Sociology Chapter 2: Theoretical Approaches Flashcards
Theory that focuses on social groups competing for scarce resources
Macro Level
ex. Gov spending ($)
Conflict Theory
The variable in a cause-and-effect relationship that is affected by and comes after the independent variable in time sequence.
Dependent Variable
A theory that focuses on humans as fundamentally concerned with self-interests, making rational decisions based on weighing costs and rewards of the projected outcome
Micro level
Rational Choice (Exchange) Theory
The planned outcomes of interactions, social organizations, or institutions
Intended or obvious
Manifest Functions
Unplanned or unintended consequences of actions or of social structures
Side-effects
Latent Functions
Founded on information gained from evidence (facts), rather than intuition
Empirical Knowledge
Assumes that all parts of the social structure (including groups, organizations, and institutions), the culture (values and beliefs), and social processes (social change or child rearing) work together to make the whole society run smoothly and harmoniously
Organ systems in the body
dynamic equalibrium
Macro Level
Structural-Functional Theory
Hypothesis
An educated guess or prediction
A group of systematically chosen people who represent a much larger group
Sample
The expected behaviors, rights, obligations, responsibilities, and privileges assigned to a social status
Roles (Mead)
Statements or explanations regarding how and why two or more facts are related to each other and the connections between these facts
Theories
Sees humans as active agents who create shared meanings of symbols and events and then interact on the basis of those meanings.
Micro-Level
Mead
Symbolic Interaction Theory (Also Called Social Constructionism or Interpretative Theory
Critiques the hierarchical power structures that disadvantage women and other minorities
Micro or Macro
Feminist Theory
The variable in a cause-and-effect relationship that comes first in a time sequence and causes a change in another variable
Independent Variable
Actions that undermine the stability or equilibrium of society
Dysfunctions
Assumes that all parts of the social structure (including groups, organizations, and institutions), the culture (values and beliefs), and social processes (social change or child rearing) work together to make the whole society run smoothly and harmoniously
Structural-Functional Theory
What is Micro Level?
Bottom-up
Me (Fam), small groups, local Organizations and community
Smallest building blocks; one-on-one interactions
national institutions, complex organizations, ethnic groups
How do sociologists gather accurate data about families, educational institutions, or ethnic groups?
Meso
National and Global Community
Starts Top-Down (Bird View)
How does society impact individuals?
Macro
The study of society and the individual in relationship to society.
Sociology
The generalized attitude of a large social group
Individuals develop a social self, which he called the “me,” and a response to that social self which he called the I
Generalized other
The “me” develops through interactions with others and consists of our interpretations of how the generalized other” views us.
The I arises in response to the “me”. The “I” is one’s personal identity and individuality.
Identify the missing items.
What is the looking glass self?
The self is shaped by others and interaction with others and perceptions of others.
- We imagine how we must appear to others
- We imagine what others must think of us
- We develop our feelings about ourselevs based on our imagined judgement of others.
Founder of Modern Sociology
Functionalism
Anomie: Dysfunction/Mismatch
Expectations vs. Environment
Durkheim
He is associated with conflict theory
Class consiousness: is a social condition in which members of a social class are actively aware of themselves as a group
False consiousness: Not one unit by individual
Karl Marx
He is associated with rationalization aka increasing efficency and bureaucracies
Interpretation as well
Max Weber
_______ refers to a relationship between variables (such as poverty and low levels of education), with change in one variable associated with change in another.
Correlation
_________ relationships occur when there is a relationship between variables so that one variable stimulates a change in another
Cause-and-effect
____________ occur when there is no causal relationship between the independent and dependent variables, but they vary together, often due to a third variable affecting both of them
Spurious relationships
______ are steps used by researchers to eliminate all variables except those related to the hypothesis—especially those variables that might be spurious
Controls
________ are research conducted by talking directly with people and asking questions in person or by telephone.
Interviews
________ contain questions and other types of items designed to solicit information appropriate to analysis of research questions
Questionnaires
__________ (also called field research) involve systematic, planned observation and recording of interactions and other human behavior in their natural settings (where the activity normally takes place rather than in a laboratory).
Observational studies
_________ uses existing data, information that has already been collected in other studies— including data banks such as the national census
Secondary analysis
________ entails the systematic categorizing and recording of information from written or recorded sources—printed materials, videos, radio broadcasts, or artworks.
Content analysis
_________ refers to the use of two or more methods of data collection to enhance the amount and type of data for analysis and the accuracy of the findings
Triangulation
Fill in the missing items
Experimental studies manipulate a _________ variable to observe how a _________ variable changes.
independent
dependent
__________ variables are manipulated (usually on the x-axis of an accompanying graph).
Independent variables
___________ variables affect both the independent and dependent variable.
Confounding variables
____________ is the process of making a variable measurable.
Operationalization
_______ variables change in response to the independent variable (usually on the y-axis).
Dependent
___________ variables provide a mechanistic link between two variables.
Mediating
_______ variables change the intensity of a relationship between two variables
Moderating
In experimental studies, ______controls receive effectively no treatment, and ______ controls receive a treatment that is known to induce the outcome of interest.
negative
positive
Randomization and ______ help improve the validity of any study design.
blinding
_____________ participants randomly assigned to either a treatment or control group.
Randomized control trials (RCTs):
______ studies analyze pre-existing variation in a population.
Observational
_____________ sample a population and measure various things about this group.
Cross-sectional studies
___________ compare individuals with the outcome of interest (cases) and unaffected individuals (controls).
Case-control studies
_____________: multiple measures are made over time.
Longitudinal design
___________: people are grouped by some organizing principle and followed through time, often age.
Cohort studies:
_________ studies analyze participants’ history (backwards in time).
Retrospective
________ studies analyze participants moving forward in time.
Prospective
Systematic reviews and ________: combine data from many studies + critical or quantitative assessment.
meta-analyses
Ethical standards include: informed consent, __________, scientific validity, independent review, clinical value, fair subject selection, and the principle of respect.
favorable risk-benefit ratio
Experimental methods can be quantitative, qualitative, or ______: measures can be objective or subjective.
mixed
_________: relates to meaningfulness of a study’s results.
Validity
_______ validity: how well we can draw causal conclusions from the data.
Internal
______ validity: how well experiment predicts real-world outcomes.
External
_____ validity: how well design tests what it intends to (construct, content, criterion, and predictive validity).
Test
___________: whether measure produces values close to the objectively true value
Accuracy
________ methods: often use questionnaires; this method is inexpensive but vulnerable to self-reporting bias
Survey
_________: tendency to reply in a way that seems more socially successful/applicable
Social desirability bias
________ bias: tendency to answer “yes” to a question by default.
Acquiescence
___________: idea that a sample should accurately reflect the population it’s taken from.
Representativeness:
Describes how close together experimental measurements are.
Precision
________ whether the measurement can reproduce similar results
reliability
