Midterm #1 Review Flashcards
Kahlil holds the door open for another university student, who is following closely behind him and carrying a large stack of books. What is Kahlil engaged in?
Following a norm
According to Karl Marx, which of the following is the most important social structure in any society?
Class relations
Generally speaking, the more a group’s members share beliefs and values, and the more they interact with one another, the more social cohesion the group has. What did Émile Durkheim call this property of groups?
Social solidarity
Some difficult cuts had to be made in the school budget and everyone on the school board knew there had to be consensus on the decisions. Even though many members disagreed with certain recommendations, each one received either unanimous support or defeat and no one offered conflicting viewpoints. Which concept is best described by this example?
Groupthink
Which term refers to the behaviour expected of a person who occupies a particular position in society?
Role
In her final paper, Eliadah discusses how society is dominated by the ruling class and they justify the social, political, and economic “status quo” as natural, inevitable, and beneficial to every social class. What is Eliadah describing?
cultural hegemony
What term refers to people who are not necessarily friends but are about the same age and hold similar status?
Peer group
What term refers to a recognized social position that an individual can occupy?
status
Human survival is based on the capacity to create general ideas or ways of thinking that are not linked to specific or particular instances. What are these ideas called?
Abstractions
The federal government passes several laws getting tough on crime to protect the public and make citizens feel safe. This leads to overcrowding in prisons and several costly riots. According to sociologists, which term refers to the unforeseen results of the government’s actions?
Latent Functions
Cody’s seven-year-old son Jeremy is ill and home from school, and Cody plans to use the time at home with him to work on the sociology essay that is due in two weeks. However, just as he is about to begin, his boss from his part-time job calls and demands that he come in to work. What is Cody likely to experience in this situation?
Role conflict
In Max Weber’s sense of the term, what is rationalization?
use of the most efficient means to achieve given goals
Which of the following features of the monkey experiment conducted by Margaret and Harry Harlow is the most important in demonstrating the importance of the emotional relation between a mother and her child?
that even with less milk the monkeys responded better to the cloth covered fake mother
Ingrid has just moved to Canada from Germany and is learning to speak English. Once Ingrid has learned her new language, she will see the world in new ways. Which term best reflects this process?
the Sapir-Whorf thesis
Which term refers to a recognized position in an interaction?
status
Which term refers to activities like attending the opera or the ballet?
High culture
What is occurring when a person exhibits little enthusiasm or commitment when adopting a role that’s personally disagreeable or incompatible with his or her self-image?
Role distancing
As illustrated by the “wild boy of Aveyron” in the text, what occurs without childhood socialization?
Most of our human potential remains unlocked until we are socialized.
Darcy is a researcher studying the day-to-day lives of drug addicts to understand the meanings they attach to being socially marginalized members of society. Which term best describes the patterns of social relations that Darcy is examining?
Microstructures
What is considered a total institution?
The army
What is emotional management?
the act of obeying ‘feeling rules’ and appropriately responding to situations
Jadyn is interested in studying domestic violence and believes that to fully understand this phenomenon, she needs to look at the interactions between individual members of heterosexual couples and at the overarching gender ideology of her society. Which theoretical framework are her beliefs most consistent with?
Feminist theory
What are the three building blocks of social interaction?
norms, roles, and statuses
When does the process of socialization begin?
soon after birth
Dallas wants to measure the impact of divorce on children. In particular, he wants to understand the connection between a divorce and school performance of children. In this research, how would the divorce be classified?
As the independent variable
What is a defining characteristic of modernity?
a consensus around core values
For sociologists, what is usually the first step in the research cycle?
formulating a research question
What are people engaging in when they try to display themselves in the best possible way?
Impression management
Subjects in Stanley Milgram’s authority experiment were allowed to administer what appeared to be dangerous electric shocks. Which of the following did most subjects choose to do?
Most chose to administer high-voltage shocks even though they were free to stop.
What are a baptism, a wedding, and a graduation ceremony all examples of?
Rites of passage
Suzanne has taken a new position in the company and is experiencing excessive job demands. Her boss wants reports on his desk ten minutes after having asked for them, and her co-workers are pressuring her to be less efficient since it makes them look bad. What is Suzanne experiencing?
Role strain
Members of an in-group create boundaries that separate them from members of an out-group. Group boundaries emerge when which of the following is present?
competition for scarce resources
During an early season of the popular television series Grey’s Anatomy, George, one of the main characters, steps out in front of a city bus to pull a woman to safety. What do his actions illustrate?
Altruism
From the observations of teachers’ and students’ roles in creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, sociologists concluded that “situations that we define as real become real in their consequences.” By which term is this conclusion known?
the Thomas theorem
Which term refers to a person’s ideas and attitudes about who he or she is as an independent being?
Self
Which term does George Herbert Mead use for the subjective, impulsive self?
I
Which relationship does the sociological imagination allow people to better understand?
the relationship between social structures and personal troubles
Which of the following emerged as a distinct stage in the human life course following industrialization
Childhood
Which of the following best describes a social category?
a group of people who share similar status but do not identify with each other
Chantal, who lives in Canada, tells her friend Sonja that she finds it disgusting that in some countries the people eat bugs. What concept is reflected in Chantal’s feelings?
Ethnocentrism
What do sociologists call the sum of ideas, practices, and material objects that people create to adapt to and thrive in their environments?
