Exam 1 Flashcards
Enculturation
The process through which we learn our culture
Socialization
The process through which we learn to be functioning members of society
Primary, Traditional, and New Agents of socialization
Primary : Parents/family
Trad: Peers, educ, work place, religion, gov, experiences
New: Social media & tech
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
The way we read, write , speak influence the way we see world and our behaviors
Ex: futured and futureless language & gendered language
Futured Language
- defined sense of futue
- seperate
- distant
Example: it will rain tomorrow
Futureless language
- a defined sense of future
- not seperate
- not distant
Culture
- the learned behaviors and symbols that allow people to live in groups
- the primary means by which humans adapt to their environment
- the ways of life characteristic of a particular human society
Culture is …
learned, shared, adaptive, dynamic
Edward hall
cultures percieves context, time and space differently
Chronemics
different cultures use time differently (monochronic cultures VS polychronic cultures)
monochronemic
- doing one thing at a time
- assumes careful planning and scheduling
- low context
- western approch of time managment
- shape - straight line
*yesterday, today, tomorrow
polychronic
- human interaction is valued over time and material things
- high context
- shape - circle / cycle
Examples of symbols in culture
Money and language
Value
a culturally defined idea of what is ture, right, and beautiful. they are influenced by the agents of enculturation
Plasticity
the ability of humans to change their behavior with realative ease in repsonse to environmental demands
Innovation
a new variation on an existing cultural pattern that is subsequently accepted by others members of society
diffusion
the spread of cultural elements from one culture to another through cultural contact
Emic
“member” - insider’s view
etic
“theory”/“they” - outsider’s view
stereotype
generalizations about groups of people/cultures/things
prejudice
negative attitude
discrimination
acting on one’s negative attitude/s
ethnocentrism
the belief that one’s uclture is superior to other cultures
cultural reletivism
the belief that cultures should be judged from an emic view
Barriers to critical thinking
- assumptions
- fear
- group think
- prejudice
- stereotypes
- socialization
- enculturation
- ethnocentrism
fallacies
flawed arguments
genetic fallacy
a claim is ture or false because of its origin
ex - we should reject the proposal for solving the current welfare mess because it comes straight from the think tank in Washington
composition fallacy
what is true of the parts must be true of the whole
ex - the atoms that make up the human body are invisible. therefore the human body is invisible
division fallacy
what is true of the whole must be true of the parts
ex - this machine is heavy, thus all parts of the machine are heavy
appeal to the person fallacy
ad hominem - rejecting claim by criticizing the person
ex - we should reject the Profs. claim because he believes in astrology
appeal to popularity falacy
a claim must be true because a lot of people believe in it
ex - of course the war is justified, everyone believes that it is justified
appeal to tradition
a claim must be true bc its part of tradition
ex - Female Genital Mutilation has been
practiced for hundreds of years to purify girls. It must work
appeal to ignorance
the lack of evidence proves something
ex - no one has proved that ghosts aren’t real. therefore they must be real
appeal to emotion
the use of emotion as a premise in an argument
ex - you should vote for this proposition because if you don’t we will lose our children to a world with no beauty and art. Let he children sing and dance
Red Herring
Raising irrelevant issue during an argument
ex - Every woman should have the
right to an abortion. Anti-
abortion activists are making
life miserable by threatening
doctors, clinics, and patients
Straw man fallacy
Distorting, weakening, or oversimplifying someone’s position so it can
be more easily attacked.
* Ex - Senator Kennedy is opposed to the military spending bill. Why does
he always want to slash everything to the bone? He wants a weak
military that won’t be able to fight off crazy terrorists
lack of gneralizable laws
social phnomena are not as uniform or as constant over time, as natural phenomena
deductive reasoning
- general to specific
Ex: Lucy is a monkey and therefore like bananas
inductive reasoning
specific to general
Ex: Because cheap meds A and B cause side effects, all cheap meds cause side effects.
challenges to social sciences
*Mental entities - can abstract thoughts
*Scientist values and research procedures
*Hawthorne Effect - change in behavior of subjects upon awareness of observation
hawthorne effect
change in behavior of subjects upon awareness of observation
what doe functionalist do
beleive that social elements have a function and a dysfunction
manifest
functions of social elements which are commonly recognized and intended
latent
functions of social elements which are not commonly recognized and unintended
Conflict perspective is about …
power, dominance, resource disctribution, & hegemony
Karl Marx
believed that society is fundamentally divided in to 2 classes
* exploiters - bourgeoisie
* exploited - proletariat
Major Focus of Conflict Theory is . . .
inequality specifically social stratification and social class
