Chapter 1 Questions Flashcards
individual perspective
type of explanation of human behavior which focusseses on individual cases (genes, personality)
Sociological perspective/imagination
type of explanation of human behavior which focusses on social causes and examines social phenomena (collective human behavior)
Social context
social environment in which people are embedded
3 possible relations between individual and sociological perspective
1) supplemental 2) alternative 3) proximate and ultimate causes
levels of social context
micro, meso and macro
social problem (public issue)
goes beyond the personal troubles of a individual (it affects many people)
personal trouble
problem related to the personal life of an individual
three aims of sociology
describe, explain and apply
approaching social problems
As a social phenomena (Scientific phenomena of interest)
societal relevance
relevance of sociological work for the understanding of social problems
social problems have a…. dimension
normative ( desirable goals and values are threatened, people want to solve this problem and politicians, policy makers and organizations offer various measures and interventions to do so
normative vs scientific questions
does or does not entail value judgments
3 types of scientific questions
1) descriptive 2) theoretical 3) application
art of asking good sociological questions (2)
1) precision 2) relevance
false theoretical questions
aims to explain something that doesn’t exists
comparative case questions
includes some comparison of cases such as multiple social contexts, multiple moment in time and/or multiple populations
common sense
everyday thinking, intuitions, beliefs and perceptions
private sociologists
the way human beings in daily life make sense of the social world, a such they are prone to, among other things, intuitive thinking, implicit reasoning, development of incoherent and vague ideas, keeping knowledge private and searching for confirmations, little need of emperical testing and descriptions and explenations are true
academic sociology
the way academic institutions describe and explain the social world. Characteristics are they systematic way of gathering knowledge, making explanations public and subject to critism, the development of coherent theories and rigorous testing, descriptions and explenations can be true or false
hindsight bias
after being presented with the facts, people think it makes sense and it is obvious
confirmation bias
search for observations that confirm their ideas and disregard facts that might undermine their ideas
cumulative science
the practice that theories and observations of earlier studies are incorporated in the work of succesive studies
background knowledge
the theories and observations that are known before the study commences (therefore important that these are public and shared in communities)
