chapter 4 Sociology

How does our current age of Internet communication complicate Goffman's concepts of focused and unfocused interaction?

In online interactions, people generally have more control over how they are perceived than people engaging in face-to-face interactions.

Identify which of the following social interactions is focused.

Someone repairing a machine gives instructions to an assistant.

How do microanalysis and microanalysis intersect when male construction workers direct catcalls at female pedestrians passing a job site?

The conversation is a micro-level event, but the gender dynamic is a macro-level phenomenon.

According to urban sociologist Jeffrey Lane in The Digital Street, what was problematic about the use of social media among teenagers in Harlem?

The possibility of a fake page created trust issues among boys and girls.

During a dinner at a fancy restaurant, a young woman knocks over a glass of water as she reaches for the salt. As the water soaks the tablecloth she exclaims, "Oops, sorry!" This is an example of

a response cry.

Harold Garfinkel asked his students to engage a friend or relative in conversation and to insist that casual remarks or general comments be actively pursued to make their meaning precise. The students were asked to engage in what Garfinkel calls

a search procedure.

An example of audience segregation is

a student asking their parent not to chaperone on a class trip.

Interactional vandalism is defined as

a subordinate person breaking the tacit rules of interaction.

According to the definition in your textbook, identify the scenario that would be considered trolling.

a visitor to a Mac users online technical support forum intentionally posting wrong answers to other users' questions

Civil inattention is defined as

acknowledging the presence of others but avoiding interaction.

Jane sent her boss an email suggesting that they have a performance review to see whether she was ready for a raise. Her boss replied in an email that Jane was out of line and that she would give her a performance review at the same time as other employees. Face-to-face communication may have helped Jane avoid upsetting her boss by

allowing her to evaluate her boss's body language before suggesting she was ready for a raise.

Whites in the United States have been known to look intently at Black people walking past. This staring behavior is most likely

an indication of hostile intent.

Encounters always need _______, which indicates that civil inattention is being discarded and focused interaction will begin.

an opening

According to research cited in your textbook, Asians are more likely than persons from Europe or the United States to regard a person who makes eye contact as

angry or unapproachable.

According to the research by Paul Ekman and W. V. Friesen, who developed the Facial Action Coding System, the modes of human emotional expression

are similar across cultures.

According to Charles Darwin, basic human emotional expressions

are the same in all human beings.

People engage in _______ to reconcile their role in one part of life with their role in another part of their social world.

audience segregation

While grocery shopping, you run into your sociology professor. This creates an awkward interaction because you are not used to seeing her outside of class and you are not sure how to behave. The interaction is awkward because it violated (your)

audience segregation.

A teacher might be quite formal in the classroom but use profanity or substandard speech in the teacher's lounge. According to Erving Goffman, if students are the "audience," then the teacher's lounge would be the teacher's

back region.

According to Harold Garfinkel, people use

background expectancies

Two people are standing together in an elevator, but they do not speak to each other or look each other in the eye. Erving Goffman called this type of interaction

civil inattention.

In modern societies, large-scale social institutions are organized by , which allows for the precise timing of activities.

clock time

Sociologists Deirdre Boden and Harvey Molotch argue that even with the growth of electronic communication, such as text messaging and email, people have a strong need to interact in each other's presence. They call this concept

compulsion of proximity.

Which expression comes closest to being a synonym for "ethnomethodology"?

conversational norms

For what social function are clocks essential?

coordinating the activities of workers over time and across large distances

Elijah Anderson observed and described places where people from different backgrounds got along, as opposed to places where they experienced tense or uncomfortable interactions. As a result of these observations, Anderson coined the term

cosmopolitan canopy.

Social positions can be both general and specific. Which of the following is an example of a specific social position in American society?

doctor

According to Elijah Anderson, Reading Terminal is a place where diverse groups can come together peacefully because the people who go there are "cosmos" (shorthand for cosmopolitan). According to his observations and interpretations, the dynamic that is largely missing from Reading Terminal is

ethnocentrism.

Unfocused interaction is when people

exhibit mutual awareness but do not engage in face-to-face interaction.

When Jane arrived at the party, her friend Alyssa came over immediately to say hello. According to Erving Goffman, this is an example of

focused interaction.

Edward T. Hall identifies how many zones for personal space?

four

A student might sit upright in the classroom but engage in "sloppy sitting" in the cafeteria at lunch time. According to Erving Goffman, if the "audience" is the teacher, then the classroom would be the student's

front region.

Alexa, a virtual personal assistant, is an example of

how artificial intelligence has allowed human-nonhuman interaction to become more and more sophisticated.

Ethnomethodology is the study of

how people make sense of what others say and do in social interactions.

According to Erving Goffman, reality is neither fixed nor static but created through

human interactions.

Trevor takes the subway to and from work. He usually wears his headphones and listens to his music on the subway. He is careful not to bump shoulders with the passengers next to him when he is standing on the crowded train. Trevor engages in ______ on the subway.

impression management

If a CEO wears a suit and tie to a board meeting and later in the day changes into jeans and a T-shirt to attend a football event with friends, he is engaging in

impression management.

