, males are traditionally expected to demonstrate aggressiveness and toughness. This illustrates the concept of ___

Gender role

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

Groupthink

Sex is not always clear-cut. Occasionally, a hormone imbalance before birth produces a ___- a person whom sexual differentiation is ambiguous or incomplete

Hermaphrodite

According to conflict theorists, the ___, is the transmission of cultural values and attitudes, such as conformity and obedience to authority, through implied demands found in the rules ans routines of the schools

Hidden curriculum

In the US, most people practice ___; they marry people who come from similar groups to themselves.

Homogamy

The "Looking-Glass Self" explains:

How we develop a self-concept based upon our perceptions of others' judgments

Our society focuses on the importance of marriage and family values and assumes that the family is at the center of almost everyone's life. How does this compare to the way people really live?

Increasingly, both marriage and family are less central to the lives of the average American

How has the percent of marriages that end in divorce changed since 1950?

It has increased by more than 500%

Which of the following is a major problem with Conflict Theory?

It ignores the stable and enduring parts if society

How does the FBI's Uniform Crime Report measure crime?

It is a tabulation of crime reports from all 17,000 law enforcement agencies in the US

What makes nuclear family more qualified to serve needs of an industrial economy?

It makes geographic mobility much easier

How did the Industrial Revolution change the common meaning of family?

It shifted from the extended family to the nuclear family

Which theorist is associated with communism as a political system?

Karl Marx

The Sapire-Warf Hypothesis suggests that:

Language can structure our perception of reality

Which of the following is not a basic principle of social stratification? (what are?)

Low-level groups often have access to all the rewards and privileges of higher-level groups. (it persists over time, different societies use different criteria to define social stratification and it is maintained through beliefs that are widely shared in a society.)

What is true if peers and gender socialization?

Male peer groups place more pressure on boys to be "masculine" than females place on girls to be "feminine"

According to Robert Merton, what is the difference between manifest and latent functions?

Manifest functions are intended and obvious

Designer labels on purses and athletic logos on shirts are examples of:

Material Culture

In American a married man who has several mistresses is violating a ___ but if he is married to more than one woman he is violating a ___

More; Law

Which of the following parts of a research project is always free from bias?

None of the above

According to Karl Marx, the capitalists class uses religious ideology as a tool of domination to mislead workers of its true interest. He called religion "the ___, of the masses."

Opiate

Regarding gender socialization by parents, which is false? (Which are true)

Parents are more prone to talk and sing to male infants (Toys reflect gender expectations, when girl cries, they respond faster and girl babies are treated more gentle)

Why are people more likely to marry individuals with social and cultural backgrounds similar to their own?

People have more access to individuals like themselves.

The most prevalent form of polygamy is ___. Some marriages in Islamic cultures, as well as in the early Judeo Christian traditions have practiced this.

Polygyny

Describe post-modern theory. What do they examine? Note positives and negatives

Post-Modern theorists believe there is no absolute answers in the world and they examine truth and who actually decides what truth is. Postives include bringing a new view into the field that raises questions about subjects that were just taken to be true. Negatives include not acknowledging past research and being very cynical, causing it to not be widely accepted.

How is prejudice different from discrimination?

Prejudice is an attitude and discrimination is an action.

What is it called when someone lives their life as if they are a member if a different racial category that the one they were born into?

Racial passing

The belief that Asians are genetically predisposed to be more intelligent than Europeans is an example of:

Racism

Functionalists argue that religion has three important functions in any society. Which is not one? (What are the three?)

Religion prevents anarchy (1-Provides meaning to life and answer its "big questions" 2-Promote social cohesion and create sense belonging 3-provide form of social control)

A sociologist wants a national organization to fund a study of marijuana clubs but was turned down because the grant maker doesn't see how the study would help understand anything more than the particular clubs being studied. They are concerned about:

Representativeness

___ refers to biological and anatomical difference between female and male

Sex

___ directed at women has three components: negative attitudes towards women, stereotypical beliefs that reinforce prejudices and discrimination against women

Sexism

A person from LA has 4 German grandparents but never thought about being German. She moves to Milwaukee and discovered many more Germans and used ethnicity to form personal and professional ties. This is an example of:

Situational ethnicity

What is the relationship between social class and race, ethnicity, gender and age in the US?

