Sociology Chapter 1 Study Guide
Which of the following statements best illustrates the career advantage a person gains by studying sociology?
A police officer understands which categories of people are at high risk of becoming victims of crime.
W. E. B. Du Bois described African Americans as having a "double consciousness" because
African Americans are American citizens who have a second identity based on skin color.
The pioneering sociologists who studied patterns of suicide in Europe was:
Emile Durkheim
Sociology first appeared as a formal discipline in
France
Who helped launch the discipline of sociology by studying the evils of slavery and also by translating the writings of Auguste Comte?
Harriet Martineau
The nations of Western Europe, Isreal, Japan, and Australia fall into which of the following categories of countries?
High income nations
Which pioneering sociologist founded Chicago's Hull House to assist immigrants and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize?
Jane Addams
Who was the U.S. sociologist who distinguished between the manifest functions and the latent functions of social patterns?
Robert K. Merton
Most of today's sociologists agree with Auguste Comte's claim that
Science has an important place in sociology.
According to August's Comte, people begin to try to understand how social life operates as their society enters which stage of development?
Scientific stage
The ancient Romans saw the stars as being gods. Auguste Comte would classify Roman society In which of the following stages of History?
Theological stage
What might a sociologist say about people's selection of marriage partners?
Typically, a person marries someone of similar social position.
Which early U.S. sociologist studied the African American community and served as a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)?
W.E.B. Du Bois
Which early sociologist received the first doctorate ever awarded by Harvard University to a person of color?
W.E.B. Du Bois
When did sociology become established as an academic discipline in the United States?
about 1900
Three campus roommates are talking about why they are in college. A sociological view of going to college highlights the effect of:
age, class, and our place in history, because of these are all ways in which society guides college attendance.
Making use of the sociological perspective encourages:
challenging many commonly-held beliefs.
If marginality encourages sociological thinking, we would expect people in which category listed below should to make the most use of the sociological perspective?
disabled persons or people who are a racial minority
A limitation of the symbolic-interaction approach is that it
does not focus on the widespread influence of culture.
Following the thinking of C. Wright Mills, we would have expected the sociological imagination to be more widespread:
during times of social crisis
Sarah is spending a summer living in another country where people have a way of life that differs from her own. A sociologist might expect that this experience would lead her to:
end up with a greater understanding of both a new way of life and her own way of life.
We would expect the sociological perspective to be most likely develop in a place that was _______
experiencing many social changes.
A limitation of the structural-functional approach is that it
focuses on stability at the expense of conflict
Sociology differs from the older discipline of philosophy by focusing on
how society actually operates
A social-conflict approach to sports would be an analysis of
how sports reflect social inequality
Sociologists cannot identify "laws of society" that allow us to precisely predict the behavior of an individual because
human behavior may be patterned, but it is also spontaneous.
Herbert Spencer described human society as a complex system having much in common with
human body
An accurate criticism of the structural-functional approach is that it
ignores inequality that can generate tensions
Gaining a global understanding is
important for college students because most new U.S. jobs involve international trade.
Robert Merton explained that what is functional for people in one category of a society's population ________
may not be functional for people in another category.
A sociologist using the gender-canflict approach might state that
men are in positions of power over women
Countries in which average income is typical for the world as a whole and in which people are as likely to live in a rural area as in an urban area are categorized as?
middle income nations
Almost all of Latin America and Asia falls within which of the following categories?
middle-income nations
W. E. B. Du Bois claimed that _________ was the major problem facing the United States during the twentieth century
race
By stating that the sociological perspective shows us "the strange in the familiar," the text argues that sociologists:
reject the familiar idea that people simply decide how to act in favor of the initially strange idea that society shapes our lives.
A criticism of the symbolic-interaction approach is that it
says little about the influence of structural factors such as culture, class, gender, and race.
According to Auguste Comte, the type of thinking favored by people such as Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb, becomes common in a society at which stage of societal development?
scientific stage
The main characteristic of the ______ approach is its view of society as being orderly and stable
structural-functional
The _______ approaches are macro-level, describing societies in broad, structural terms.
structural-functional and social-conflict
The early sociologists Auguste Comte and Emile Durkheim used the
structural-functional approach
The theoretical approach in sociology that assumes society is a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability is the
structural-functional approach
Sociologist Lenore Weitzman carried out research showing that women who divorce:
suffer a significant loss of income
Which theoretical approach claims that it is not so much what people do that matters as much as what meaning they attach to their behavior?
symbolic-interaction approach
Understanding marriage using the structural-functional approach might prompt you to consider
the consequences of marriage for the operation of society.
