midterm

Question 1

Define sociology

Answer 1

-The scientific study of society
-It involves developing theories and conducting social scientific theories and conducting social scientific research to better understand the organization of society
-How we come to perceive of our shared reality

Question 2

What are social norms?

Answer 2

-Social norms refer to the collective beliefs and conduct expectations that are prevalent within a society they promote certain ways of acting and thinking as normal natural and inevitable.

Question 3

What do sociologist do?

Answer 3

-Sociologists develop theories to determine exactly how, and, why, societies come to impress expectations of ‘proper’ conduct upon their members, and why we conform with-or-challenge dominant social standards.
-Sociologists also strive to explain the processes through which individuals and groups can resist and challenge social norms in ways that can contribute to significant forms of cultural change.

Question 4

What are social facts?

Answer 4

-social facts refer to elements of our shared reality that we perceive as ‘real’, ‘natural’ and existing independent of human conduct, but which are in fact SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED
-Our thoughts and actions reinforce the authority of social facts.

Question 5

What are some examples of social facts?

Answer 5

SANTA
-Introduced as a real person
-Social fact that doesn’t exist
MONEY
-social construct
-is the carrot at the end of the stick that leads us to conform
-we wnat to accumulate large amounts of money
-structures to relationships day to day
PROPER ETIQUETTE
-Doesn’t stem from biology
GENDER NORMS
-doesn’t exist outside of the basis of gender norms

Question 6

What is socialization?

Answer 6

-The process which we are brought to understand how to act in accordance with the normative expectations of the wider society
-Structures the ways that we act and perceive of the world around us.

Question 6

Define conformity

Answer 6

Conformity is reinforced by authoritative systems, but also one by one interactions with each other. This is how normal is constructed and reinforced, why some people or groups choose not to conform with certain patterns of conduct.

Question 7

What are contemporary social wars?

Answer 7

Challenging or reassessing long-standing ways of understanding the world. This leads to a unique social environment more prone to challenging what has long been seen as common sense.

Question 7

What do social actors do?

Answer 7

A great deal of sociological attention has been paid to how social actors help to compel others to internalize and conform with social norms-

Question 7

What are the three levels of sociological analysis? and describe them.

Answer 7

Macro-sociological approaches
Study society at the level of systems and institutions wish to understand how the wider social structure impacts individual lives.
Micro-sociological approaches
Suggest that society should be studied at the levels of individual or small-group dynamics.
Middle-range sociological approaches
Focus on links between social structures and small-groups dynamics; argues that there is a reciprocal relationship where each influence and ‘shapes’ the other. To gain an understanding of how society is organized.

Question 7

What is theory?

Answer 7

a ‘theory’ is an assumption of hypotheses, based on observations, that social scientist develops to explain how societies operate. The development of theories leads sociologists to form concepts with which to understand how societies operate.

Question 8

What are symbolic interactionist theories?

Answer 8

focus on how interactions between individuals and groups actively contribute to processes of reality building(on a macro level) and identity formation (on a macro-level).

Question 9

What does the term ‘social construction’ mean?

Answer 9

-implies that reinforcement of our shared social reality is an active and ongoing process that depend on people with a shared view and shared recognition of conduct expectations.
-This corresponds with the argument that social norms maintain their social authority by virtue of the presence of actors to act in accordance with them.

Question 10

identify the central assumptions that the symbolic interactionist perspectives endorses.

Answer 10

1. Society and all social structures are the creations of human populations. The tools through which we communicate about the world and the systems that organize our conduct are all the invention of human societies.
   -Law and justice are human societies
2. Social norms and values are actively created, constructed reinforced and changed by social actors through their conduct and interactions.
   -Social ‘reality’ and processes of social organization are reinforced by the conduct of people whose actions coincide with those collective perceptions.

-our actions, beliefs and ways of interacting with the world are influenced and regulated by social norms and values.
There is a reciprocal relationship, then, between human activity shaping social norms shaping human activity.
-Movements to significant change
-Interested in why society is stable and why society is challenged

Question 11

What do symbolic interactionist concepts include?

