College Sociology: Test #1 Study Guide

Theorists of ________, such as Auguste Comte and Émile Durkheim, compared societies to the workings of a human body.

Functionalism

Janice thinks that sociology should be a science used to bring about radical social change, with particular emphasis on power and ideology. Her position most closely aligns with which theoretical perspective?

Marxism

Laud Humphreys's studies on tearooms were controversial because he

Used deception in his research

______ refer(s) to abstract ideals in a given society.

Values

________ coined the term double consciousness to refer to the African American experience.

W. E. B. Du Bois

Sangeeta argues that African Americans often see themselves through the eyes of white society. Her ideas most closely match with those of which theorist?

W. E.B. Du Bois

Society, according to Karl Marx, was

primarily divided by social class.

A brother and a sister enrolled in a large chemistry class would be considered a(n)

primary group.

Tanya has recently been appointed CEO of a corporation that specializes in computer software. The corporation has made a substantial profit since she joined due to her emphasizing the importance of deadlines and sales goals to her software design team. Tanya is best described as what type of leader?

transactional

A key difference between functionalism and conflict theory is

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Chapter 2:

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Chapter 5:

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Chapter 6:

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In America, obesity has emerged as a major public health concern. How might a sociologist using the "sociological imagination" examine obesity among teenagers?

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Sociology was founded by thinkers who sought to understand the initial impact of transformations that accompanied

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Which of the following is the BEST example of deviant behavior?

A middle-aged man wears jeans to a black-tie wedding.

Identify which of the following research methods is qualitative.

An observer takes notes on the nonverbal behavior of members of a focus group for a car commercials.

What is a characteristic of fixed-choice questions?

Answers are easier to compare than answers to open-ended questions.

Scholars have argued that immigrant groups like the Irish and Italians were initially considered a race apart from native-born Anglo-Saxon white Americans. However, over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Irish and Italian immigrants managed to become part of dominant white culture. This historical context reveals how different cultures are absorbed into a single mainstream culture, a process also known as

Assimilation

The widespread participation of people from various backgrounds in the Black Lives Matter movement might challenge which idea of Robert Putnam's discussion of the decline of social capital?

Civic participation is declining.

Sweta studies how Britain came to control large parts of India before the Indian independence movement. It could be said that she is studying

Colonialism

Why do sociologists think it is important to understand why people tend to conform to group pressure?

Conformity can lead to destructive behavior.

Jenna and her family lose their home because her parents can no longer pay the mortgage during a time of economic crisis when foreclosures have become a common feature of her country. Jenna would be using a sociological imagination to think about this if she were to

Consider why her society allows people to be thrown out of their homes.

When Yale administrators cautioned students to be thoughtful and sensitive in their choice of Halloween costume, their concern was that cultural elements used in some costumes can reduce cultural groups to demeaning stereotypes. This concern is about the issue of

Cultural appropriation

Simone de Beauvoir once famously asserted that "one is not born a woman, but becomes one," to suggest that women are created by cultural forces. How might sociobiologists respond to this?

De Beauvoir misses that what constitutes a woman is biological as well as cultural.

________ is when the research study ends, and the investigator discusses with the subjects their concerns and acknowledges whether strategies such as deception were used.

Debriefing

Lucinda hears about the common practice among Nordic parents of leaving babies in their strollers outside of restaurants and shops. Although this is an accepted practice in Nordic society, Lucinda concludes that Nordic parents are neglectful and that this behavior should lead to arrest. Lucinda is engaging in

Ethnocentrism

Shannon notes that women in some cultures voluntarily alter their bodies with sometimes painful piercings that, in her opinion, look weird. Based on this, Shannon decides that women in those cultures must be horribly oppressed compared with women in her own culture. Shannon's position might be best interpreted as

Ethnocentrism

Michelle has spent the past year among a subculture of twenty somethings who all listen to the same kind of music. She spends time with them, participates in their events, and observes their interactions and behaviors. All the while, she records what she witnesses in her field notebook. What kind of sociological research best describes what Michelle is doing?

Ethnography

Sociologists who use ________ as a theoretical perspective argues that women's lives and experiences are central to the study of society.

Feminiest theory

Maynard believes that studying women's experiences is key to understanding modern Russia. According to the textbook, his beliefs most closely align with which theoretical perspective?

Feminist theory

Pierre prefers to think of institutions and human activities by analyzing the relationship of each individual part as it relates to the whole. His way of thinking most closely resembles which theoretical perspective?

Functionalism

When Juan drinks his morning coffee, he thinks about its production in Colombia, its transportation through many countries, the taxes and tariffs applied for international commerce, and the diverse array of social relations behind his drink. According to the textbook, one might say that Juan is using a ________ perspective.

Global

The ideas of Karl Marx might be criticized for what reason?

His focus on class conflict risked minimizing or ignoring other social divisions, such as those around race & gender.

Johann is from the United Kingdom. He sees that women in Afghanistan are often expected to wear head scarves, but women in the United Kingdom are not. He concludes, then, that women in Afghanistan would be freer if their culture were more like that of the United Kingdom. How might sociologists likely critique Johann's position?

