Sociology Quizzes for Test 1

When people negatively judge people who use non-standard English accents, they are demonstrating what kind of power inequality?

Cultural

Questions that look at society at the "micro" level include questions like:

Do doctors talk to patients of different races differently?

____ refers to the "two-ness" that arises from being American and black, a sense which affects many African-Americans, according to W.E.B. Du Bois.

Double consciousness

According to his criteria, Karl Popper would call sociology a pseudoscience.

False

Max Weber was optimistic about the future and saw rationalization and bureaucratization as a solution to all our social problems.

False

The roles and expectations of different genders are fairly consistent across different cultures and across time.

False

Sociologists define "society" as ____.

a group of people who share a culture and territory

Surveys research relies on samples, which are ____.

a smaller group that is representative of the larger population

W.E.B. Dubois helped redefine how sociologists study race. Today, sociologists define race as ____.

a socially constructed category of people, who share biological traits that society has deemed important

A hypothesis is ____.

a statement of a possible relationship between two variables

Durkheim saw society as a(n) ____.

an organism, with parts that served different functions

When an individual is confused and/or unsure of the social norms to follow, they fit with Durkheim's definition of experiencing ____.

anomie

Gender conflict theory ____.

applies the general concepts of conflict theory to gender relations

For sociologists, sex and gender have distinct meanings. Sex is ____, while gender is ____.

biological distinctions between male and female; personality traits and social roles that are socially defined

Durkheim defined "social facts" as ____.

broad patterns of behavior that are external to the individual, but shape every individual's behavior

When Max Weber argued that a modern bureaucracy is defined by being "impersonal," he meant that ____.

bureaucrats follow the established rules impartially, regardless of your individual personal characteristics

According to Max Weber, rationalization involved ____.

calculability, methodical behavior, and reflexivity

The Hawthorne effect illustrates what limitation of positive sociology?

People may change their behavior if they know they're being observed.

A key dilemma for Marxist theory is how the bourgesoisie (the capitalist class) manages to stay in power, since Marx argues that the workers (who are the majority) should rise up against the capitalists (who are a minority). The Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci developed the concept of "hegemony" to suggest that ____.

capitalism is supported by a dominant, all-pervasive cultural set of ideas that legitimizes the capitalist system

The main emphasis of Karl Marx was to understand how social change was driven by ___.

changes in material conditions, such as the economy

Unlike Karl Marx, Max Weber argued that the transition from traditional to modern society was ____.

changes in the way we think about the world

According to Max Weber, the three components of social stratification are ____.

class, power, and status

The collection of all beliefs, morals, and ideas that are the "social facts" in a given society is known as ____.

collective consciousness

In sociology, Marx is a founder of the conflict theory perspective because he saw society as defined by ____.

conflict between those who benefited from the relations of production (the rich) and those who were exploited (the poor)

The type of sociological inquiry that focuses on the need for social change ____.

critical sociology

According to Karl Popper, science (unlike pseudoscience) is based on ____.

falsification, testing hypothesis in ways that allow them to be refuted

Theoretical paradigms are ____.

fundamental assumptions sociologists have about the social world that guide their thinking and research

Karl Marx believed that, over time, the situation of capitalism would ____.

get worse as inequality and periodic economic crises would lead to overthrowing the system, just as capitalism had replaced feudalism

The "first wave" of feminism (late 1800s and early 1900s) focused on ____.

granting women the right to vote and legal equality, such as the right to own property or become lawyers

Marx emphasized different elements of production (the economy). The "relations of production" include ____.

how people organize themselves around labor

Joe, a sociologist, believes that (on average) as an individual's educational attainment rises, so does his or her income. This is an example of a ____.

hypothesis

The type of analysis that starts with empirical observations, finds patterns, and develops theories to explain those patterns is based on ____.

inductive logical thought

If a sociologist is doing research based on face-to-face interviews trying to understanding how people understand their lived experiences, he/she is doing ____.

interpretive sociology

The type of sociological inquiry that focuses on the meanings that people attach to their social world is ____.

interpretive sociology

According to the concept of ____ we can't understand the plight of a black woman based on race alone; we must focus also on other factors, such as gender, age, and occupation.

intersectionality

According to Durkheim, crime ____.

is not a social dysfunction, since every society has some amount of crime

Christmas is a "social fact" in the US because ____.

it shapes our behavior, such as gift-buying, even if we aren't particularly religious ourselves or don't want to participate in gift exchanges

The major cause of suicide, according to Durkheim, was ____.

lack of social integration due to rapid modernization

Sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva argued that structural racism is more important than individual racism ("racism without racists") because while people are less likely to (openly) say racist things, ____.

many existing institutions continue to disadvantage African-Americans and other minorities, often as a result of historical legacies

A sociologist using economic statistics to try to understand and explain the income distribution in America is doing ____.

mathematical sociology

A researcher who is studying issues within a local school district realizes that these problems are occurring in school districts across the United States. This researcher is connecting ____ to ____ social phenomena.

micro; macro

Durkheim was concerned with macro-level phenomena, such as the educational system, which he referred to as ____.

social facts

An underlying assumption in conflict theory is that ____.

