SOCO 101 - Ch 3

In 2005 the Northwestern University women's lacrosse team won an NCAA championship and was invited to the White House to receive congratulations from the president. Controversy erupted after their visit, when the official photograph revealed that several team members were wearing flip-flops. Despite the outcry, the athletes took the criticism in stride, talking about it on The Today Show and auctioning the offending footwear for charity. Given the reaction and the team's response, what kind of norm did the athletes break by wearing flip-flops to the White House?

A folkway

How are norms enforced in everyday settings?

By sanctions

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was an activist organization in the 1960s that protested the Vietnam War, racial injustice, and economic exploitation. For the most part, the organization favored direct action and protest, most of which opposed traditional organizing and politics; instead, it sought a radically new form of social organization. Based on this information, you could say that members of SDS were part of a:

Counterculture

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.

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

Culture wars

Who were the two anthropologists who studied the Hopi of the southwestern United States and concluded that language not only expresses our thoughts but also shapes the way we think?

Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf

What is the sociological term for signs people make with their bodies?

Gestures

When the dominant culture succeeds in imposing its values and ideas on all of society, this is known as:

Hegemony

Which of the following groups is a subculture?

Horseback riders

Which of the following is one of the functions of symbolic culture?

It enables people to communicate

The slogan "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" is an example of:

Moral Holiday

Which term describes a policy of honoring diverse racial, ethnic, religious, linguistic, and national backgrounds?

Multiculturalism

How is the study of culture different for sociologists than for anthropologists?

Sociologists usually study a culture to which they belong.

In many Middle Eastern countries, showing someone the bottom of your foot or shoe is considered very rude, so American military personnel stationed in the Middle East are instructed to keep their feet inside helicopters when flying low. Why is this instruction needed?

The meaning of gestures is not universal

Although many people believe that expectations for personal space (usually about eighteen inches for Americans) are innate, members of many cultures are accustomed to noticeably less personal space than we are. This helps demonstrate that people's expectations for personal space are:

a part of our culture and as such are learned rather than innate

Marginalized groups in American society—such as street punks and skateboarders—often engage in activities that offend or annoy some people. One of the reasons people get so annoyed is that members of these groups don't seem to care that they're the subjects of disapproval. In other words, they:

a. don't seem to care about negative sanctions.

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

dominant culture

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.

In the United States of America, a married man who has several mistresses is violating a ________, but if he is married to more than one woman at the same time, he is violating a ________.

more; law

As a way of facilitating social change, tweets and hashtags are a new social phenomenon in which people are able to use social media in an effort to:

organize and protest political policies.