Johann would be better served as a social scientist if he avoided those kinds of value judgments.

______ is one of the best examples for demonstrating both the unity and the diversity of human culture, because there are no cultures without it.

Language

Ana is studying the ways different societies socially sanction and formally approve of certain sexual relationships. As she studies this in each society, she will come across

Marriage

Abbey studies how people negotiate personal space when they speak to each other in person by closely observing their behaviors. Her study is an example of

Microsociology

The study of everyday behavior in situations of face-to-face interaction is usually called

Microsociology

At the height of the most developed traditional civilizations, such as ancient Rome or preindustrial China,

Most people engaged in food production

Tori's father loses his job during a time of economic crisis when many people are losing their jobs. Her mother is a skilled daycare worker with years of experience, but like many daycare workers, she cannot find any jobs that pay well. Sociologists would likely see the struggle of Tori's parents as

NOT: A personal trouble

Which question about the transformations that accompanied industrialization in West would a sociologist be MOST likely to explore?

NOT: Which marriage ideals preceded the romantic love ideals, and why did the shift occur?

Identify which of the following contributes to the globalization of culture.

NOT: growing respect and recognition for regional dialects and languages

We might identify one of the latent functions of public schools as

NOT: training children to obey authority & grow up to become obedient workers Maybe: teaching children skills required to function in society

Kendrick studies which human behaviors might be innate and which might be learned through social processes. His studies contribute most to which sociological debate?

Nature vs. Nurture

_______ are widely agreed-upon principles or rules people are expected to observe; they represent the dos and don'ts of social life.

Norms

Which statement best describes the character of the Internet in its earliest years?

Only an elite few individuals with special skills and resources had access.

Societies whose subsistence derives from the rearing of domesticated animals are called ________ societies.

Pastoral

Sociologists recognize that "personal" troubles, if occurring in patterned ways and to large numbers of individuals, reflect

Public issues

Alice stole a bit of money from her friend Rosa to buy groceries. Rosa finds out and angrily chastises Alice for her behavior. What does this exchange demonstrate?

Social Control

Following C. Wright Mills, sociologists refer to breaking free from the immediacy of personal circumstances and putting things in a wider social context as the

Sociological imagination

Elise collects data on homeless people in New York City by widely distributing structured questionnaires. What kind of sociological research best describes what she is doing?

Survey research

Mohammed believes that studies of human behavior should focus primarily on how we construct meaning through abstract representations. His position is closest to which theoretical perspective?

Symbolic Interactionism

According to the textbook, George Herbert Mead reasoned that language allows us to become self-conscious beings—aware of our own individuality. This idea forms the basis of the theoretical perspective known as

Symbolic interactionism

In the 1980s and 1990s, the media covered crack cocaine use in a way that portrayed Black, inner-city youth in a bad light, which may well have resulted in harsh and excessive penalties among a population that now is struggling to become a stable part of American life. In contrast, use of the drug ecstasy, which until recently has been associated with a more white, middle-class population, has not led to such a media frenzy. Both crack and ecstasy are illegal drugs with some negative side effects, so why might the media focus on crack cocaine and not on ecstasy?

The common perception is that most crime is committed by poor, urban, ethnic minorities.

John Meyer and Brian Rowan argue that in organizations officially governed by formal rules and procedures, much of the work is usually done with minimal regard to the rules. What, then, is the role of rules in organizations, according to Meyer and Rowan?

The rules serve to legitimize the work being done.

According to the textbook, ________ involve(s) constructing abstract interpretations that can be used to explain a wide variety of situations.

Theories

There was an overall drop in crime rate in the 1990s in the United States. How might sociologists explain this change?

There is no single explanation that explains this change.

Carolina studies mainstream American culture. One of her colleagues notices that she consistently ignores material objects, such as food, clothing, and art. Why might her studies be criticized?

These objects are crucial parts of culture that influence how we live our lives.

Marxist and feminist theory often have different objects of study. Why are they both considered conflict theories?

They both focus on the role of power in shaping society.

Identify which of the following examples illustrates bonding social capital.

a neighborhood association

The group a person uses to measure their individual social worth is called

a reference group.

In his book Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys(2011), sociologist Victor Rios questions whether

aggressive policing in inner-city neighborhoods actually decreases crime.

During rush week, the brothers of the Alpha Gamma Gamma fraternity always make fun of their rival fraternity, Lambda Lambda Lambda. This teasing increases the bonding and sense of loyalty among Alpha Gamma Gamma members. Such camaraderie suggests they are members of

an in-group.

A large group of people who engage in collective action to achieve a common purpose is called

an organization.

The Internet helps users start new relationships that are, oftentimes, free of the emotional and social baggage of face-to-face encounters because online relationships

are often built on common interests rather than social characteristics.