Culture
As people conform to norms, they usually come to accept common ideas about what is desirable and important; these ideas distinguish one culture from another. What are these common ideas called?
Values
Which sociological theory stresses the stability of social relations and social organization?
Functionalism
Geetika has generally gotten above average grades in university, but her grades take a nosedive when she takes a class with Professor Zhang. After studying for days and then failing the midterm exam, she gets discouraged and decides against studying for the final exam, deciding that it would not make any difference in her test score. Consequently, she fails the final exam. Which sociological concept best explains Geetika’s situation?
the Self Fulfilling Prophecy
What do sociologists consider to be the most important agent of primary socialization?
the family
What is the postmodern tendency to define ourselves in terms of the goods and services we purchase?
consumerism
Contact tracing has been used in the fight against COVID-19. What is contact tracing based on?
social network analysis
Alex and George were discussing different theoretical perspectives in their Intro to Sociology class. Alex felt that most people need rules to follow, or chaos was sure to erupt. George felt that, as far as he could tell, the rules that have been imposed on people, at least so far in history, have always been in favour of the elites, and that given half a chance, he trusted people to be able to figure things out even better if they were allowed to organize themselves. Given their views, which of the following is the most likely scenario?
George follows conflict theory and Alex is a functionalist.
Which of the following is NOT characteristic of postmodern culture?
commitment to a monotheism
Imagine a student develops her own “shorthand” for taking lecture notes. Which statement best identifies a feature of her shorthand?
The shorthand is composed of symbols but is not part of culture.
Which term refers to society’s main socializing institutions, which include family, peers, and schools?
agents of socialization
Comparing the movies of Snow White or Cinderella with those of Mulan or Tangled illustrates which of the following?
that gender roles are still sexist but not to the extremes of the past
Adrian states that children who have a close bond with their parents are less likely to engage in drug use and vandalism because they feel more closely tied to mainstream norms that discourage this type of behaviour. What is Adrian engaging in?
theorizing
The group of 12 people on a jury is an example of which of the following?
a secondary group
Which term refers to a set of shared rules in every society that guide the behaviour of society members by specifying what behaviours are appropriate and inappropriate?
Norms
Which term refers to the belief that all cultures and all cultural practices have equal value?
cultural relativism
What takes place when powerful socializing agents deliberately cause rapid change in people’s values, roles, and self-conception, sometimes even against their will?
resocialization
When the first mechanical clocks (“work clocks”) were introduced in Germany’s public squares 700 years ago, workers protested in the streets. Now we regard the regulation of our activities by clocks to be the most natural way of organizing our lives. What does our acceptance and internalization of the work clock indicate?
The regulation of time is a product of culture.
Throughout the months of COVID-19 lockdowns, Christian is increasingly disheartened by the escalating suicide rates being reported in a Canadian newspaper. Adopting a Durkheimian perspective, what would Christian argue to be a major contributor to the upsurge?
a diminishing of social ties
Relatively inexpensive international travel and communication contributed to which of the following cultural processes in the late twentieth century?
globalization
Which school of thought is based on the idea that social interaction involves competition over valued resources?
Conflict theory
Allyson is trying to help her heart-broken friend Lauren feel better about Lauren’s impending divorce. Allyson explains that many people get divorced because women have more economic options and higher education today than in the past. What is Allyson using?
sociological imagination
According to feminist theory, which factor contributes to women’s subordination to men in contemporary society?
structures of power and social convention
Which revolution prompted the development of sociology by causing a large number of social problems that the social and political thought of the time could neither understand nor solve?
the Industrial Revolution
Which theoretical perspective is characterized by the view that people attach subjective meanings to their actions?
symbolic interactionism
Understanding that le chien (French) and das hund (German) mean the same thing as dog is an example of which human capacity?
abstraction
In her Twitter bio, Paige identifies as a wife, mother, and feminist blogger. What is she outlining for her potential followers?
Her status set
Mothers from the Philippines sometimes leave their children with relatives and go abroad as domestic workers. They believe this is the best way to meet the financial needs of their family and to ensure a positive future for them. Which type of social structure is reflected in this female migration?
Global structure
What do folkways specify?
social preferences
As adults move through the life course, they are socialized into a succession of predictable roles. What is the term used for taking on some of the norms and behaviours of the roles that one expects to assume or hopes to occupy?
anticipatory socialization
Which term means achieving a bureaucracy’s goals at the least cost?
efficiency
Which mass medium reaches more adult Canadians than any other mass medium?
the internet
Which type of social structure is patriarchy?
macrostructure
Although she is very thin, Daiyu is convinced that everyone around her believes she is overweight. She adapts her eating behaviours so that she eats very little and when she does eat, she makes herself vomit in order to try to keep her weight down. Which of the following would explain Daiyu’s behaviour?
looking glass self
What best reflects the meaning of the term subculture?
a set of distinctive values, norms, and practices within a larger culture
What is characterized by a permanent, salaried staff of qualified experts and written goals, rules, and procedures?
a bureaucracy
What is the sociological definition of symbols?
practices that carry a particular meaning, such as language
What do sociologists call the patterns of intimate social relations formed during face-to-face interactions?
microstructures
Which group of sociologists were the first to be interested in the concept of the hidden curriculum?
conflict theorists
Doctors at the hospital typically wear white lab coats and carry stethoscopes around their necks. What do sociologists call these objects?
status cues