Answer 11

1. Significant symbols and the generalized other
2. The looking-glass self
3. Social scripts
4. the symbolic universe

Question 12

What is the generalized other?

Answer 12

Being socialized in accordance with the same significant symbols allows us to take the position of ‘the generalized other’. We can easily put ourselves ‘in the position of others’ and access how they are feeling,AS LONG AS they draw from the same significant symbols and experience the same emotional reactions as we do.
Our uniform reactions to shared significant symbols inform and reinforce notions of a collective culture.
We are able to grasp a sense of what others are thinking and feeling without having to communicate with them.

Question 13

What is sympathetic introspection?

Answer 13

Charles Cooley promoted a form of sociological
analysis called sympathetic introspection: simply
put, the practice of trying to hypothesize as to why
an individual acts in the ways that they do by
‘putting oneself in their shoes’and trying to
perceive of the world as they do.
His most popular theory centers around ‘the
looking-glass self’: That we perceive of ourselves
as we believe others perceive of us.

Question 14

What is the looking glass self?

Answer 14

Cooley suggests that we ultimately base our overachieving view of ourselves on the impressions that we assume we have on others, and that our identities are produced through a three-state process.
1. We attempt to take the position of others and image how we most likely appear to them.
2. We made assumptions about what types of judgments others make about us based on our surface appearances.
3. We ultimately come to form perspectives on ourselves based on the judgment that we believe others have made about us.

Question 15

What is performance theory?

Answer 15

Erving Goffman’s theory of ‘dramaturgy’-also known as performance theory-considers the expectations that we place upon ourselves while interacting with others and our social institutions.
Goffman argues that our identities center around a ‘performance of self’ that is highly regulated by cultural expectations, institutional demands and the expectations of our peers.
-We put on a performance so that people think of us in a positive way.

Question 16

What is the significance of social scripts?

Answer 16

Goffman argues that social harmony is maintained as we recognize and abide by prevalent ‘social scripts’, or expectations of conduct, as we interact with others. IN essence, we conduct ourselves as if giving a theatre performance- with social norms and social facts functioning as the scripts that we read off.

We abide by these social scripts as a means of engaging in ‘impression management’: we regulate our own conduct in the interest of being looked upon favorable by others.We assume others judge us in accordance with dominant norms and values and therefore conform with them to meet expectations.  Ex) social greeting, good morning, I’m fine.

Question 17

What is the front stage and backstage?

Answer 17

Goffman differentiates between ‘front stage’-the performances-of-self that we engage with when in the company of others- and the ‘backstage’ processes where we reflect upon our conduct and, stemming from this, re-assess our self worth or ‘value’ against dominant social expectations.
-We put a show for others.

Question 18

What is the symbolic universe?

Answer 18

The symbolic Universe refers to the norms and values members of a society regard as ‘commonsensical’ given they are embedded in collectively recognized significant symbols, reflected in the social institutions that shape our understanding of the world and actively reinforced through the performance of actors.

Question 19

Define universe maintenance

Answer 19

The Symbolic Universe can be challenged by
1. Non-conformist individuals who do not act in accordance with dominant social scripts.
2. The presence of alternative symbolic universes (other cultures)
-Maintain a shared understanding

Question 20

What are consensus perspectives?

Answer 20

Consensus perspectives suggest that societies maintain harmony
due to the presence of interconnected social institutions. Social
institutions are designed to achieve common goals and reinforce
the dominant norms, values and beliefs that align with achieving
those collective goals.

Question 21

Which institutions have consensus perspectives?

Answer 21

Institutions including (but not limited to) the education system, the
justice system, the economic system and information distribution
systems are interconnected and interdependent. The collapse of
one social institution endangers the stability of all social systems.
-Any threat to these institutions threat our society itslef

Question 22

What are conflict perspectives?