Chapter 1 - Understanding sociology

Question 1

What is Sociology?

Answer 1

The scientific study of dynamic relationships between individual people and social structures, and their influence on human behavior and social life

Question 2

Sociological imagination

Answer 2

A unique perspective that gives sociologists a distinctive way of looking at data and reflecting on the world around them.

• look at different perspectives

Question 3

Macro

Answer 3

Macroscopic; used to describe large-scale social phenomena such as groups, organizations, cultures, society, and the globe.

Question 4

Micro

Answer 4

Microscopic; used to describe small-scale social phenomena such as individuals and their thoughts and actions.

Question 5

Micro-Macro Continuum

Answer 5

The range of social entities from the individual, even the mind and self, to the interaction among individuals, the groups often formed by that interaction, formally structured organizations, societies, and increasingly the global domain.

Question 6

Dangerous Giant

Answer 6

An agent who threatens social structure

Question 7

McDonaldization

Answer 7

The process by which the rational principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of society and more societies throughout the world

Question 8

Mediated interaction

Answer 8

Social interaction in which technological devices come between the participants, unlike in face to face interaction

Question 9

Social Construction of reality

Answer 9

The continuous process of individual creation of structural realities and the constraint and coercion exercised by those structures

Question 10

Social processes

Answer 10

The dynamic and ever-changing aspects of the social world

Question 11

Social structures

Answer 11

Enduring and regular social arrangements, such as the family and the state