SOC 210 Test 1
Conflict Theory
A Macro theory that views society as being in competition for limited resources. According to conflict theory, society is a place where there will be inequality in resources, therefore individuals will compete for social, political, and material resources like money, land, power, and leisure
what lead to classical sociology's theories to focus on macro-level sociology?
The french and american revolutions and the industrial revolution
mechanical solidarity (Durkheim)
a type of social bond where shared traditions and beliefs created a sense of social cohesion; agrarian societies
A paradigm shift is a major break in the assumptions that are used to understand the world. For social scientists, what causes a paradigm shift?
new data forcing a new way of looking at the world
Critical theory
offshoot of conflict theory; focuses on the role of mass communications and popular culture, or the culture industry, in perpetuating consumerism and allowing capitalist domination to continue.
On any given day, within ten minutes of waking up, you probably depend on more than 100 strangers to provide electricity, water, natural gas, weather forecasts, and other services. According to Durkheim, this interdependence gives rise to:
organic solidarity.
In her ethnography Wheeling & Dealing, Patricia Adler investigates the social and professional worlds of midlevel cocaine and marijuana smugglers. Her research started unexpectedly when she discovered that her next-door neighbor and friend was a drug smuggler; this was a huge advantage for her because it meant that she already had ________ with one of her informants.
rapport
Robert Merton
manifest functions and latent functions
validity
whether or not you are measuring what you think you are measuring
What is one way to gain a sociological perspective?
Create in yourself a sense of culture shock: a sense of disorientation that occurs when one enters a radically new social or cultural environment.
Who developed symbolic interactionism?
George Herbert Mead and fellow members of the "Chicago School"
who translated Comte's Introduction to Positive Philosophy into English?
Harriet Martineau
What did Max Weber mean when he said that modern people are trapped in an "iron cage"?
Most aspects of life are increasingly controlled by rigid rules and rationalization.
In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Émile Durkheim argued that religion was a powerful source of social solidarity. Why?
Religion reinforced collective bonds and cultivated shared moral values.
Talcott Parsons
addressed the types of functions that social structures (or institutions) might fulfill, such as adaptation to the environment, realization of goals, social cohesion, and the maintenance of cultural patterns
Value-free sociology (Max Weber)
an ideal whereby researchers identify facts without allowing their own personal beliefs or biases to interfere
existing sources
any information that is avalible for future research
content analysis
a specific use of existing sources that examines visual or written material, such as magazines or TV commercials
Dr. Lui plans to research the relationship between breast-feeding and preschool success. In this research, breast-feeding is the
independent variable.
social sciences are
disciplines that use the scientific method to examine the social world
What did Max Weber believe people would experience more of as the dehumanizing features of bureaucratic processes became increasingly prevalent in society?
disenchantment
experimental methods
formal tests of whether an independent variable causes changes in the dependent variable that are preformed in a controlled setting in which all aspects of the situation can be controlled
Which sociological perspective explores how society is structured and maintains order?
functionalist
Auguste Comte is credited with coining the term "sociology," largely through the development of a theory of human thinking called positivism. What does positivism attempt to do?
identify laws that describe the behavior of a reality
A simple random sample is defined as a sample:
in which every member of the population has a chance of being included.
The ideal of objectivity means that a researcher:
must try to adopt a stance of personal neutrality toward the outcome of the research
Steps of sociological research
1. Select a topic 2. Define the problem 3. Review the literature 4. Formulate a hypothesis 5. Choose a research method 6. Collect the data 7. Analyze the results 8. Share the results
who said sociology is : The study of people "doing things together"
Howard Becker
In Émile Durkheim's study Suicide, he reported that suicide rates went up when the economy slumped but they also increased when the economy boomed. Which of Durkheim's concepts explains why both positive and negative economic conditions could increase suicide rates?
Anomie
Who coined the term sociology?
Auguste Comte
Which film in my master's thesis featured integrated products like, Toyota, Pepsi-Free, and Calvin Klein underwear?
Back to the Future
Who suggested using "beginner's mind" (approaching the world without preconceptions in order to see things in a new way) to gain a sociological perspective?
Bernard McGrane
What did Karl Marx think the lower classes needed to develop in order to end their oppression?
Class consciousness
Who is the central figure of structural functionalism?
Emile Durkheim
who developed the idea of the "centrality of social bonds"
Emile Durkheim
Harriet Martineau
First female sociologist; studies american democracy and found it flawed because of injustice
Who suggest that there are three tenets of symbolic Interactionism: we act toward things on the basis of their meanings, that meanings are negotiated through interactions with others, and that meanings can change through interaction?
