Culture 43 Flashcards
SOCIAL COMPARISON THEORY
Proposes that we use other people for comparing in order to evaluate our own attitudes and abilities.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM
The view that the phenomena of the social and cultural world and their meanings are created in human social interaction. Taken further, social constructionism can be applied to social research itself, prompting debates about whether social research and fiction differ. The approach often, though not exclusively, draws on idealist philosophical orientations.
SOCIAL CONTROL
The rules, habits, and customs by which a society tries to maintain order.
SOCIAL DISTANCE
The degree of physical, social or psychological closeness or intimacy to members of a group like ethnic, racial or religious groups.
SOCIAL EXCHANGE THEORY
A theoretical model within the learning perspective, in which interpersonal relationships are considered in terms of rewards gained and costs for the participants.
SOCIAL EXCLUSION
The various ways in which people are excluded from the accepted norms within a society. Exclusion can be economic, social, religious or political.
SOCIAL FACILITATION
The condition when the presence of others improves an individual’s performance.
SOCIAL FACTS
- Regularities of social life that appear to have an independent existence, acting to determine or constrain human behaviour.
- Norms of conduct or religious rules are examples.
- The concept is of particular importance in relation to functionalism and positivism.
SOCIAL IMPACT THEORY
A theory of social influence which includes the immediacy, number and strength of influence agents.
SOCIAL INHIBITION
- Happens when the presence of other people causes a decline in a person’s performance.
- Also called Social Impairment.
SOCIAL JUDGEMENT THEORY
- A theory of attitude change which emphasizes the individual’s perception and judgement of a persuasive communication.
- Central concepts in this theory are anchors, assimilation and contrast effects, and latitudes of acceptance, rejection and noncommitment. .
SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY
A theory that proposes that social behaviour develops as a result of observing others and of being reinforced for certain behaviours.
SOCIAL LOAFING
A decrease in individual effort when people work in groups compared to them working alone.
SOCIAL NETWORK
The people with whom an individual is in actual contact.
SOCIAL RACE
- A group assumed to have a biological basis but actually perceived and defined in a social context, by a particular culture rather than by scientific criteria.
- This term has been used in the past as well as in today’s American societies. Terms as “Negro”, “white”, “Indian”, or “mulatto” do not have any genetic meanings in most of the American societies, in one society they may be classifications based on real or imaginary physical characteristics, in another they may refer more to criteria of social status such as education, wealth, language and custom, or in yet another society they may indicate near or distant ancestry.