Max Weber argued that ______ is necessary in modern societies.

bureaucracy

In The New Jim Crow, legal scholar Michelle Alexander (2012) argues that mass incarceration has created a(n) _____ system in the United States.

caste

Every Sunday, Janet, Laney, and Harris get together for lunch, and Janet usually decides which restaurant the group will eat at. However, one Sunday, Laney and Harris told Janet they wanted to try a new restaurant in town. Laney and Harris formed a

coalition or alliance.

In December 2012, HSBC, a European bank operating within the United States, was found to be involved in money laundering and terrorist financing on a very large scale. The bank was charged fines amounting to approximately a month's worth of profits, but not a single person in the organization served any time in prison. Meanwhile, the prosecution of street crime has resulted in the highest per-capita incarceration rate in the world. Which theory of deviance provides the best tools for understanding these facts?

conflict theory

The tobacco industry has been closely scrutinized in regard to its advertising practices, which many critics claim are deceptive. The U.S. surgeon general published a report in 1964 that clearly outlined the health dangers, but despite this report, the tobacco industry continues to market tobacco products. In 2014, fifty years after the report, the industry agreed to publicly state that the advertising campaigns had lied. Taken together, this could be understood as a protracted case of __________ crime.

corporate

According to the textbook, a key difference between subcultures and countercultures is that

countercultures reject the values and norms of dominant society.

The Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) may inadvertently support the idea that

crime is mostly an activity of ethnic minorities and the poor.

In a(n) ________, the sociologist works or lives with members of a group, organization, or community and perhaps participates directly in its activities as part of the research process.

ethnographic study

The research performed by Solomon Asch where he asked groups of participants to identify which lines were of equal length illustrated that

even if it makes them feel uncomfortable, many people are willing to discount their own perceptions rather than go against group consensus.

Latisha believes that sociologists need to look at both how our institutions were intended to work and the unintentional effects of those institutions. According to the textbook, this is a major part of which theoretical perspective?

functionalism

What is the concept that sociologists use to understand the economic, political, and social interconnectedness of individuals throughout the world?

globalization

Groupthink takes place when

group members ignore the actions, plans, or ideas that go against group consensus.

Margaret and Lilly got divorced after three years of marriage and both established new relationships. Their divorce shows how fragile dyads are as social groups because

if one person leaves, the group disappears.

Jamison spends most of his time at school and work, which leaves him with little time to socialize with family and friends. Lately, he has been feeling socially isolated because he

is interacting mostly with large and impersonal secondary groups.

Max Weber was the first to develop a systematic interpretation of

modern organizations.

Social deviance is a breach of _____; crime is a breach of _____.

norms; laws

At the Symantec Corporation, the CEO, the president, and the vice president make a majority of company decisions. As such, little decision-making power is given to upper-level managers or other employees. This type of concentration of power among a few people in an organization is called

oligarchy.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter's work on the imbalance of gender roles within modern organizations suggests that

organizations have developed in an unequal, gendered way.

Society is made up of numerous groups whose members come from diverse backgrounds. Such wide varieties of group types and our memberships in multiple groups reflect

our desire to come together with others and belong.

A new group has recently emerged, calling itself the "True Americans." The group's activities show the members' disdain and prejudicial attitudes toward recent immigrants to the United States. "True Americans" members would consider recent immigrants as a(n)

out-group.

Which of the following is a social aggregate?

people waiting at Terminal C for Flight 205

Black Lives Matter, a recent political movement that has drawn attention to a series of violent encounters between police and citizens of African American communities, is a good example of a __________ subculture.

political

When a group of people shares a common identity and members regularly interact with one another, sociologists refer to this group as a

social group.

Women began entering the workforce in larger numbers in the United States until it eventually became normal, altering women's structural place in society. This is an example of

structuration.

Parents living in Boston noticed that many of their adolescent children regularly became distressed in early September. Based on what you know about adolescent suicides in the United States and Japan, sociologists might attempt to understand this phenomenon by looking into what?

students' experiences with bullying

One criticism of formal organizations is that they

take away our sense of control by putting officials or experts in charge.

People in modern societies depend on organizations to

take care of nearly all aspects of social life.

Although recent studies have suggested that violence in crime is not exclusively a male characteristic, it is generally agreed that women rarely engage in violent crime and are more prone to engage in less serious offenses, such as shoplifting or prostitution. This can be understood as the result of

the fundamental differences in socialization between men and women.

The "McDonaldization" of society refers to

the increased uniformity and rationality of society.

Anthropological linguist Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Lee Whorf argued that the language we use influences our perceptions of the world. This is known as

the linguistic relativity hypothesis.

If the language of a highly individualistic society contains many words and phrases about personal success and individual achievement that someone from a more communal society has difficulty fully understanding, this is an example of

the linguistic relativity hypothesis.

Triads are usually more stable than dyads because

the third person relieves some of the pressures on the other two.

Writing was first used for what purpose?

to assist in the administrative needs of early civilizations

A latte from Starbucks will taste the same whether one purchases it in New York City or Albuquerque, New Mexico. Which aspect of George Ritzer's theory of McDonaldization does this demonstrate?

uniformity