Herbert Blumer
Who created the idea of "social Darwinism" and coined the term "survival of the fittest" ?
Herbert Spencer
Which of the following statements best characterizes microsociology?
It is an approach that examines interactions between individuals and the ways those interactions reflect larger patterns within a society.
Capitalism creates class conflict between bourgeoisie (owners) and proletariat (workers)
Karl Marx
who proposed conflict theory?
Karl Marx, he saw social conflict as the basis of society and social change
Which of the following statements best describes the approach taken by macrosociologists?
Macrosociology examines large-scale social structure to see how it affects individual lives.
who proposed rationalization: the application of economic logic to all human activity (which arose out of the development of bureaucracies throughout society)?
Max Weber
who visualized individuals as captures in an "iron cage" bound by bureaucratic rules and standardization?
Max Weber
Symbolic interactionism argues that people act toward things on the basis of their meaning. According to this perspective, how does meaning arise?
Meaning is negotiated through interaction with others.
Conflict theorists believe that arguments over values and beliefs have their roots in:
Struggles over scarce resources and power.
When high schools want to ask students about sensitive subjects like drug use or sexual health, they often use surveys rather than a more direct form of communication like interviews. Why?
Surveys allow students to answer the questions in private and assure the confidentiality of their responses.
Which social theory focuses on micro-level interactions?
Symbolic interactionism
What is the sociological imagination?
The ability to understand the connections between biography and history, or the interplay of the self and the world
Max Weber believed that as the Industrial Revolution progressed, society became increasingly rationalized. How did he define rationalization?
The application of economic logic to all aspects of social life
According to Karl Marx, how is class consciousness, or revolutionary consciousness, developed?
When the lower classes come to recognize how society works and challenge those in power
Structural Functionalism
a macro-level theory that views society as an ordered, unified system. Building blocks are large-scale social institutions: family, education, politics, and the economy. Each of these different parts of society meet the needs of society by preforming specific functions for the whole system.
Ethnographic Methods
a method based on studying people in their own environment in order to understand the meanings they attribute to their activities
Symbolic Interactionism
a micro-level theory where interaction and meaning are central to society and assumes that meanings are not inherent but rather are created through interaction. (America's primary contribution to sociology)
Organic Solidarity (Durkheim)
a social bond based on a division of labor that created interdependence and individual rights; industrial society
When engaging in participant observation, researchers can study others as well as themselves.Research that focuses on one's own thoughts, feelings, and experiences is known as:
autoethnography.
How does conflict theory challenge structural functionalism?
by arguing that a social arrangement's existence does not prove its overall benefit; instead it may simply represent the interests of the powerful
Sociologists observe society:
by studying the various parts of a society, and the ways they interact and influence each other.
A questionnaire with a set of predetermined responses is
closed-ended.
everyday actor vs social analyst
practical knowledge vs scientific knowledge
According to Karl Marx, the most important factor in social life is a person's:
relationship to the means of production.
Émile Durkheim suggested that mechanical solidarity created the
social bonds that held agrarian societies together.
C. Wright Mills
sociological imagination
focusing on the social context in which people live and how that has an impact on individual's lives
sociological imagination
sociological imagination
the ability to understand the relationship between our particular situation in life and what is happening at a social level.
disenchantment (Weber)
the inevitable result of the dehumanizing features of bureaucracies that dominated modern societies.
latent functions (Merton)
the less obvious, perhaps unintended functions of a social structure
micro sociology
the level of analysis that studies face-to-face and small-group interactions in order to understand how they affect the larger patterns and institutions of society.
macrosociology
the level of analysis that studies large-scale social structures in order to determine how they affect the lives of groups and individuals
manifest functions (Merton)
the obvious intended functions of a social structure for the social system
what is sociology?
the systematic or scientific study of human society and social behavior, from large scale institutions and mass culture to small groups and individual interactions.
What is reactivity?
the tendency of research subjects to change their behavior in response to being studied
what is positivism and who created it
the theory which argues sense perceptions are the only valid source of knowledge (applied the scientific method to studying social affairs); Auguste Comte
Cecilia is conducting research using public health records to examine flu outbreaks among public school students. Since her research does NOT require her to disturb people in the social context that she is studying, it is considered to be a(n):
unobtrusive measure.
reliability
whether repeated measures yield consistent results
Max Weber helped lay the groundwork for sociologists who would develop symbolic interactionism as a theory, because he believed that a social scientist should approach the study of human action:
with verstehen (understanding), which emphasizes the need for empathy with individuals' experiences.
