Exam 1

Question 1

Social Structure

Answer 1

A social structure is a bundle of enduring social forces that hold two key components. These components are Social hierarchies (ex: status, class), and institutional environments (ex: Family, religion, school, economy, etc).

Question 2

C wright Mills

Answer 2

Coined the term “Social Imagination”. He also stated “the sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society”.

Question 3

Sociological Imagination

Answer 3

This challenges stereotypes by raising questions about where they originated from, what they are based in, and why they are harmful.

Question 4

Agency

Answer 4

This refers to the capacity in which individuals make free choices and exert their own free wills.

Question 5

Social Institution

Answer 5

An institution is a humanly devised structure of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior.

Question 6

Sociology

Answer 6

The study of contexts that contain diversity within which society has influence over individuals / The study of societies and the social worlds that individuals inhabit within them.

Question 7

Societies

Answer 7

A large group of people who live in the same area and participate in a common economy or culture.

Question 8

Social theories

Answer 8

An overarching framework that suggests certain assumptions and assertions about the way the world works. These frameworks are used for posing research questions and evaluating evidence related to those questions.

Question 9

Marx’ labor theory of value

Answer 9

-Workers add value to a commodity by applying their muscles and mental energy.

-Profit for the Capitalist is only
possible if the worker is paid a
smaller wage for producing a
commodity than was the value
added to the commodity.

-Capitalists exploit workers because the value produced by workers’ labor does not belong to them.

Question 10

Karl Marx

Answer 10

Mark held ideas about inequality and capitalism. In Capitalism there are two classes. The capitalist (Bourgeoisie) and the worker (proletariat).

Question 11

Capitalism

Answer 11

An economic system organized around private property and market exchange. In a capitalist economy, goods that are produced for consumption are distributed via exchange on the market.

Question 12

Max Weber

Answer 12

For Weber, Capitalism is defined by the rationalization of production.

Question 13

Protestant ethic

Answer 13

The belief that hard work and thrift are signs of god’s grace.

Question 14

Social closure

Answer 14

Various ways that groups seek to close off access to opportunities by other groups. (ex: club membership, marriage, voting rights, college diploma and citizenship).

Question 15

Status group

Answer 15

People with similar kinds of attributes or identities such as those baked on religion, ethnicity, or race.

Question 16

Durkheim

Answer 16

-A founding father of sociology

• Developed the concept of the social fact. Provided analysis of the roots of social solidarity. Provided analysis of religion as a force in modern life.

-People serve as slaves to their passions and need to be controlled

-Suicide is a very personal act that is opened up to sociological examination.
Altruistic Suicide: Bonds too strong
Egoistic Suicide: Bonds too weak
Anomic Suicide: Regulation too weak
Fatalistic Suicide: Regulation too strong

Question 17

Social facts/Social forces

Answer 17

-regularities and rules of everyday life that exist independently and outside the control of individuals.

-All of the forms of social structure (hierarchies and institutions) that any individual must operate within.

Question 18

Anomie

Answer 18

A social condition defined by an uprooting or breakdown of any moral values, standards or guidance for individuals to follow.

Question 19

W.E.B. Du Bois

Answer 19

“Color line” exists between whites and black. Both physical and psychological. Double consciousness: Of being American and being Black American. Blacks saw themselves in the eyes of whites.

Question 20

Race

Answer 20

A system for classifying people who are believed to share common descent, based on perceived innate physical similarities.

Question 21

Factors influencing Sociological research

Answer 21

Theoretical tradition, values, and code of ethics.

Question 22

Ethnography

Answer 22

A qualitative research method for studying the way of life of a group of people by close observation of them over a relatively long period of time.

Question 23

Comparative-Historical Research

Answer 23

A method of research that examines differences across countries or in different historical periods to try to understand what factors cause some specific change to occur.

Question 24

Experiments

Answer 24

Manipulate an independent
variable in order to examine
the effect on a dependent
variable.

Question 25

Milgram’s Electronic Shock Experiment

Answer 25

Independent Variables (causes) : Proximity of the learner, Closeness of the authority, Prestige of the setting, and Presence of rebellious peers.

Dependent Variables (effects) : Amount of shock administered, Speed of the response, and duration of the shock.

Question 26

Interviews (Qualitative)

Answer 26

-Open ended: e.g. why do you support/not support corporal punishment?

-Not standardized

-Researcher must code responses for common themes

Question 27

Surveys (Quantitative)

Answer 27

Consist of standardized questions:
-Do you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree that it is sometimes necessary to
discipline a child with a good, hard spanking?

-A limited set of response options: Yes/No, 1-5 scale, etc.

-Responses are numerically coded and statistically
analyzed.

Question 28

Qualitative Research

Answer 28

Relies on words, observations, or pictures as data (e.g. in-depth interviews).

Question 29

Quantitative Research

Answer 29

Relies on statistical analysis of data (e.g. survey, experiment).

Question 30

Hypothesis

Answer 30

A tentative prediction we have about what we are going to discover before we begin the research.

Question 31

Reliability

Answer 31

A tentative prediction we have about what we are going to discover before we begin the research.

Question 32

Validity

Answer 32

The extent to which the measurement a researcher uses accurately measures what it is intended to measure.

Question 33

Causality

Answer 33

When change in one variable is a direct cause of change in another variable. For example, long-term smoking is established as a cause of increased risk of lung cancer.