SY Final Review

What describes the idea that we respond not only to the objective features of a situation but also to its meaning and that once meaning has been assigned to our behavior, the consequences of that behavior are determined by the meaning?

self-fulfilling prophecy

After formulating a general research question, what will a good researcher always do?

review the literature in order to become familiar with earlier research that relates to his topic

A society that separates church and state is a ________ society.

secular

John gets a job with a large firm that audits small businesses. While working there, he becomes friends with Dave, who invites him to attend a weekly poker game. The game soon becomes a meaningful part of his life. Some weeks the game is the only thing he has to look forward to. This is an example of:

the way secondary group ties can lead to the close personal ties of primary groups

How do sociologists distinguish a group from a crowd?

A crowd doesn't necessarily feel a shared identity

Sociology can be defined as the systematic and scientific study of human society and social behavior. Given this definition, which level of social structure best describes what sociologists might examine?

Almost any level-from interactions between two people to large-scale institutions

The former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor voted to allow a Christmas display on public property that included a nativity scene but voted to prohibit city governments from having displays that had only a nativity scene.

America is both a secular and a nonsecular society at the same time

An example of the "bureaucratization" stage of a social movement happened when:

American colonists transitioned from being revolutionaries to the official government leaders.

What is the difference between basic and applied research?

Applied research is gathering knowledge that can be used for social change

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

Culture

How can deviance be explained from the functionalist perspective?

Deviance clarifies moral boundaries and affirms norms

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

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

______ become very popular for short periods of time, while ________ are widespread styles of behavior that may last for longer periods of time

Fads; fashion

In her research for The Second Shift, Arlie Hochschild interviewed married couples to find out how they dealt with changing family roles as more women entered the workforce. What advantages came from her deciding to use interviews as a research method?

It allowed her to gather direct quotations and construct an intimate portrait of married couples.

What is the danger of too much group cohesion?

It can lead to groupthink, in which dissenting opinions are strongly discouraged

What is a function of symbolic culture?

It enables people to communicate

What is the principal sociological critique of the culture of poverty?

It tends to blame the victims of poverty for their own misfortunes, while ignoring the structural causes of inequality

Many Marxist sociologists assume that large-scale economic sculptures are the most important factors in people's lives. This assumption is an example of:

Macrosociology

The Amish have neither the resources nor the desire to use prison as a sanction against members of their community who violate the rules. What sanction do they use instead?

Meidung, or shunning, is used, a process whereby no one within the community will associate or even talk with a rule breaker for a set period of time.

How has union membership changed in recent years?

Membership has steeply declined

When John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon debated during the 1960 presidential campaign, voters who watched the debate on television were more likely to see Kennedy as the winner than those who listened to it on radio? Why?

Nixon refused to take advice on hair, makeup, and clothing that would have made him look better on camera.

According to Barbara Ehrenreich, what behaviors can help those with minimum-wage service jobs to get ahead and move up in the world?

None; there is no way for minimum-wage workers to move up in the world

What did Harvard Medical School researchers conclude about the effects of the media on young people in Fiji, who until recently lacked widespread access to television?

Television affected young women's body image.

What is the sociological imagination?

The ability to understand the connections between biography and history, or the interplay of the self and the world

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?

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

What do the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, Nazism, birth control, and Protestantism all have in common?

They are all the products of social movements

What does sociologist Randall Collins argue is the true function of schools?

They reproduce the class structure, making sure that most people grow up to have a socioeconomic status similar to that of their parents

Which theorist argued that if people define a situation as real, it is real in its consequences?

W.I. Thomas

Which change was associated with the Industrial Revolution?

a significant population boom

According to the symbolic interactionist George Herbert Mead, the generalized other is:

an understanding of the rules that govern a network of different players in related roles

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

anomie, or normlessness

In Great Britain, the government owns the British Broadcasting Corporation, or BBC, which is the world's largest television and radiobroadcasting service. This tells you that Great Britain is:

at least partially socialist

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

by considering access to food, shelter, clothing, and medical care.

Public schools that are run by private entities are called:

charter schools

The definition of what constitutes a group is being transformed as a result of new technology and the Digital Revolution. What is evidence of this?

chat rooms

Being born into a lower social class means that an individual will be _____ likely to feel at risk of being harassed by law enforcement

more

In 2010 President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law. Fox News and CNN presented vastly different viewpoints on the ACA, appealing to either conservative or liberal viewers, respectively. The media's handling of this law is an example of:

culture wars

According to Karl Marx, what social relations matter most in a capitalist system?

economic relations

What do sociologists call it when a person's job requires him to manage his feelings as part of his official duties?

emotion work

In what aspects of stigma are symbolic interactionists interested?

how people manage their stigmatized identities on an everyday basis

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?

impression management

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:

mainstream culture once approving of behaviors that are now considered deviant

It is often said that you can always tell a millionaire by her shoes. She may dress like a slob in every other respect, but someone from the upper class is bound to have expensive, custom-made footwear. Whether this is true or not, it helps demonstrate the way we:

make split-second judgements about who people are and what social status they occupy based on their appearances

What term describes an approach that examines interactions between individuals and the ways those interactions reflect larger patterns within a society?

microsociology

The Information Revolution is transforming Western society from:

modern to postmodern

What kind of question usually produces a wide variety of responses by allowing respondents to answer in whatever way seems appropriate to them?

open-endedd

Robert is walking down the street late at night when a man in a ski mask suddenly sticks a gun in his face and takes his wallet. Sociologists would say that Robert's mugger had ________ but not ________.

power; authority

If you observe a group in order to determine its norms, values, rules, and meanings, then what kind of research are you doing?

qualitative

The practice of refusing mortgages for houses in poor and minority neighborhoods is called:

redlining

The transformation of culture over time is called:

social change

Mother Teresa was a person with tremendous power and prestige, yet she was very poor. Mother Teresa is an example of which of the following?

status inconsistency

Every four years when it is time to elect a new president, we pay much attention to surveys, which we usually call "polls." Even though there are more than 300 million people in the United States, they ask a thousand people who it is they plan to for and use that information to predict how the election will turn out. Who is the sample for a presidential poll?

the 1,000 people who are asked whom they will vote for

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:

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

In his book The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud suggested that:

the conscious level of awareness is but the tip of the iceberg and that just below the surface is a far greater area of the mind, the subconscious and the unconscious.

The term "socialization" refers to:

the lifelong process by which people learn the norms, values, and beliefs of their culture

What is it called when nations compete to attract transnational corporations by undercutting their citizens' wages or offering tax incentives?

the race to the bottom

Jane Addams was an early advocate of applied sociology. This means that she did not just do research, but that she also:

tried to address social problems through hands-on activity in the communities she researched

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

unions