Sociology chapter 1 notecards
Anomic suicide
Results when a person is feeling that there was a lack of integrating norms, they feel disconnected with society.
Anomie
"normlessness."
stratification,
(divided into a hierarchy based on status
Marxism
- Owners of factories were able to accumulate large amounts of wealth (capitalists) -Wrote the communist manifesto
Valid surveys of populations include
At least 1000 respondents Random sample High response rates
Anthropology
Is a social science that is often known as the sister science of sociology. It is also a social science that emphasizes the importance of society and its culture.
Economics
Tends to focus on the material characteristics of a society by looking at the institution of the economy
Karl Marx
An extremely influential german social scientist/philosopher. He emphasized the role of the economy in our lives. He also wanted to use social science to change society. -Marx sought to explain how modern and industrial life could have a powerful—and often negative—effect on the people who existed within the society. Marx's approach differed from that of traditional sociologists in a major way: his point was not just to study society, which he did with great scientific accuracy, but to change it in a way that created a better quality of life for everyone. -much of his work focused on the goal of understanding the interplay between economic and political institutions in society and the inequality it produced.
social institutions
Are organizational systems that guide a person's behavior and teach the proper course of action in a given situation. In other words, they provide guidance in terms of social behavior.
Auguste Comte
Comte (1798-1857) founded the study of sociology. Comte was a French social philosopher who believed that the study of society should be like any of the natural sciences and, therefore, be grounded on empirical evidence. In addition to being known as the founder or father of sociology, he is also credited for coining the term sociology ("study of society").
Which famous sociologists were functionalists?
Comte and Durkheim were functionalists
The scientific method emerged..
During the enlightenment
Emile Durkheim
Emphasized social solidarity, how society creates strong and stable bonds that would emerge from people in a society.
Four major ways that sociologists study people include:
Focus groups Face-to-face interviews Participant observations surveys
Psychology
Focuses on the individual. Mental processes, perceptions, behaviors, and the brain functions that explain human behavior.
Who were famous symbolic interactionists?
G.H. Mead, Herbert Blumer, and Erving Goffman use the symbolic interaction paradigm
the greatest influence on thought in the Western world
Individualism
Social imagination
Is the ability to describe the mindset one must enter into to understand the world sociologically, to see social scripts. The idea that our lives are intimately connected with the larger society in which we live and the history that made that society possible.
Which sociologists studied social conflict paradigm?
Karl marx and c. Wright Mills
Marx predicted....
Marx predicted that eventually the proletariat (working class) would unite and fight the bourgeoisie (wealthy capitalist class) in a revolution to create a single classless society in which everyone was free and equal. In his book, The Communist Manifesto ([1848] 1998), Marx and his co-author Friedrich Engels discussed the issues of class struggle and its eventual progression to new political forms like socialism and communism.
Debunking
Means proving something false. The goal is not only to disprove, but also to examine alternate explanations for what we have always thought to be true.
who created sociological curiosity?
Peter Berger
Public issues
Public issues transcend the local or the personal; they are a public matter and deal with many different institutional settings overlapping (currently and historically) from a larger social structure (Mills 1959). Public issues are a direct result of social institutions creating problems in society, which often lead to issues in our own personal lives.
What is sociology?
Sociology is the scientific study of Human beings in groups. Every aspect of our lives is influenced by different groups, institutions, and structures within society
Law of three stages.
Theological: Represents a society that is dominated by religious thought Metaphysical: Is where a society's prevailing ideas and explanations are based on abstract theoretical principles Positivist: Is where society is based on science
micro-level orientation.
These paradigms focus on small-scale explanations for individual and social behavior. The micro-level theorist often believes that it is impossible to truly understand an individual's or group's behaviors by looking at large institutions and classifications. For them, only the people interacting in a situation can give it real meaning.
Industrial Revolution
a time of social and economic change that involved widespread adoption of industrial methods of production, followed in 1750 and lasted until 1850. The Industrial Revolution further changed quality of life and altered world views, as people were forced to move from rural areas to the cities (urbanization) to find work in factories, and cities swelled in number.
Social curiosity
an understanding that the world is not always what it appears to be, and as such, it requires us to question our surroundings. This may sound like a simple enough task until you realize that everything must be questioned.
Manifest functions
are explicit and outward; they are intended consequences or specific purposes of a social function. the manifest function of high school is to educate students. Its purpose is to teach basic skills in reading, writing, and mathematics, among other things.
Symbols
are representations that stand for something else; they can be things like the written and spoken word, body gestures, and objects.
When did sociology emerge?
sociology emerged during the enlightenment (18-19 centuries).
social fact
something that has an objective and external existence outside of us
critical thinking
calls for a persistent effort to examine any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the evidence that supports it and the further conclusions to which it tends.
organismic analogy
comparing the way society functions to a living organism—namely the human body.
empirical evidence
conclusions and discoveries based on observation and experience through the physical senses—not common sense or personal values
feminist paradigm
developed in response to the general lack of women's voices in the field of sociology prior to the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Most sociologists before this time either ignored women or assumed that women held the same beliefs and values as men.
alienation
distancing of people from what is important or meaningful to them, as many people abandoned longtime family and community ties to focus on their individual wants and needs.
symbolic interactionist paradigm
examines society from a micro-level orientation, using the individual interactions of people to explain social behavior. -It seeks to understand people's motivations and actions the way the people themselves understand them.
class conflict
exploitation of a less powerful group by a more powerful group (e.g., slaves by masters, peasants by nobility) for its own purposes.
social statics
fixed characteristics of the social order
objective
free from personal bias—as possible when studying social phenomena.
theory
general statement of explanation based upon the relationship between two or more concepts, facts, or observations. In sociology, theories provide a way to organize facts about a specific social phenomenon and attempt to explain how and why these facts are related.
