Chapter 6 Flashcards
Beliefs
The mental acceptance or conviction that certain things are true or real.
Ageism
Prejudice and discrimination against people on the basis of age, particularly against older persons.
Capitalism
An economic system characterized by private ownership of the means of production, from which personal profits can be derived through market competition and without government intervention.
Category
A number of people who may never have met one another but share a similar characteristic, such as education level, age, race, or gender.
Corporations
Organizations that have legal powers, such as the ability to enter into contracts and buy and sell property, separate from individual owners.
Conformity
The process of maintaining or changing behavior to comply with the norms established by a society, subculture, or other group.
Corporate Crime
Illegal acts committee by corporate employees on behalf of the corporation and with it’s support.
Crime
Behavior that violates criminal law and is punishable with fines, jail terms, and/or other negative sanctions.
Deviance
Any behavior, belief, or condition that violates significant social norms in the society or group in which it occurs.
Criminal Justice System
The local, state, and federal agencies that enforce laws, adjudicate crimes, and treat and rehabilitate criminals.
Culture
The knowledge, language, values, customs, and material objects that are passed from person to person and from one generation to the next in a human group or society.
Differential Association Theory
The proposition that individuals have a greater tendency to deviate from societal norms when they frequently associate with persons who are more favorable toward deviance than conformity.
Drug
Any substance-other than food and water- that, when taken into the body, alters it’s functioning in some way.
Economy
The social institution that ensures the maintenance of society through the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
Families
Relationships in which people love together with commitment, form an economic unit and care for any young, and consider their identity to be significantly attached to the group.
Gender
The culturally and socially constructed differences between females and males found in the meanings, beliefs, and practices associated with “femininity” and “masculinity”.
Feminism
The belief they all people-both women and men- are equal and that they should be valued equally and have equal rights.
Government
The formal organization that has the legal and political authority to regulate the relationships among members of a society and between the society and those outside its borders.
Juvenile Delinquency
A violation of law or the commission of a status offense by young people.
Income
The economic gain derived from wages, salaries, income transfers (governmental aid), and ownership of property.
Illegitimate Opportunity Structures
Circumstances that provide an opportunity for people to acquire through illegitimate activities what they cannot achieve through legitimate channels.
Labeling Theory
The proposition that deviance is a socially constructed process in which social control agencies designate certain people as deviants, and they, in turn, come to accept the label placed upon them and begin to act accordingly.
Occupations
Categories of jobs that involve similar activities at different work sites.
Laws
Formal, standardized norms that have been enacted by legislatures and are enforced by formal sanctions.
Norms
Established rules if behavior or standards of conduct.
Patriarchy
A hierarchical system if social organization in which cultural, political, and economic structures are controlled by men.
Organized Crime
A business operation that supplies illegal goods and services for profit.
Politics
The social institution through which power is acquired and exercised by some people and groups.
Occupational (White-Collar) Crime
Illegal activities committed by people in the course of their employment or financial affairs.
Power
According to Max Weber, the ability of people or groups to achieve their goals despite opposition from others.
Punishment
Any action designed to deprive a person of things of value (including liberty) because of some offense the person is thought to have committed.
Primary Deviance
The initial act of rule breaking.
Political Crime
Illegal or unethical acts involving the usurpation of power by government officials, or illegal/unethical acts perpetrated against the government by outsiders seeking to make a political statement, undermine the government, or overthrow it.
Rationality
The process by which traditional methods of social organization, characterized by informality and spontaneity, and gradually replaced by efficiently administered formal rules and procedures.
Sanctions
Rewards for appropriate behavior or penalties for inappropriate behavior.
Race
A category of people have been singled out as inferior or superior, often on the basis of real or alleged physical characteristics such as skin color, hair texture, eye shape, and other subjectively selected attributes.
Racism
A set of attitudes, beliefs, and practices that is used to justify the superior treatment of one racial or ethnic group and the inferior treatment of another racial or ethnic group.
Secondary Deviance
The process that occurs when a person who has been labeled a deviant accepts that new identity and continues the deviant behavior.
Social Bond Theory
The proposition that the probability of deviant behavior increases when a person’s ties to society are weakened or broken.
Social Control
Systematic practices that social groups develops in order to encourage conformity to norms, rules, and laws and to discourage deviance.
Sexism
The subordination of one sex, usually female, based on the assumed superiority of the other sex.
Sociology
The systematic study of human society and social interaction.
Strain Theory
The proposition that people feel strain when they are exposed to cultural goals that they are unable to obtain because they do not have access to culturally approved means of achieving those goals.
Survey
A poll in which the researcher gathers facts or attempts to determine the relationships among facts.
Symbolic Interactionist Perspectives
The sociological approach that views society as the sum of the interactions if individuals and groups.
Society
A large social grouping that shares the same geographical territory and is subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations.
Tertiary Deviance
Deviance that occurs when a person who has been labeled a deviant seeks to normalize the behavior by relabeling it as nondeviant.
Victimless Crime
Crimes involving a willing exchange of illegal goods or services among adults.
Theory
A set of logically interrelated statements that attempts to describe, explain, and (occasionally) predict social events.
Terrorism
The calculated unlawful use of physical force or threats of violence against persons or property in order to intimidate or coerce a government, organization, or individual for the purpose of gaining some political, religious, economic, or social objective.
Violent Crime
Actions-murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault- involving force or the threat of force against others.
