Lecture 1 - Intro to SOC150

Question 1

What is being objective?

Answer 1

Making conclusions based on empirically verifiable facts, collected w/ sound scientific principles (not opinions, feelings, preferences, experiences)

Question 2

What are the 7 types of bias?

Answer 2

1. Social location bias –> reliance on first-hand experiences, which varies from person to person (not objective reality)
2. Confirmation bias –> tendency to process info by looking for/interpreting info that is consistent w/ one’s beliefs
3. Fundamental attribution error –> tendency to attribute other’s failings to internal factors (disposition, personality, intelligence)
4. Self-serving bias –> opposite of fundamental attribution error (one’s own failure is attributed to external factors)
5. Optimism bias –> tendency to view things positively
6. Pessimism bias –> tendency to view things negatively
7. Cultural bias –> perceiving one’s culture as normal (other cultures as “abnormal”)

Question 3

(Social location bias) What is social location?

Answer 3

Combination of factors (gender, race, social class, age, sexuality, religion, geographic location, etc.) that is particular to each individual

Question 4

(Social location bias) What is anecdotal evidence?

Answer 4

Personal experience or evidence in the form of personal stories
(Ex. A white person saying racism doesn’t exist)

Question 5

How is sociology defined?

Answer 5

• Defined by what it does (how problems are approached)

Question 6

What is the Dunning-Kruger effect?

Answer 6

Type of cognitive bias in which one lacks knowledge of a subject, so they overestimate their understanding of it (perception of a simple issue)

Question 7

What is the sociological imagination?

Answer 7

(coined by C. Wright Mills) The ability to connect personal struggles to larger social issues

Question 8

What are the 2 general principles of the sociological imagination?

Answer 8

1. See the general in the particular (seemingly individual –> social)
   (Ex. University student anxiety)
2. See the strange in the familiar (challenge everything)
   (Ex. Shaking hands)

Question 9

What is decline bias?

Answer 9

Believing that change leads to worsening conditions compared to the past (If it’s always been done this way and society has historically evolved, why change it?)