Sociology Midterm-deck 1

Question 1

Sociological Imagination

Answer 1

ability to connect personal biography with historical and structural context
Make the familiar strange
awareness of relationship between individual and society

Question 2

3 categories of norms

Answer 2

Folkways, mores, laws

Question 3

Folkways

Answer 3

Customs, traditions, habits
Mildly enforced
Manners, dress, eating behaviors
If violate: just seen as odd

Question 4

Mores

Answer 4

Very strong norms, strictly enforced
bigamy, incest, cannibalism
if violate: strong negative judgement, may lead to arrest

Question 5

Laws

Answer 5

designed, maintained and enforced by political authority
speeding tickets, taxes, murder
Legal consequences, social reactions will vary

Question 6

1. Group Loyalty

Answer 6

Violation: apostasy

Question 7

2. Privacy

Answer 7

Violation: intrusion

Question 8

3. Prudence

Answer 8

Careful, good judgement to avoid consequences

violation: Indiscretion (lack of good judgement)

Question 9

4. Conventionality

Answer 9

Violation: bizarreness

Question 10

5. Responsibility

Answer 10

Violation: Irresponsibility

Question 11

6.Participation

Answer 11

Violation: Alienation

Question 12

7.Moderation

Answer 12

Violation: Hedonism (self-indulgence) and asceticism (avoidance of all indulgence)

Question 13

8.Honesty

Answer 13

Violation: Deceitfulness

Question 14

9. Peacefulness

Answer 14

Violation: Disruption

Question 15

10. Courtesy

Answer 15

Violation: uncouthness/rudeness

Question 16

3 questions good sociologist asks

Answer 16

1. What is the structure of this particular society?
2. Where does this society stand in human history?
3. What varieties of men and women prevail in this society and in this period?

Question 17

Theory

Answer 17

Set of statements to explain phenomenon
Both explanatory and predictive
Constructing good theory - scientists main goal

Question 18

Functionalism (Organicism)

Answer 18

Macrosociology
World is stable, ongoing entity- endures rather than changes; societal stability
Society as a system – a sum of interrelated parts which work together (in function) to maintain & restore equilibrium & stability
Functions are neutral (not good or bad)
Value consensus rather than conflict
Society as a living organism with parts contributing to survival

Question 19

Parson’s functionalism

Answer 19

If a social institution or other aspect of social life is not functional, it will not be passed on across generations
Therefore, if a social institution or other aspect of social life has been passed on, it is somehow functional

Question 20

Manifest functions

Answer 20

open, stated, and conscious functions of

institutions that involve the intended, recognized consequences of an aspect of society

Question 21

Latent functions

Answer 21

unconscious or unintended functions that
may reflect hidden purposes of an institution
ex. Mrs degree from college

Question 22

Critiques of functionalism

Answer 22

Society is social, not biological

doesn’t account for change

Question 23

Conflict perspective

Answer 23

Social change occurs through conflict Inequalities are unfair, expense less powerful
groups
Sees social behavior in terms of tension between groups over power or the allocation of resources
Is impressed with social change (not endurance) over time

Question 24

Symbolic Interactionism

Answer 24

-uses everyday (microsociological) forms of interaction to help generate ideas that will ultimately help us to explain society as a whole
-focuses on local contexts, not large societies
-individuals and groups act purposefully to secure their ends and create
meaning
-motivated by learned values, not materials
-people seek to create meaning for themselves

Question 25

Symbols

Answer 25

- anything that displays meaning | - can be object, language, non-verbal behavior

Question 26

Social Construction of Reality (Thomas)

Answer 26

An entity in a social system that is constructed by participants in a particular culture or society because people: agree to behave as if it exists or concur on following certain conventional rules around it -people interacting in a social system create a concept/representation of each other's actions, and these concepts become habituated into roles played by members of society

Question 27

Cycle of Meaning (Blumer)

Answer 27

signs and signals have different meaning for different societies, based on shared interactions between people the meaning of something is a social product, not inherent in things

Question 28

Dramaturgical theory of social | interaction (Goffman)

Answer 28

Social life as a theatrical performance we are all actors on a stage front stage and back stage versions of ourselves

Question 29

Operationalization

Answer 29

Define what you are trying to measure Define how you are going to measure the variables of interest Creating measurement of the abstract

Question 30

Independent Variable

Answer 30

a measured factor that the researcher believes has a causal impact on the dependent variable

Question 31

Dependent Variable

Answer 31

Outcome researcher is trying to explain

Question 32

Validity

Answer 32

the degree to which a measure or scale | truly reflects the phenomena under study

Question 33

Reliability

Answer 33

the extent to which a measure | produces consistent results

Question 34

Proving causation

Answer 34

1. Determine correlation 2. Determine direction 3. Eliminate confounds/ alternative explanations

Question 35

Steps to research

Answer 35

``` Select a topic • Define a problem • Review the literature • Formulate a hypothesis • Choose a research method • Collect data • Analyze results • Share results ```

Question 36

High culture

Answer 36

held in highest esteem by a culture | pursuit of intellectual refinement

Question 37

Material culture

Answer 37

everything that is part of our constructed environment | books, fashion, monuments

Question 38

Nonmaterial culture

Answer 38

non-physical; values, beliefs, behaviors, norms included language through the meanings we assign to words concepts such as class and inequality

Question 39

Cultural relativism

Answer 39

to recognize differences across cultures without passing judgement on, or assigning value to those differences

Question 40

Subculture

Answer 40

a group united by sets of concepts, values, traits, and/or behavioral patterns that distinguish it from others within the same culture or society ex. youth culture vs. mainstream adult culture dating vs. hookup culture

Question 41

Sociological imagination- view on dating/hook-up culture

Answer 41

your individual experience of courtship depends on the economic and historical place you are in • Had you been born at a different time, you would experience something completely different changes occurred due to invention of birth control, acceptance of abortion