Chapter 2: Origins of sociology

Question 1

Who is Auguste comte?

Answer 1

a frenchman who coined the term sociology

Question 2

What did comte discover?

Answer 2

that society is a type or organism, and is interconnected. that society evolves and is not constant.

Question 3

What is a social dynamic?

Answer 3

a way to describe a flow of energy in a situation. Eg. social pressures/ conflict

Question 4

What are comtes 3 historical stages?

Answer 4

Theological stage
Metaphysical stage
Scientific stage

Question 5

What is the Theological stage

Answer 5

society is the result of divine will

Question 6

what is the Metaphysical stage

Answer 6

human behaviour governed by natural biological instincts

Question 7

what is the Scientific stage

Answer 7

develop a social physics to understand human behaviour

Question 8

What did herbert spencer think

Answer 8

he opposed comtes idea that sociology should intefere in social pressures. Coined the term survival of the fittest. He first to believe that human societies evolved according to the principles of natural laws.

Question 9

what does the term survival of the fittest mean?

Answer 9

Just as natural selection favors particular organisms and permits them to survive and multiply, societies that have adapted to their surroundings and can compete will survive. (societies differentiate and become more complex as they get bigger. Bigger pop . put pressure on social institutions to evolve or change)

Question 10

What did Karl Max think?

Answer 10

Strong critic of capitalism. Believes social institutions are going to perform as comte implies but not always follow a common good. He argued that social conflict—struggle and strife—was at the core of society, the source of all social change.

Question 11

why might social insituitions not follow a common good? ( comte)

Answer 11

created by ppl and are likely to inherit their biases.

Question 12

What did Emilie Durkheim think?

Answer 12

argues that we have to be careful of what social phenomena we are going to study. Humans interact and social facts persist over time and culture is created.

Question 13

What is a social fact?

Answer 13

elements of society or sociology that should be studied on their own

Question 14

Example of social fact?

Answer 14

state of job market when u graduate college is fact that will interfere with your life, however it cant be measured.

Question 15

What is collective conscious? (durkehim)

Answer 15

shared values and beliefs of people. only functional in small groups.

Question 16

Durkheim’s suicide study shows what?

Answer 16

that suicide is a social fact that can be measured and applied. rate of suicide changes in relation to other social facts.

Question 17

Society needs to be in the middle of what two things to not have social problems?

Answer 17

Integration ( needs to be held together) and Regulation ( behaviours corrected)

Question 18

Max webers conflict theory

Answer 18

• notion that insuitions may or may not actually decrease inequality
  that we need to investigate the motives of inds. and the kinds of inds. who are making decisions.

Question 19

What does Verstehan mean?

Answer 19

empathetic understanding that comes from studying the subjective meanings that ppl attach to things in the world.

Question 20

What type of actions should be studied?

Answer 20

Only socially meaningful actions, actions due to culture and history.

Question 21

Harriet Martineau

Answer 21

marginalized due to gender, translated some of comtes earlier works.

Question 22

George Simmel

Answer 22

Conflict theorist who developed many theories about urban life and social conflict

Question 23

WEB Dubois

Answer 23

did research on black identity in the US as well as black US relations

Question 24

what is a social static

Answer 24

comtes term for for the stable structure of a society.

Question 25

comte first called sociology what?

Answer 25

social physics

Question 26

Marx believed society was comprised largely of two social classes:

Answer 26

the bourgeoisie (the owners and rulers) and the proletariat (the industrial workers of his day) He argued that conflict between the rich and the poor, the owners and the workers (the haves and have-nots),

Question 27

Class consciousness

Answer 27

Awareness among members of a society that the society is stratified and that they share the same plight

Question 28

Jane Addams

Answer 28

they opened Hull House—America’s first settlement house and a place to serve Chicago’s immigrant population. first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.