The Sociological Perspective (Including Questions on Video-How Sociologists Think)

A process that occurs when a person is able to imagine how others evaluate her actions and words

Self-awareness

A process in which people interpret and respond to one another's actions and words

Social Interaction

Which of the following is a path to how those studying how sociologists create knowledge (check all that apply)

1.Applying the ideas of those considered giants in the discipline. 2.Personal experiences drive the types of knowledge a sociologist finds interesting, and the types of knowledge they will create. 3.The compelling issues of the day shape the kinds of knowledge sociologists 4.Ask key (sociological questions) to guide creation of knowledge 5.Looking beyond popular understandings ("Things are not what they seem)

Recall Durkheim's study on suicide. Durkheim's study is a classic example of the sociological imagination because he examined how a personal problem, namely suicide, is shaped by larger social issues. Durkheim focused on relationships as the key to understanding suicide. Which of the following describes a suicide stemming from an egoistic relationship?

A person is strongly tied to an oppressive group and commits suicide to escape.

The Industrial Revolution relied upon mechanization, which requires the use of machines powered by fossil fuel to complete a large variety of tasks. The increased use of fossil fuels (as well as the increased levels of consumption caused by industrialization), has led to a rapid depletion of the planet's natural resources and a rise in emissions of a number of toxic chemicals. The scenario illustrates one of the consequences of the Industrial Revolution as:

An increase in pollution

Read the following scenario and determine which perspective it best represents. Corina is explaining poverty in a presentation to her classmates. She argues that we should pay attention to the meanings that we attach to poor people, such as the stigmatization of the poor as lazy and morally suspect. She also argues that we can learn more about the consequences of poverty by examining interactions between poor and nonpoor people.

Answer 1: symbolic interactionalist Answer 2:the positive uses of

A key step in the research process is identifying variables and specifying hypotheses. Hypotheses are ____1___ about the relationship between variables, while variables are characteristics or behaviors that have ____2___ category, such as age or levels of satisfaction. Variables must also be _____3___ , which means giving ____4___ instructions about variable measurement. For example, marital satisfaction needs a definition in order to be tested. There are several ways we could define marital satisfaction, but one definition is based on a person's positive or negative attitudes about his or her significant other, which can be measured.

Answer 1: predictions Answer 2: more than Answer 3: operationalized Answer 4: clear

Sociologists use ___1___ methods to develop research questions and to collect, analyze, and interpret data. The ___2___ method is a specific process that sociologists follow, which has the goal of generating ___3___ observations and data.

Answer 1: scientific Answer 2: scientific Answer 3: verifiable

Look at the following examples of a drug rehabilitation center's functions.

Answer 1:B Answer 2:unexpected effect

Michelle is a plastic surgeon. Her practice includes injecting various chemical substances into patients' faces and performing surgeries to reshape their body parts. Michelle finds it peculiar that her patients are almost all women. In her discussions with her patients, Michelle discovers that these women have surgery in the hopes that they will look more like celebrities and models, who are highly admired for their appearance. In other words, they have surgery in order to conform to gender ideals, or ideas about how each sex should look. In the scenario, body modification is a human activity while gender is a social force .

Answer 1:Human activity Answer 2:Social force

Here are pictures of a person whose home mortgage is undergoing foreclosure. You can focus only on this person and his own reasons for needing to go through foreclosure, but what about the larger social issues involved?

Answer 1:is Answer 2:sociological imagination

Read this hypothesis and differentiate between the independent and dependent variables. Marital satisfaction is positively related to age, with older people reporting greater marital satisfaction than younger people. In this example, the dependent variable is martial satisfaction because it is the variable on which there is a presumed effect .

Answer 1:martial satisfaction Answer 2:it is the variable on which there is a presumed effect

Karl Marx describes the rise of two classes during the Industrial Revolution: the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Read the following scenario and then fill in the blanks.

Answer 1:proletariat Answer 2:works for

This sociologist argued that the scientific method must be used in order to derive valid knowledge about the world.

