An Introduction to Sociology Flashcards
Antipositivism:
The view that social researchers should strive for subjectivity as they worked to represent social processes, cultural norms, and societal values.
Conflict Theory:
A theory that looks at society as a competition for limited resources.
Constructivism:
An extension of symbolic interaction theory which proposes that reality is what humans cognitively construct it to be.
Culture:
A group’s shared practices, values, and beliefs.
Dramaturgical Analysis:
A technique sociologists use in which they view society through the metaphor of theatrical performance.
Dynamic Equilibrium:
A stable state in which all parts of a healthy society work together properly.
Dysfunctions:
Social patterns that have undesirable consequences for the operation of society.
Figuration:
The process of simultaneously analyzing the behavior of an individual and the society that shapes that behavior.
Function:
The part a recurrent activity plays in the social life as a whole and the contribution it makes to structural continuity.
Functionalism:
A theoretical approach that sees society as a structure with interrelated parts designed to meet the biological and social needs of individuals that make up that society.
Generalized Others:
The organized and generalized attitude of a social group.
Grand Theories:
An attempt to explain large-scale relationships and answer fundamental questions such as why societies form and why they change.
Hypothesis:
A testable educated guess about predicted outcomes between two or more variables.
Latent Functions:
The unrecognized or unintended consequences of a social process.
Macro-level:
A wide-scale view of the role of social structures within a society.