Paradigms
general theoretical and methodological frameworks that help sociologists organize social reality into an approachable and understandable form to analyze. When a sociologist approaches a social issue or problem from a certain paradigm, it helps to shape the type of theory that will be created.
Egoistic suicide
happens when a person's ties to society are weakened, which can cause extreme individualism. The more weakened social ties are, the less they depend on them and the more they depend on themselves. They end up feeling that normal rules of behavior don't apply to them and so they kill themselves based on selfish reasons.
Political science as a social science..
has an emphasis on government and politics
Max Weber
has had an enduring impact on sociology because his approach to understanding society was multifaceted. Whereas Karl Marx viewed the economy as the primary organizing element, Weber viewed society as being organized around three basic elements—politics, culture, and economics—each equally important in explaining human thought and behavior - Unlike Marx, weber argued that sociologists should be value-free sociology requires sociologists to be as objective as possible.
social integration
in order for a society to operate as a complete and fully functioning whole, all of its different and diverse parts needed to be combined or integrated in order for it to operate smoothly.
Positivist sociology
interprets and explains social reality through the use of the scientific method and objectivity. Sociology's founder, Auguste Comte, defined the term positivism as a form of inquiry that requires careful observation, objective measurement, and comparison. The positivist approach investigates the social world the same way other scientists investigate the natural world.
Sociological perspective
is a perspective on human behavior and its connection to society as a whole. It invites us to look for the connections between the behavior of individual people and the structures of the society in which they live
Social interaction
is the way that people act and react toward one another in social situations. When looking at society through the lens of the symbolic interactionism paradigm, symbols and social interactions are explored to see how they shape both the individual and society.
Latent functions
less obvious, implicit, and unintended consequences of a social function.The latent function of high school is the formation of cliques that can often have unintended effects, such as peer pressure to use drugs and alcohol or lower self-esteem among students who are rejected by popular cliques.
macro-level orientation
look at social explanations from a large-scale, structural point of view. When attempting to explain or describe behavior in society, sociologists look at social institutions such as the economy, the political system, or the education system as reasons for social issues or problems.
structural functional paradigm
looks at how different elements of the social structure work together in order to make a stable whole.
social conflict paradigm
looks at the power struggles and social discord that shape people's social existence. -It identifies patterns in society to see which groups are systematically benefitting from the inequality that exists and which groups are being deprived of society's benefits or resources. -The social conflict paradigm describes social relationships in society as inevitably leading to conflict, because they are based on inequality. In other words, when people don't have equal amounts of something, they begin to fight over it. -Founder= Karl Marx
Altruistic suicide
occurs when an individual's integration into the society is too extreme, and individual and society become completely joined. Individuals become so attached to the group, that they kill themselves for the good of that group.
fatalistic suicide
occurs when there is excessive regulation in a society. There are an overabundance of norms, beliefs, and values that regulate people's behaviors leading to no individual freedom or autonomy in their social relationships. People kill themselves out of a sense of despair
capitalists
private citizens who controlled the means of production
postmodern paradigm
reject ideas of universality in favor of a relativistic view based on emotion, symbols, and the blending of mass media, popular culture, and social life
Personal troubles
represent difficulties we face because of our immediate relations with other people around us. They are clearly private matters and often involve our feelings being hurt or personal beliefs being threatened.
value-free sociology
requires sociologists to be as objective as possible, observing and understanding the world without bias toward personal values or beliefs (Weber [1913], 1962). As values and beliefs can never be completely eliminated, sociologists must acknowledge their existence and not allow them to interfere with their value-free exploration of society.
mechanical solidarity society
resembles traditional or pre-industrial societies where everyone does the same types of work and all hold similar values and ideals.
social solidarity
stressing the importance of creating strong and stable bonds that would emerge from people in a society sharing common responsibilities and interest.
social dynamics
social change and its causes
Who came up with the term sociological imagination?
sociologist C. Wright. Mills
sui generis
the ability to exert influence and control over our identity and behavior.
social structure
the established patterns of behavior exhibited by individuals and groups as they interact with one another in society.
Social structure
the patterns that shape our lives and interactions with others.
verstehen
the way people perceived their own environment and behavior rather than looking toward an objective explanation of the situation
organic solidarity society
there are many more specialized tasks and jobs to perform, and people are held together by their interdependence upon one another, despite having diverse beliefs and values. Durkheim believed that with so many diverse and specialized parts, organic solidarity societies are inherently unstable
Enlightenment
this was a time that emphasized a completely new and qualitatively different set of ideals toward which people were expected to aspire.
critical sociology
to change society
Interpretive sociology
treats the person or group being studied as the subject of the analysis rather than an object, rejecting the idea that objective observation is the only way to explain a situation.