Maria's friend posted an unflattering and unprofessional picture of her on Facebook. Maria was embarrassed and quickly took it down because she is friends with many of her coworkers on Facebook. This is an example of

impression management.

Wearing a new dress on a first date is an example of

impression management.

Before the Internet and smartphones became standard features of most people's lives in the United States, people mainly relied on phone calls or letters to exchange information with friends, dating partners, and business associates. This earlier context of communication lacked

instantaneousness.

Suppose an employee of a large corporation feels that she is being treated unfairly by the firm but needs the income and does not want her supervisors to be angry with her. To draw negative attention to the firm without risking her own job, she writes a weekly blog harshly criticizing her employers and revealing unflattering information about the firm. This is an example of

interactional vandalism.

According to Edward T. Hall, which zone of personal space is only acceptable during an encounter with your spouse or romantic partner?

intimate distance

According to the textbook, interactional vandalism is likely to have the effect of

leaving victims disoriented.

Dr. Williams studies police and community relations in New York City. She concludes that negative police interactions with black youth are an expression of institutional and structural racism. Which type of analysis did Dr. Williams use?

micro-level and macro-level analysis

In the book Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community (1990), Elijah Anderson noted that studying everyday life sheds light on how social order is created by the building blocks of

micro-level interactions.

Sociologist Carol Brooks Gardner linked the face-to-face interactions of women being harassed by men to the larger social system of male privilege in public spaces, women's physical vulnerability, and the omnipresent threat of rape. Her analysis of these interactions shows the importance of linking _______ and _______ to understand social interaction.

microsociology; macrosociology

According to urban sociologist Jeffrey Lane's The Digital Street, in Harlem, girls were

more visible and in control online than boys.

Gestures and body postures that are an important part of nonverbal communication are

neither universal nor the same in all cultures.

The exchange of information about human emotion through facial expressions, gestures, and movements of the body is called

nonverbal communication.

According to Erving Goffman, social interaction is like

performing a play in a theater.

An example of ______ is when humans endow nonhumans with human capacities, making them viable others in social interaction.

projection

A young woman sleeps from midnight to 5 AM in her apartment bedroom, eats breakfast in her kitchen from 6 to 6:30 AM, works in her law office from 8:30 AM to 5 PM, has dinner with her friends from 5:30 to 7:30 PM, and then returns to her apartment to watch TV. This scenario illustrates the sociological concept of

regionalization.

Erving Goffman noted that people can present themselves as more tidy and formal by keeping front and guest-accessible rooms clean and nicely furnished. Today, people can use privacy settings on social media sites to limit who can see their posted content. People may also use social media to maintain close friendships with people in other parts of the world. All three of these are examples of

regionalization.

Another term for status is

social position.

You may be a sibling, a spouse, a student, an employee, and a parent. These are called

social positions.

Arrive to class on time, raise your hand before speaking, turn in assignments on time—these expectations are part of the ______ of students.

social role

Socially defined expectations of a person in a given social position are referred to as

social roles.

The social positions that a person occupies determine that person's

social roles.

Our actions throughout the day are generally organized according to both the time of day and

space

As a medical doctor, Enrique has the privilege of being called Dr. Chavez. This is because our society

status

What do sociologists call the social prestige (high or low) that society accords to a group of people?

status

One difficulty with applying Edward T. Hall's theories of nonverbal communication, including his definition of personal space, is

that cultural differences play a major role in defining nonverbal communication like personal space.

What is the definition of agency?

the capacity to perceive reality and form opinions

Lenhart's 2015 study showed that the majority of teens had made new friends through online communication. This ability to establish new relationships without the benefit of face-to-face interaction challenges what Boden and Molotch (1994) called

the compulsion of proximity.

To understand a conversation, we need to understand _______, which is why electronic communication, such as email or text messaging, can lead to miscommunication.

the social context

Katrina, who is sixteen years old, would consider it rude for someone to read a book during a conversation. However, she thinks that someone reading and responding to messages on his or her phone is socially acceptable. One reason that young people may find nothing wrong with answering texts during a conversation is that

they believe online interaction can enhance face-to-face interaction, especially if one is looking up information relevant to the conversation.

Social life is divided into different settings or zones. These social zones, such as a kitchen and a bedroom, are separated physically but also by

time

Throughout our day we alternate our activities and where they take place according to what sociologists call

time-space.

An example of interactional vandalism in an online setting can be

users who intentionally post inappropriate comments to provoke an emotional response.

According to Erving Goffman, one of the reasons it is important to study subtle day-to-day interactions is because

we can learn a great deal about ourselves as social beings.

Social positions can be both general and specific. Which of the following is an example of a general social position in American society?

woman

The sociologist who contributed to the field of microsociology and emphasized the importance of understanding the seemingly trivial aspects of everyday social behavior was

Erving Goffman.

If one wanted to show that the relationship between emotions and facial expressions has nothing to do with culture, which research technique would make the most sense?

Observe the facial expressions of children who were born blind.

Which of the following is an example of the compulsion of proximity?

Maria and Thomas met online and communicated using email, text messages, and the phone regularly, but they did not feel a real connection until they met in person for the first time over coffee.