intro to sociology exam 1

If changing one variable seems to lead to a change in another variable, this shows ________ but does not necessarily prove ________.

correlation; causation

The values, norms, and practices of the most powerful group within a society are called

dominant culture.

Which methodology MOST closely resembles the scientific method?

experimental research

There is only one correct theoretical explanation for any particular social phenomenon

false

only an authoritative body or formal institution can impose negative sanctions

false

Which best describes the research goals of sociologists who use a macro-sociological approach and the research goals of sociologists who use a micro-sociological approach

No matter what approach they take, all sociologists aim to illuminate the connection

You are doing a research project on the effects of contemporary media. What are your variables is your hypothesis is "watching violence on television causes an increase in violent behavior"?

Watching television and violence on television

the application of economic logic to human activity is known as

Weberian Theory

What has been achieved when the dominant culture, without the use of force, persuades the rest of society that its beliefs and values are the only or best values?

hegemony

what was probably Harriet Martineau's MOST important contribution to the development of sociology as a discipline?

her translation of the work of Auguste Comte into Englis

Lili is conducting a sociological research study on the underground music scene. She has just finished collecting data for the study. What is the next step Lily should take in the scientific method?

analyze data

Which of the following is an example of a culture war

anti-abortion advocates demonstrating in front of a family planning cli

What is the term used to describe sociological research that is intended to solve social problems, such as the research done by Jane Addams

applied sociology

Researchers should try to avoid double-barreled questions or questions that

ask about multiple issues.

When writing a survey, researchers must avoid negative questions, which are defined as?

ask respondents what they do not think rather than what they think.

It's all too common to see someone driving a car on a busy freeway while cursing and gesturing at another motorist whose poor driving has offended him or her. Cursing and gesturing are an individual's attempt at

negative sanctions

Together and in groups, people organize their lives and social interactions to produce a real and meaningful world. Sociologists can study this because

people organize their lives in patterned way

What research method is a sociologist using if he or she watches a lot of television and counts the number of times women play roles with lower status than those played by men

content analysis

There are many sushi restaurants in the United States and many McDonald's-style fast-food restaurants in Japan. This is an example of

counterculture

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

culture wars

Which of the following statements best characterizes microsociology

it is an approach that examines interactions between individuals and how those interactions reflect larger societal patter

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

macrosociology

Recently, curators at museums have experienced problems with the preservation of plastic objects, almost all of which disintegrate over time. The Smithsonian collection contains the first-ever plastic toothbrush, which soon will be nothing more than a pile of crumbs. This problem is leading many historians to worry that we will lose the history of our:

material culture

A researcher must identify a target population before engaging in sampling. What is the target population?

the larger group of people about whom he or she wishes to generalize

the writings of Émile Durkheim, Karl Marx, and Max Weber were deeply influenced by their life experience

true

Regardless of their various approaches to social phenomena, what are all sociologists trying to do

understand how our society is different from other cultures and other times

What are researchers doing when they use a social networking site like Facebook to obtain data?

using existing sources

sociologists observe society by

...studying the various parts of society, and the ways they interact and influence each other.

there is a close relationship between sociology and the other social sciences. Given how much overlap there is between these fields, why does sociology still exist as a separate discipline

All the other fields are more specialized, but sociology is a field that considers a huge intellectual territory

What is the difference between basic and applied research?

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

________ occurs when the dominant culture succeeds in imposing its values and ideas on all of society

Hegemony

For a survey to be considered valid, there must be a sufficient

High response rate

Some researchers suggest that interviews give "voice" to people who may never have been heard before and offer privileged access to authentic experience, private worlds, and true selves. How do interviews do this?

Interviews allow respondents to speak in their own words, which can reveal their thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.

Which of the following is a DISADVANTAGE of using ethnography as a method of social research?

It is difficult for another researcher to repeat or replicate any particular ethnography.

Sarah believes that thanks to the ability of science and technology to create progress, problems will be solved and life will improve. Sarah would be best describes as a

Modernist

What do you call broad theoretical models of the social or natural world?

Paradigms

The consistency of a measurement tool, or the degree to which the same questions will produce similar answers, refers to

Reliability

Which of the following is a DISADVANTAGE of using existing sources of data for research?

Researchers often seek answers to questions the data does not directly address.

