Sociology: Culture and Self
Looking Glass Self
Charles Cooley. The notion that the self develops through our perception of others evaluations and appraisals of us. We all act like mirrors reflecting back at one another an image of ourselves.
Culture Wars
Clashes within the mainstream society that arise over the values and norms that should be upheld. Example: Janet Jackson's boob showing at the halftime of the Super Bowl.
ID
Composed of biological drives, the source of the instinct and psychic energy. Main goal is to achieve pleasure in all activities, which makes it selfish and unrealistic.
Region
Context or setting in which performance takes place. The location, scenery, and props of the social location.
Ego
Deals with the real world. Operates on basis of reasoning and helps to mediate and integrate the demands of both the Id and the Superego. "Okay this time they may have gotten the raise but i will keep trying and get it next time"
Psychoanalytic Theory
Developed by Sigmund Freud that emphasizes childhood and sexual development as indelible influences on an individual's identity. Consists of the Id, Ego, and SuperEgo
Achieved Status
Earned through individual effort or imposed by others. Occupation, skill, hobby.
Role Taking Emotions
Emotions like sympathy, embarrassment, or shame that require that we assume the perspective of another person or many other people and respond from that person's point of view.
Culture
Entire way of life of a group of people. Everything from language and gestures to style of dress. Learned and past down from one generation to another.
Role Conflict
Experienced when we occupy two or more roles with contradictory expectations.
Nurture
Human behavior is learned and shaped through interaction.
Thomas Theorem
If people define situations as real, they are real in their consciousness. Formulation of the way individuals define situations.
Sanctions
Means of enforcing norms. Positive or negative reactions to the ways that people follow or disobey norms including rewards for conformity and punishments for violations.
Symbolic Culture
Nonmaterial that reflects the ideas or beliefs of a group. The ideas associated with a cultural group, including ways of thinking (beliefs, values, and assumptions) and ways of behaving.
Counterculture
Norms and values are incompatible with that of the mainstream. A group within society that openly rejects or actively opposes society's best values and norms. Example: KKK.
Peers
Often become more important then parents as children age. Most intense and immediate influence on each other.
Self
Our experience of a distinct, real, personal identity, that is separate and different from all other people. The individual's conscious.
Backstage
Places in which we rehearse and prepare for our performances.
Status
Position in a social hierarchy and comes with a set of expectations.
Schools
Provide education through hidden curriculum that teaches traits that will be important later on in life.
Cultural Relativism
Seeing other cultures as different. No better, no worse, just different. The principle of understanding other cultures in their own terms.
Gestures
Signs that we make with our body clapping our hands, nodding our head, or smiling. The ways in which people use their bodies to communicate without words. Actions that have symbolic meaning.
Agents of Socialization
Social groups, institutions, and individuals that provide structured situations in which socialization takes place.
Superego
The conscience and the ego-ideal. The conscience serves to keep us from engaging in socially unacceptable behaviors and the ego-ideal is our vision of who we believe we should be.
Front
The dramaturgical perspective, the setting or scene of performances that help establish the definition of the situation.
Impression Management
The effort to control the impressions we make of others so that they form a desired view of us and the situation, the use of self-presentation and performance tactics.
Personal Front
The expressive equipment we consciously or unconciously use as we present ourselves to others, including appearance and manner, to help establish the situation. Example: appearance, manner, style of dress.
Preparatory Stage
The first stage in Mead's theory of the development of self where children mimic and imitate people around them.
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
The idea that language structures thought and that ways of looking at the world are embedded in language.
Dual Nature of Self
The idea that we experience the self as both subject and object "I" and "Me"
Cultural Imperialism
The imposition of one's culture's beliefs and practices on another culture through mass media and consumer products rather then by military force.
Real Culture
The norms, values, and patterns of behavior that actually exist within a society.
Ideal Culture
The norms, values, and patterns of behavior that members of a society believe should be observed in principle.
