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.
Manifest Functions:
Sought consequences of a social process.
Micro-level Theories:
The study of specific relationships between individuals or small groups.
Paradigms:
Philosophical and theoretical frameworks used within a discipline to formulate theories, generalizations, and the experiments performed in support of them.
Positivism:
The scientific study of social patterns.
Qualitative Sociology:
In-depth interviews, focus groups, and/or analysis of content sources as the source of its data.
Quantitative Sociology:
Statistical methods such as surveys with large numbers of participants.
Reification:
An error of treating an abstract concept as though it has a real, material existence.
Significant Others:
Specific individuals that impact a person’s life.
Social Facts:
The laws, morals, values, religious beliefs, customs, fashions, rituals, and all of the cultural rules that govern social life.
Social Institutions:
Patterns of beliefs and behaviors focused on meeting social needs.
Social Solidarity:
The social ties that bind a group of people together such as kinship, shared location, and religion.
Society:
A group of people who live in a defined geographical area who interact with one another and who share a common culture.
Sociological Imagination:
The ability to understand how your own past relates to that of other people, as well as to history in general and societal structures in particular.
Sociology:
The systematic study of society and social interaction.
Symbolic Interactionism:
A theoretical perspective through which scholars examine the relationship of individuals within their society by studying their communication, like language and symbols.
Theory:
A proposed explanation about social interactions or society.
Verstehen:
A German word that means to understand in a deep way.
