sociology outlines for chapters 3-6

Separate from Groups

. As society becomes more and more fragmented, many sociologists worry that anomie (or normlessness) is growing because we lack group memberships to keep us from feeling unstable. b. Membership in virtual communities may serve as a social anchor that takes the place of face-to-face relationships.

What Is Human Nature?

1. Culture and society separates humans from other creatures. 2. Human nature is a combination of biological and interactional features; thus, the nature versus nurture debate is oversimplified and often irrelevant.

1. What Is Deviance?

1. Deviance is a behavior, trait, or belief that departs from the norm and generates a negative reaction. 1. Cultural variation: Suri lip plates, Padaung stretched neck rings. 2. Historical variation: Corsets. 3. Situational variation: Branding's change from punishment to mark of pride.

6. Emotions and Personality

1. Emotions are socially constructed through our interactions with others. Role-taking emotions, such as sympathy, embarrassment, and shame, require that we be able to see things from someone else's point of view. 2. Feeling rules are socially constructed norms regarding emotions. 3. Emotion work refers to the management of one's own real feelings as a requirement of a job. Hochschild's ground-breaking study of flight attendants uncovered how emotion work alienated them from their real feelings.

4. Agents of Socialization

1. Family 2. Schools 3. Peers 4. Media 5. Adult socialization requires replacing previously learned norms and values with new ones. This process is referred to as resocialization.

i. Forms of Communication

1. Signs or symbols: Anything that conveys social meaning. 2. Gestures: signs that we make with our body. Also known as body language and nonverbal communication. 3. Language: System of symbols people use to communicate with each other. The Sapir- Whorf hypothesis maintains that language shapes our perceptions of the world.

2. The Process of Socialization

1. Socialization is a twofold process that includes the process by which a society, culture, or group teaches individuals to become functioning members, and the process by which individuals learn and internalize the values and norms of the group. 2. Interaction is necessary for proper development. 3. Social isolation results in a failure to develop or thrive. Case example of Isabelle, who failed to develop normal language and socialization skills because she was sequestered in a dark room by a deaf-mute mother who did not interact with her.

5. Statuses and Roles

1. Status: Position occupied in society. 1. Master Status: Overrides other statuses that make up one's identity. 2. Ascribed Status: Status one is born with or that is unlikely to change. 3. Embodied Status: Status based on physical features. 4. Achieved Status: Status that is earned or imposed. 2. Role: Expectations associated with a particular status.

7. New Interactional Contexts

1. The Internet is providing new ways to interact with others. 2. Copresence refers to face-to-face interaction or being in the presence of others. 3. Saturated self is a postmodern idea that the self is now developed by multiple influences chosen from a wide range of media sources. 4. Agency is the ability of the individual to act freely and independently.

3. The Development of the Self 1

1. The self is our experience of a distinct, real, personal identity that is separate and different from those of all other people.

Values, Norms, and Sanctions

1. Values: The set of shared beliefs about what a group of people considers worthwhile or desirable in life. American values include equality and the individual freedoms of democracy. 2. Norms: Rules and guidelines regarding what kinds of behavior are acceptable. Norms can be divided into folkways, mores, and taboos. 3. Sanctions: Means of enforcing norms. Positive sanctions express approval for conformity, whereas negative sanctions express disapproval for violations. Social control is the mechanism that ensures that people behave in acceptable ways to some degree.

3. The Development of the 2

2. Freud: Self is composed of id, ego, and superego, which operate in conjunction with each other. He also proposed that the personality goes through four psychosexual stages of development.

3. The Development of the Self 3

3. Cooley: With the looking-glass self, we imagine how we look to others, we imagine other people's judgments of us, and we base our identities on our perceptions of those judgments.

3. The Development of the Self 4

4. Mead: Self is created only through social interaction. The "I" is the subject component of the self (spontaneous, creative, and active), whereas the "me" is the object component of the self (norm abiding, conforming, and reliant on others). The stages of self that children must go through are the preparatory stage, the play stage, and the game stage. Taking the role of the particular or significant other means that children learn the behavior associated with the role of "mother" or "teacher". Taking the perspective of the generalized other, children are able to see themselves from others' viewpoints and internalize norms and expectations.

3. The Development of the Self 5

5. Goffman: Uses the Thomas theorem ("situations that are defined as real are real in their consequences") to explain how interaction constructs all meaning, as well as our individual selves. Impression management is the process of working to control the impressions that others have of us. Dramaturgy refers to how impression management can be like acting on a stage. Presentation of self and impression management are about power as well as about self.

Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy a. A bureaucracy consists of secondary groups designed to perform tasks efficiently by means of specialization, technical competence, hierarchy, rules and regulations, impersonality, and formal written communication. b. Ritzer'n s theory of the McDonaldization of society refers to how the bureaucratic principle of rationalization is trickling down to other facets of our everyday lives. Ritzer argues that society is becoming dehumanized as technology develops. c. Benefiting from bureaucracy involves humanizing workers by attempting to personalize interaction. Rather than focusing only on rationality and efficiency, bureaucracies are now encouraging inclusivity, trust, and teamwork. d. Burning Man is asocial movement designed to counter the effects of bureaucracy in our society. e. " A Paradise Built in Hell" (Solnit 2009) relays accounts of social networks and communities that arose out of natural disasters.

Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism

a. "Body Rituals Among the Nacirema" (Miner 1956) provides insight into how people unfamiliar with American culture might perceive it. b. Ethnocentrism is the use of one's own culture as the standard to measure all other cultures, and seeing anything outside one's own cultural experience as abnormal. c. Cultural relativism is seeing each culture on its own terms and being culturally sensitive

Bureaucracy

a. A bureaucracy consists of secondary groups designed to perform tasks efficiently by means of specialization, technical competence, hierarchy, rules and regulations, impersonality, and formal written communication. b. Ritzer'n s theory of the McDonaldization of society refers to how the bureaucratic principle of rationalization is trickling down to other facets of our everyday lives. Ritzer argues that society is becoming dehumanized as technology develops. c. Benefiting from bureaucracy involves humanizing workers by attempting to personalize interaction. Rather than focusing only on rationality and efficiency, bureaucracies are now encouraging inclusivity, trust, and teamwork. d. Burning Man is asocial movement designed to counter the effects of bureaucracy in our society. e. " A Paradise Built in Hell" (Solnit 2009) relays accounts of social networks and communities that arose out of natural disasters.

Separate from Groups

a. As society becomes more and more fragmented, many sociologists worry that anomie (or normlessness) is growing because we lack group memberships to keep us from feeling unstable. b. Membership in virtual communities may serve as a social anchor that takes the place of face-to-face relationships.

American Culture in Perspective

a. Because American culture is so visible worldwide, the country's moral and political values also come under intense global scrutiny. We must realize that America may be viewed with suspicion and contempt by some other cultures because of the messages widely transmitted through American television shows, magazines, movies, and music.

What Is Culture?

a. Culture is the entire way of life of a group of people, forming the basic beliefs and assumptions about the world and the way things work, and defining the moral parameters of what is right and wrong. b. All people are totally dependent on culture to deal with the demands of life in a society. c. Culture is learned.

What Is a Group?

a. Definition: A collection of people who not only share some attribute but also identify with each other and have ongoing social relations. b. Primary groups are groups in which we are intimately associated with the other members, and they have a profound effect on us. c. Secondary groups are larger, less intimate groups usually organized around a specific activity or the accomplishment of a task. d. Consequential strangers are acquaintances from our everyday lives that serve as social anchors even though we might not think of them as mattering much to our sense of happiness or well-being.

Group Dynamics

a. Group dynamics refer to how groups form, change, disintegrate, achieve great goals, or commit horrendous wrongs. b. Dyads are the smallest possible groups, consisting of two members. Dyads are fundamentally unstable. Triads are more stable because they have three members. c. An in-group is a group a member identifies with and feels loyalty toward. An out-group is a group that a nonmember feels a certain distinctness from or even hostility toward. d. A reference group is a group that provides standards by which a person evaluates his or her own personal attributes. e. Group cohesion refers to the sense of solidarity or team spirit that members feel toward their group. f. Groupthink refers to how highly cohesive groups may demand absolute conformity aa. Group dynamics refer to how groups form, change, disintegrate, achieve great goals, or commit horrendous wrongs. b. Dyads are the smallest possible groups, consisting of two members. Dyads are fundamentally unstable. Triads are more stable because they have three members. c. An in-group is a group a member identifies with and feels loyalty toward. An out-group is a group that a nonmember feels a certain distinctness from or even hostility toward. d. A reference group is a group that provides standards by which a person evaluates his or her own personal attributes. e. Group cohesion refers to the sense of solidarity or team spirit that members feel toward their group. f. Groupthink refers to how highly cohesive groups may demand absolute conformity and punish those who threaten to undermine the consensus. g. Honor killings are an example of group norms. nd punish those who threaten to undermine the consensus. g. Honor killings are an example of group norms.