Socialization
The process of learning and internalizing the values, beliefs, and norms of our social group, by which we become functioning within society.
Role Exit
The process of leaving a role that we will no longer occupy.
Resocialization
The process of replacing previously learned norms and values with new ones as a part of transition in life. Marrying, being divorced, getting a new job, raising a family.
Frontstage
The region in which we deliver our public performances.
Norms
The rules and guidelines regarding what kinds of behavior are acceptable; they develop directly out of a culture's value system.
Play Stage
The second stage of Mead's theory where children pretend to play a role of a significant other. Example: firefighter, princess, doctor.
Role
The set of behaviors expected of someone because of their status.
Values
The set of shared beliefs that a group of people consider to be the worthwhile or desirable in life, what is good or bad, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly.
Cultural Diffusion
The sharing of material and nonmaterial culture from one culture to the next.
Family
The single most significant agent of socialization. Orginal group to which we belong, early emotional and social bonds are created, where langauge is learned, and where we first begin to internalize the norms and values of society.
Role Strain
The tension experienced when there are contradictory expectations within one role.
Game Stage
The third step in Mead's theory where children play organized games and take perspective of the generalized other. Children begin to understand the standards common to a social group.
Dominant Culture
The values, norms, and practices of a group within a society that is most powerful. Wealth, prestige, status, influence. Mainstream.
Expressions of Behavior
Tools used to project our definition of the situation to others. An eye roll in class to a friend to signal the class is boring.
Ethnocentrism
Using own culture as a kind of measuring stick with which to judge other individuals or societies; anyone outside the group seems "off-centered." The principle of using ones own culture as means of standard by which to evaluate another group.
Hidden Curriculum
Values or behaviors that students learn indirectly over the course of their schooling because of the structure of the educational system and the teaching methods. Examples: neatness, competitiveness, hard work, obedience.
Cultural Leveling
When cultures that were once distinct become increasingly similar to one another.
Total Institutions
Where individuals are cut off from the rest of society so that their lives can be controlled and regulated for the purpose of systematically stipping away previously roles and identities in order to create new ones. Examples: prisons, cults, mental hospitals.
Coprsence
face to face interaction or being in the presence of others.
Agency
the ability of the individual to act freely and independently.
Subculture
A group within society that is differentiated by its distinctive values, norms, and lifestyle. A culture within a culture. White sox fans, greyhound owners, firefighters.
Folkway
A loosely enforced norm involving common customs, practices, or procedures that ensure smooth social interaction and acceptance.
Taboo
A norm ingrained so deeply that even thinking about violating it evokes strong feelings of disgust , horror, or revulsions.
More
A norm that carries great moral significance, is closely related to the core values of a cultural group, and often involves severe repercussions for violators.
Multiculturalism
A policy that values diverse, racial, ethnic, national, and linguistic backgrounds.
Saturated Self
A post modern idea that the self is now developed by multiple influences chosen from a wide range of media resources.
Embodied Status
A status generated by physical characteristics. Beauty or disability.
Signs
A symbol that stands for or conveys an idea. Traffic light, price tag, sheet of music, or product logo are something designated to mean something else. Convey information.
Language
A system of communication using vocal sounds, gestures, or written symbols. The basis of symbolic culture and the primary means through which we communicate with one another and perpetrate our culture.
Dramaturgy
All meaning Goffman believes as well as our individual self is constructed through interaction. Social life is analyzed in terms of its similarities to theatrical performances.
Master Status
Always relevant and affects all other statuses we posses.
Definition of the Situation
An agreement with others about what is going on in a given circumstance. Allows us to coordinate our actions with those of others and realize goals.
Ascribed Status
An inborn status. Usually difficult or impossible to change. Gender or race.
Material Culture
Any physical object associated with a cultural group. Tools, machines, utensils, buildings, and artwork. Any physical object to which we give social meaning. Any physical thing that people make, create, or appreciate.
Nature
Behavioral traits can be explained by genetics.