society is composed of different groups who struggle for scarce resources

The ability to see how individuals and their behaviors make up part of a larger social pattern is ____.

sociological imagination

Like Karl Marx, Max Weber thought society was stratified. But in addition to economic class, Weber also emphasized ____.

status groups defined by "social honor"

Durkheim is a founding figure of what sociological paradigm?

structural-functionalism

Sociologists who use the ___ theoretical framework would focus on how the different districts are necessary and essential components of Panem's society in The Hunger Games.

structural-functionalism

The theoretical paradigm most closely associated with the macro scale is ____.

structural-functionalism

The theoretical paradigm that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote stability and social order is ____.

structural-functionalism

People who describe themselves as "feminists" ____.

support social equality among genders

The theoretical paradigm that sees society as a product of everyday interactions that create society's "shared reality" is ____.

symbolic interactionism

According to Karl Popper, the important distinction between Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud was ____.

that Einstein was looking ahead to make predictions about future events

In 1896, Dubois began the first major study of the African-American community in the US. His study of the economically-mixed 7th ward of Philadelphia found that ____.

the African-American population tended to be younger, less well educated, and poorer than the white population

Sociology emerged in the late 1800s as Europe and the US were going through rapid social changes brought on by ____.

the French Revolution

Sociology was founded in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when the study of ____ became a special focus of attention.

the Industrial Revolution

According to Max Weber, the most important event for modernization and the rise of capitalism was ____.

the Protestant Reformation

Durkheim analyzed the social changes transforming society in his lifetime in terms of ____.

the division of labor

A key concept in sociology is social location, defined as ____.

the position an individual has in the social hierarchy

One of Dubois' key ideas is the concept of "double consciousness," defined as ____.

the reality that black Americans have two competing identities: as an American an as a black person living in white-centric America (as an "other")

The "second wave" of feminism (1960s and 1970s) focused on ____.

the role of women in the labor force, equal pay, reproductive rights, sexual violence, educational equality

The philosophy known as "positivism" assumes that ____.

the social world can be studied through direct observation to develop theories about how the world works

Marx emphasized different elements of production (the economy). The "forces of production" include ____.

the technical, scientific, and material parts of the economy

If I say that I observe a correlation between two variables, I mean that ____.

the two variables move together

According to Marx, an underlying criticism of capitalism as a mode of production is that ____.

the wages paid to workers is always lower than the value of the goods and services they produce

Sociology is defined as the study of ____.

the way people are influenced by groups

Karl Marx defined social classes by ____.

their place within the relations of production

The measures of a variable are valid if ____.

they reflect the underlying concept you're trying to measure

An important first step in developing a research question is ____.

to clearly define the major concepts

The main focus of sociology is ____.

to study how people affect and are affected by social structures and social processes

According to Max Weber, there are three different types of authority, which vary by ____.

what makes the authority legitimate

Which of the following figures is NOT associated with conflict theory?

Émile Durkheim

___ sees Panem (the fictional society in The Hunger Games) as held together by coercion, as The Capitol exploits the districts for their resources, but keeps most of the economic benefits for itself.

Conflict Theory

How is sociology different from commonsense understandings of the social world?

Sociology is systematic and rigorous; common sense is not.

An example of participant observation would be ____.

Mary, a researcher, who visits a first-grade classroom to conduct a study on teacher-student interactions and plays an active role in the study

Which of the following is NOT a part of the scientific method?

Seek to confirm previously held beliefs or "prove" a particular conclusion

____ involves the ability to look at the social world from different perspectives.

Sociological imagination

According to Marx, what is the underlying foundation of any society?

The economy

____ are sets of interrelated ideas that have a wide range of applications, deal with centrally important issues, and have stood the test of time.

Theories

What do ethnic minorities, religious minorities, and LGBTQ people have in common?

They stand outside the center of power in our society and are marginalized.

According to Max Weber, the Protestant Reformation changed people's beliefs about their relationship to God and salvation. How did one demonstrate "proof of election" (salvation) in the modern world?

Through material success by accumulating as much wealth as possible

A statement that is said to be irrefutable or that cannot be tested is NOT a scientific theory.

True

Defining a variable and explaining how it is measured is known as ____.

operationalization

According to Marx, humans need society in order to survive and prosper in the natural world. But society tends to be organized in ways that ____.

produce economic inequalities

Sociologists use the concept of "intersectionality" to understand how ____.

racial, gender, and socioeconomic class inequalities interact and can reinforce each other

The type of authority that is most often associated with bureaucracy is ____.

rational-legal

Based on his study of African-Americans in Philadelphia, Dubois concluded that the problems facing African-Americans were caused by ____.

restricted access to education and higher paying jobs

According to Karl Popper, good science relies on the principle of falsification. This means that ____.

scientific theories must be stated in such a way that make explicit what facts would disprove them

If you were going to use scientific methods to determine whether Santa Claus is real, you should ____.

seek to find evidence that he does not exist

Scientific thinking requires that if you discover evidence that contradicts a previously held belief or assumption, then you ____.

should be willing to revise your beliefs

Race-conflict theory tends to assume that ____.

social and economic inequalities between different races is a defining feature of a society