Group dynamics

a. Group dynamics refer to how groups form, change, disintegrate, achieve great goals, or commit horrendous wrongs. b. Dyads are the smallest possible groups, consisting of two members. Dyads are fundamentally unstable. Triads are more stable because they have three members. c. An in-group is a group a member identifies with and feels loyalty toward. An out-group is a group that a nonmember feels a certain distinctness from or even hostility toward. d. A reference group is a group that provides standards by which a person evaluates his or her own personal attributes. e. Group cohesion refers to the sense of solidarity or team spirit that members feel toward their group. f. Groupthink refers to how highly cohesive groups may demand absolute conformity and punish those who threaten to undermine the consensus. g. Honor killings are an example of group norms.

3. Components of Culture

a. Material culture is any physical object that holds social meaning. Any physical thing that people create, use, or appreciate might be considered material culture. b. Symbolic Culture

Variations in Culture

a. Multiculturalism: honoring the diverse racial, ethnic, national, and linguistic backgrounds of various individuals and groups. b. Dominant Culture: Mainstream culture or the values, norms, and practices of the most powerful groups. May produce hegemony. c. Subculture: A particular social world that has a distinctive way of life. A subculture can be based on ethnicity, age, interests, or anything else that draws individuals together. d. Counterculture: A subgroup whose norms and values are incompatible with or in direct opposition to the dominant culture. e. Culture Wars: Clashes that result from living in a diverse society; disagreement over which norms and values should be upheld. f. Ideal versus Real Culture: The distinction between the norms and values that members of a society believe, in principle, should be observed (ideal culture) and the patterns of behavior that actually exist (real culture).

Leadership

a. Power is the ability to control the actions of others. Coercive power is backed by the threat of force, whereas influential power is supported by persuasion. b. Authority is institutionalized power. Traditional authority is based in custom, birthright, or divine right. Legal-rational authority is based in laws and rules. Charismatic authority is based in the remarkable personal qualities of the leader. c. Instrumental leadership is task- or goal-oriented, whereas expressive leadership is more concerned with maintaining harmony within the group.

Social Influence (Peer Pressure)

a. Social influence or peer pressure refers to how groups affect individual thinking and behavior. b. Prescriptions are the things that we're supposed to do, whereas proscriptions are the things that we're supposed to avoid doing. c. Compliance is the mildest form of conformity: individuals go along with something in order to gain reward or avoid punishment. Identification is a stronger form of conformity induced by a person' s desire to establish or maintain a relationship with another person or a group. Internalization is the strongest form of conformity: an individual adopts the beliefs of a leader or group. d. The Asch experiment tested how far other students would go to comply with group dynamics. Most students gave answers that they knew were wrong in order to comply with the group. e. Milgram'c s experiments tested to see how much pain an ordinary person would inflict on another in order to follow authority. Milgram found that most people are thoroughly socialized to obey authority and follow orders, even when it goes against their conscience. f. The Stanford prison experiment randomly assigned research subjects to the roles of guard or prisoner to see how situational dynamics in groups determines behavior. Several guards became increasingly sadistic as the experiment went on, and several prisoners showed signs of psychological trauma. g. Teamwork results in both positive and negative impacts on productivity. Organization and social loafing are both sources of inefficiency in teamwork. Recognizing individual effort and building a social identity as opposed to an individual one can have some positive impact on efficiency and remedy the effects of social loafing. h. Although Lance Armstrong has gained fame and recognition from winning the Tour de France multiple times, his accomplishment would have been impossible without his eight teammates.

Social Network

a. Social networks are groups of people who are interconnected. Direct social ties are the relationships between two individuals. Indirect social ties are the relationships that pass to others from direct social ties. Indirect ties can be established through the flow of goods, services, materials, ideas, or money. b. Jobs create (and reflect) our personal networks, in which ties may be based on socioeconomic status, race, national origin, or religion. c. Gender actually ties into job networking in that men are more likely to hear about good jobs. Therefore, women who have more social ties with men are more likely to hear about these job opportunities than women who have more social ties with other women. d. Contagion is what flows through social ties. For example, sexually transmitted diseases influence an individual's health through social connections.

Cultural Change

a. Technological Change: Recent exponential change in material culture has drastically transformed social interaction. Technological determinism means that computers and other forms of mass communication are defining how we think, feel, and act. b. Cultural Diffusion and Cultural Leveling i. Cultural diffusion occurs when different groups share their material and nonmaterial culture with each other. ii. Cultural leveling occurs when cultures that were once distinct become increasingly similar to each other. c. Cultural Imperialism: The proliferation of Western media and other cultural products into the rest of the world. The concept views Western media and culture as an invading force that enters a country and overwhelms its native culture.