What will a good researcher always do after formulating a general research question?

Review the literature relevant to his or her topic

A famous social scientist tells you that the most important task in her research was entering the social world of the people she was studying. What can you say about this researcher?

She is a qualitative researcher

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

Structural Functionalism

Why do high schools often use surveys rather than a more direct form of communication like interviews when they ask students about sensitive subjects like drug use or sexual health

Surveys allow students to answer the questions in private and assure the confidentiality of their responses.

Which of the following theories focuses on how our behaviors are dependent on the ways we interpret, make sense of, and define ourselves, others, and social situations?

Symbolic Interactionism

Which social theory focuses on micro-level interactions?

Symbolic Interactionism

Jill is visiting her boyfriend's family in China. During a conversation, she points to him with her index finger, which his family doesn't seem to like. Later, her boyfriend explains that she should point with an open hand instead of using a finger. Why is this instruction needed

The meaning of gestures is not universal

Macro-sociology and micro-sociology approach the study of society from different perspectives. How does the discipline of sociology deal with these two very different approaches

These two perspectives are on a continuum with each other and sociologists can adopt the perspective most useful for a particular problem

Some Marxists believe that conflict between small merchants and the nobility led to the creation of modern capitalism, which was distinct from either of the opposing forces. What would Marx call this model of historical change?

a dialectical model

A sociologist wants to study popular attitudes and perceptions about astrology among college students in California. She believes that people who have astrological signs associated with fire will have a greater knowledge of astrology because fire signs tend to have more interesting and attractive symbolism. What are the variables in this study?

astrological signs and knowledge of astrology

what did Karl Marx think the lower classes needed to develop in order to end their oppression

class consciousness

85. The Yale sociologist Kai Erikson wrote a book called Wayward Puritans, in which he drew on court records from colonial Massachusetts to understand deviance in the past. He learned that the rate of out-of-wedlock births was much higher than it is now and that the amount of alcohol consumed per capita was higher as well. What research methodology was Erikson using?

comparative-historical research

Maria is worried about the representativeness of her study. She is conducting interviews, but each one seems to last at least five hours. What strategy might she use to increase her sample size given that she only has one month to collect her data?

conduct a focus group

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

cultural leveling

When Patti Sue took a world tour, she had lunch at McDonald's in Tokyo, ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe in Hong Kong, purchased clothes at Macy's in London, and was entertained at a Disney show in Paris. This homogenization of cultures around the world is called

cultural leveling

The ability to understand another culture in terms of that culture's own norms and values, without reference to any other culture's standards, is called

cultural relativism.

The tendency to use your own group's way of doing things as the yardstick for judging others is called

ethnocentrism

A study found a strong correlation between parental bonding and adolescent drug use. Children with stronger bonds to their parents were far less likely to try drugs or alcohol. However, the researchers, after examining their data more closely, discovered that parental bonding was really a predictor for teen religiosity. Consequently, high levels of religiosity prevent drug use rather than parental bonding. This means that religiosity was a(n)

intervening variable.

Survey research tends to produce quantitative data. One key advantage of this kind of data is that it

is easy to transmit to the public.

Many everyday cultural practices such as greeting a friend, giving someone flowers, or using the thumbs-up sign seem like natural ways of acting. Why does having an awareness of how these practices vary across cultures demonstrate a healthy sociological imagination

it reminds us that everyday interaction are connected to larger social structure.

why did C. Wright Mills think that it is important for everyone, even people who will never take a sociology class, to develop a sociological imagination

many people remind unaware of the intricate connections between the pattern of their own lives and the larger course of history

A sociologist performs an experiment designed to investigate the effect of marriage counseling on divorce. He or she divides research participants into two similar groups of troubled couples, provides only one group with counseling, and observes whether, over time, the two groups eventually divorce at different rates. What is the independent variable in this experiment?

marriage counseling

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

open-ended

In the 1980s, many politicians argued that listening to heavy metal music led teenagers to die by suicide. Though you might find this belief silly, it is a(n)

paradigm shift.

