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.