Social class is solely determined by SES but there is often overlap between class and these other variables.

Give an example of "positive deviance" and relate it to Durkheim's ideas.

Standing up for women's rights when it is against the norm to do so. This is deviant because of the way society views the individual but without it, change would never happen.

Which of these is not a purpose of prison? (what are?)

Stigmatization (Retribution, rehabilitation, isolation and deterrence)

What school of social theory believes that society is a stable system of structures, each of which contributes ti the equilibrium of the whole world?

Structural Functionalism

What do sociologists call it when a large number of people move up or down the social class ladder as a result of changes in society as a whole?

Structural mobility

Conflict theorists believe that arguments over values and beliefs have their roots in:

Struggles over scarce resources and power

What social theory focuses on micro level interactions?

Symbolic Interactionism

When someone with Irish ancestry, who doesn't typically identify as Irish puts on a green hat, drinks bear and wears a shirt saying "Kiss me, I'm Irish," is an example of:

Symbolic ethnicity

What is sociological imagination?

The ability to understand the connections between biography and history, or the interplay o the self and the world; seeing our lives and the lives of others with objectivity and in relationship to other aspects of society

According to sociologists, which of the following is not a component of the american dream? (what are?)

The belief that people must fail so others can succeed. (Belief that everyone can participate equally and can always start over, belief that it is reasonable to anticipate success, belief that success is under one's control and the belief that success is associated with virtue and merit.)

Oscar Lewis was the first to suggest that because they are excluded from mainstream social life, the poor develop a life with fundamentally different values and goals, making it less likely that they will ever join the middle class. This is called:

The culture of poverty

According to Structural Strain Theory of Merton, what is one of the principle reasons that people turn to deviant behavior in the US?

The goal of success is shared by most but everyone does not have the same means to achieve that goal.

Three factors are important in determining gendered division of labor in society. Which is not one? (What are the three that are?)

The proportion of females within the power structure (1-type if subsistence base 2-the supply and demand for labor 3-Extent to which women's childbearing activities are compatible with certain types of work)

In the early 1900s, many Americans did not consider Irish, Italian, or Jewish immigrants to be white. What does this illustrate?

The social construction of race

What is a positive consequence of racial and ethnic categories?

They create a sense of identity and lead to solidarity among members.

Which of the following is not an advantage of survey research?

They generate lots of richly detailed info about a small number of people

How have social networking sites affected social groups?

They help people make the most of both their primary and secondary groups.

According to Jack Katz, what do many muggers gain from their crimes?

They mug for a sense of excitement and satisfaction

How does the academic achievement of homschooled students compare to those at public schools?

They preform significantly better on average

Despite demographic shifts, how can you tell that whites are still the majority group in California?

They remain dominant in terms of representation in social institutions, in power and access to resources.

What is the purpose of the Likert Scale?

To get more accurate results on a survey

Which is not a latent function of education? (Which are)

Transmission of knowledge and culture (Matchmaking, creating a generation gap and social control)

A person who is not prejudiced may still participate in discrimination (T/F)

True

Polls and surveys not only gather data about popular beliefs but they can also be used to shape and changes attitudes and beliefs

True

Regarding women's and men;s body image, which statement is not true? (Which are true)

Women of all racial-ethnic groups, classes and sexual orientations do not think of their weight as a crucial index of their acceptance to others. (Men and women may have negative perceptions of appearance, women and men receive different messages about body image and the image of female beauty as childlike and thin is flaunted by advertising industry.)

Would an interviewers' appearance make a difference in what they will learn?

Yes, because the interviewee may give different answers as a result of trusting the interviewer more or less based on appearance.

Which of the following authority figures still derives legitimacy from traditional sources?

Your parents

Culture is by nature both _____ and _____

adoptable and transferable

The article, "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema" is useful because:

it points out people's difficulty in observing and understanding their own culture.