Augustus Comte

Sociologists can choose from many different strategies when gathering their data. Analyze this example of a research technique. Naomi is studying different types of retirement communities. She writes detailed, objective accounts of a man in a nursing home, a woman in an assisted living community, and a couple living in a continuing care retirement community. Which of the following best represents the research technique used in the example?

Case study

A strength of this perspective is that it forces you to think about which groups' interests are promoted at which other groups' expense

Conflict

_______ focuses on the functions and dysfunctions of parts of society

Functionalist

He argued that the Industrial Revolution changed the type of solidarity that binds people together in society.

Durkheim

In her job in HR __________________ ideas helped Laura see resumes as a brief history of social ties applicants, organizations and references.

Emile Durkheim's

Now think about the conflict perspective. True or False: Conflict theorists believe that the facade of legitimacy is defined as something that ends conflict between competing groups in society.

False

A weakness of ____ is that it places too much emphasis on gender, to the exclusion of other social forces

Feminist

Read the following scenario and decide which step of the research process it best describes. Rolf is conducting a study on the emotional labor of health care professionals. He finds, reads, and summarizes in writing all of the classic and current important scholarly research articles available on the subject. Which step is Rolf taking in the research process?

He is conducting a literature review.

Millions of people have lost their jobs because of a severely depressed economy

Issue

Which of the following statements about the Industrial Revolution are true? Check all that apply.

It greatly changed societies. It encouraged the emergence of a consumption-oriented culture. It affected the density of human populations.

Which of the following is true of sociology? Check all that apply.

It is a scientific discipline. Sociologists study how social forces shape human activities. Sociologists study a diverse array of human activities, such as body modification.

Which of the following is one advantage of observation research?

It provides an in-depth description of the topic under study.

This sociologist was committed to working on issues such as child labor and worker safety.

Jane Addams

________ idea that capitalism is both a creative and destructive force helped Chryssy to think about what those who lose jobs say when a new technology comes on the scene to replace an old one- what happens to the millions of cashiers who are replaced by new technologies, that now allow shoppers to checkout and bag their purchases?

Karl Marx's

An unexpected disruption to the social order

Latent dysfunction

An unexpected effect of a social part

Latent function

An expected disruption to the social order

Manifest dysfunction

An intended effect of a social part

Manifest function

He argued that workers and owners make up two distinct classes that are always in conflict with each other.

Marx

The system of existing and mediated expectations shared between people who are interacting

Negotiated Order

Anything to which people assign value

Symbol

Tee became interested in race as a social construction because she remembers thinking of herself as Asian on her Uncle's advice, but after 911 people saw her as Muslim. This way of thinking follows which path of knowledge creation?

The compelling issues of the day shape the kinds of knowledge sociologists.

Kima, who skipped college because the cost is beyond her reach, has a job, but the pay is poor and there are no benefits.

Trouble

Millions of people eat poorly and suffer related health effects because they do not have enough income to buy food that meets their basic nutritional needs.

Trouble

True or False: Control variables are variables that allow researchers to determine if the relationship between the independent and dependent variable holds.

True

True or False: Research findings should be generalizable.

True

True/ False: If you think about it, choosing a major, minor or concentration is really a decision about how you want to view the world. You will spend a large portion of your college career mastering the language and theories of your chosen discipline.

True

When a goal is pursued by the most efficient means, whatever the consequences, it is motivated by instrumental rational action.

True

This sociologist was concerned with the barrier that separates nonwhites from whites.

W.E.B. DuBois

He believed that social action is guided by traditional or affectional motives.

Weber

If you were to establish the reliability of a person's professed positive or negative attitudes about their significant other as an operational definition of marital satisfaction, you would be testing to see:

if the person gives the same rating on two different occasions

This perspective focuses on social interaction and shared symbols.

symbolic interactionist

A weakness of the _______ is that it may overstate the extent to which the advantaged are only self-interested.

the conflict perspective

The motto _____________________ prompts sociologists to see our prison population as not just simply full of people who did bad things but full of people who got caught and didn't have the money to avoid going to prison. We know this because there are so many people who committed crimes but were never caught could afford a lawyer.

things are not what they seem

The motto that drives sociologists and the kind of knowledge they create is __________________.

things are not what they seem