Countercultural groups such as the hippies of the 1960s

rejected the norms of the dominant cultures

A graduate student is almost done with his dissertation when he is informed that twenty years ago someone did a similar project and already demonstrated what he had hoped to be the first to discover. What basic step of the scientific method should have saved him from this problem?

reviewing the literature

Alejandra believes that religion is the basis for good values and that promoting religion in society promotes social order. What perspective best describes Alejandra's view

structural functionalism

What school of social theory believes that society is a stable system of structures, which contribute to the equilibrium of the whole

structural functionalism

Despite the fact that people snack on grasshoppers and crickets in Thailand, many people in the United States express disgust at the idea. This suggests that, in the United States, eating insects is a

taboo

space shuttle, graffiti, a new coding language, and a new instrument are all example

technology

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, most political pollsters ask about a thousand people who they plan to vote 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

The widespread use of plastic in American culture is no accident; plastic offers consumers convenience, disposability, and choice. A researcher documenting plastic objects commonly found in American households is researchin

the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

What is the sociological imagination?

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

Unlike folkways, mores are closely related to

the core values of a group.

Norms develop out of a culture's value system

true

Sociologists claim that culture is the lens through which we perceive and evaluate what is going on in the world around us

true

Sociologists try to follow the steps of the scientific method or approach to gather new empirical data that can change and deepen our understanding of human social

true

Wright Mills described a process by which biography (individual lives) and history (larger social forces) are related. He argued that this process works in two ways: individual lives influence society, while society also influences individuals

true

a sociologist's responsibility is to question everything the everyday person would take for granted

true

some "facts" sociologists once believed to be unambiguously true are now treated as opinions, biases, or speculation

true

where should you start if you possess a sociological imagination and you are asked to study unemployment rates in a city with fifty million people, of which, fifteen million are unemployed

you should consider economic and political structure of the society

What is the definition of "culture"?

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

A research team is curious about the relationship between exercise habits and academic performance among American college students. In order to get their data, the researchers randomly select seventeen colleges by pulling names out of a hat. They travel to campuses and stand in prominent public places asking for volunteers until they have ten people from each campus willing to be interviewed. What is the researchers' target population?

American college students

Jai is conducting a sociological research study on differences in interactions between similar and dissimilar co-workers. After reviewing the literature, he developed a hypothesis and has operationalized the variables he will study. What is the next step jai should take in the scientific method?

Choose a research design or method

In the article "Jihad vs. McWorld," Benjamin R. Barber points out that "in November of 1991 Switzerland's once insular culture boasted best-seller lists featuring Terminator 2 as the #1 movie, Scarlett as the #1 book, and Prince's Diamonds and Pearls as the #1 record album." Many people worry that the prominence of American culture goes beyond the media and represents the wholesale imposition of American values on other cultures, which is a process called

Cultural imperialism

You are conducting research on violence in the media. In what part of the research process are you engaged if you are trying to decide whether "violence" includes words as well as actions?

Defining the variables

Which of the following is an advantage of using ethnography to study social life?

Ethnography allows the researcher to gather abundant data on a small population.

Why do social scientists who use interviews rarely speak with large numbers of people for a project?

Face-to-face interviewing is a very time-consuming process.

A simple random sample is defined as a sample

That provides the same chance of being included to every member of the populati

Survey researchers often use Likert scales to construct the possible answers when they write closed-ended questions. How do Likert scales allow respondents to answer?

They allow respondents to answer along a continuum from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree."

Why do ethnocentric people tend to view other cultures as abnormal?

They use their own culture as a standard of judgment.

How is culture transmitted and internalized?

We learn values and beliefs slowly and incrementally.

Sociology can be approached from both a microsociological and a macrosociological perspective. Which is more useful

both are useful in different ways because they each provide different types of information about the same object of study

What did W. E. B. Du Bois have in common with Harriet Martineau

both were intrigued by America's democratic promise, but disappointed in its hypocritical injustices.

What economic system emerged during the Industrial Revolution

capitalism

An employee who has a special relationship with his boss is promoted instead of a more deserving co-worker. This is an example of the

distinction between ideal culture and real culture

A man is listening to loud music and singing along in public. The people around him glare and frown at him, hoping that he will stop. The man ignores them, indicating that he

doesn't seem to care about negative sanctions.

if someone has no way to make money but to sell his or her own labor, then he or she must be a member of what social group

proletariat

A cultural group that exists harmoniously within a larger, dominant culture is called a

subculture