About 1 million immigrants enter the United States each year and many (including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gloria Estefan) have become well known. These facts support the conclusion that:
the world's nations are increasingly interconnected
Comte described the earliest human societies as being at which stage of historical development?
theological stage
A statement that explains how and why specific facts are related is called a(n)
theory
If we state that children raised in single-parent families are at high risk of being single parents themselves, we have constructed a _____ of family life.
theory
Karl Marx, guided by the social-conflict approach, argued that the point of studying society was
to bring about greater social equality
The major goal of sociology's pioneers, including Auguste Comte and Emile Durkheim, was ________
to discover how society actually operates
Which of the following examples illustrates a micro-level focus?
two people on an airplane getting to know one another
Examples of people applying their knowledge of sociology at work include people in medicine ______
understanding patterns of health in a community
The social-contlict approach sometimes receives criticism for?
focusing on values that everyone shares
To evaluate a theory using evidence, sociologists
gather data or facts
Peter Berger described using the sociological perspective as seeing the _____ in the ______.
general to particular
Sociology provides an advantage to students preparing for later careers by preparing them for work:
in teaching, criminal justice, business, and many other careers.
Using the social-conflict approach, a sociologist might highlight
income differences among young people in high school
Building social relationships and creating tens of thousands of jobs are two of the _________ of sports.
latent functions
Social problems that exist in the United, such as poverty and gender inequality, are
more serious in poorer countries.
In deciding what kinds of questions to ask in their research, sociologists are guided by ________
one or more theoretical approaches
The way of understanding the world based on science
positivism
Which discipline defines itself as "the systematic study of human Society?"
sociology
The chapter's sociological analysis of childbearing around the world suggests that the number of children born to a woman reflects:
whether she herself was born into a poor or rich society.
In the United States today, the suicide rate is highest for which category of people listed below?
white males
Using the symbolic-interaction approach, sports becomes
less a system than an ongoing process of interaction.
Looking at the United States, high suicide rates are typical of areas in which people
live spread apart in rural areas
According to Emile Durkheim, a category of people with a higher suicide rate typically has:
lower social integration
Social structures sometimes have negative consequences for the operation of society as a whole. Which of the following concepts refers to these negative consequences?
social dysfunctions
Which of the following concepts is used to describe relatively stable patterns of social behavior?
social structure
The "framework for building theory that sees society as an arena of inequality that generates conflict and change" is the
social-conflict approach
Understanding the differences between countries encourages _______
increasing our understanding of both of our own lives and the lives of others.
The recognized and intended consequences of a social pattern are referred to as
manifest functions
Looking at the operation of U.S. schools guided by the social-conflict approach might lead a sociologist to conclude that
our society provides some students with far better schooling than others.
The social-conflict approach draws attention to
patterns of social inequality
The symbolic-interaction approach focuses on how
people experience society
A social-exchange analysis states that
people typically seek mates who offer as much as they do.
A simplified description unfairly applied to every person in the same category is called
stereotype
The basic idea of the symbolic-interaction approach is that society is
the product of people interacting in countless everyday situations.
Learning more sociology helps us to:
Assess the opportunities and constraints in our lives
The term "sociology" was coined in 1838 by
Auguste Comte
Identify the three sociologists who played a part in the development of sociology's structural-functional approach
Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim
_________ had an important influence on the development of the social-conflict approach
Karl Marx
_______, one of the founding sociologists, urged sociologists to understand a social setting from the point of view of the people in it.
Max Weber
Thomas Hobbes's idea that society reflects a selfish human nature illustrates the thinking common at which of Comte's historical stages?
Metaphysical Stage
According to Auguste Comte, people living in Europe during the Middle Ages thought of society as
an expression of God's will
Unlike simple stereotypes, sociological generalizations
are based on all available facts
The United States falls within which category of the world's nations?
high-income nations
Because there is more social isolation in rural areas of the United States than in urban areas, we would expect suicide rates to be
higher in rural areas
An example of a latent function of college is
keeping young people out of a tight labor force, which may not have jobs for them.
Unrecognized and unintended consequences of a social pattern are called
latent functions
Sociologists use the term "social marginality" to refer to:
people who are defined by others as an "outsider."
C. Wright Mills claimed that the "sociological imagination" transformed:
personal problems into public issues
A manifest function of sports is
providing recreation and physical conditioning
The structural-functional approach is concerned with
the consequences of social patterns for the operation of society
What does the idea that the social world guides our actions and life choices just as the seasons influence activities and choice of clothing describe?
the essential wisdom of the discipline of sociology.
Racial discrimination in professional sports is evident today in
the positions typically played by white and black players
Which theoretical approach would highlight the fact that, on average, African American families have less income than white families?
the race-conflict approach
Among the historical changes that stimulated the development of sociology as a discipline was?
the rise of the industrial economy and growth of cities.
A symbolic-interaction analysis of sports would conclude that
winning at sports means different things to different people.
In the feature about Barbara Ehrenreich working at low wage jobs, we learned that she:
worked very hard, but never made enough money to pay for her basic needs
