Sociology Practice Reviews Flashcards
role of state religion in government
it is recognized by the government but it does not influence laws by which the nation operates, if it does, it is more appropriately a theocracy
social construction accounts for:
assignment of meaning to certain constructs
symbolic interactionism accounts for:
agreement upon certain gestures, words, symbols to which we apply meaning (more for communication than social construction)
cultural transmission
continuing of cultural traditions down successive generations
cultural diffusion
the spread of cultural beliefs and social activities from one group to another
cultural interaction
cultural exchange in which one group assumes the beliefs/practices of another without sacrificing characteristics of their own culture
normative organization
voluntarily joined, usually involved in moral activities
utilitarian organization
paid/compensated for tasks performed
coercive organization
not voluntary
oligarchy
a type of governmental structure in which a few people are in power
cultural transmission
how culture is learned and passed on from generations
life course approach to health
viewing health in terms of the patient’s entire life history. a holistic approach that considers many more factors than ones directly incidental to the illness at hand
demographic transition
refers to a population cycle that will begin with a fall in the death rate, continues with a phase of rapid population growth and concludes with a decline in the birth rate
horizontal mobility
a person changes his/her occupation but the overall social standing remains the same
vertical mobility
any change in the occupational, economic or political status of an individual or group which leads to change of their position/social status (can be ascending or descending)
inter-generational mobility
one generation changes its social status in contrast to the preceding generation
intra-generational mobility
type of mobility that takes place in the life span of one generation, can be divided into:
1) change in the position of one individual in his life span
2) change in the position of one brother but no change in the position of another brother
what are the four components of McDonaldization/principles of bureaucracy?
efficiency, calculability (assessing performance through quantity and/or speed of output), predictability, and control (automating work where possible in order to make results more predictable)
social reproduction
a concept proposed by Karl Marx, refers to the emphasis on the structures and activities that transmit social inequality from one generation to the next
atypical antipsychotics (second generation antipsychotic drugs)
block certain chemical receptors in the brain, relieves symptoms of psychotic disorders (fewer side effects than regular antipsychotic agents), usually block dopamine and serotonin receptors and less likely to cause extrapyramidal motor control disabilities
neuroleptics are also known as:
antipsychotics, block dopamine receptors in brain pathways, may cause extrapyramidal motor control disabilities (ex. unsteady Parkinson’s disease-type movements)
Thomas theorem
a theory of sociology: “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” Our behaviour depends on our subjective interpretation of reality rather than the objective reality of a situation. The consequences and results of behaviour make it real
Hawthorne effect
refers to the tendency of some people to work harder and perform better when they are participants in an experiment; behaviour is changed due to the attention subjects receive from the researchers, rather than because of any manipulation in dependent variables.
extinction
in operant conditioning, refers to the disappearance of a previously learned behaviour when the behaviour is not reinforced
instinctual drift
tendency of an animal, of any species, to revert to unconscious and automatic behaviour that interferes with operant conditioning
partial reinforcement
unlike continuous reinforcement, is only reinforced at certain intervals of time or ratios (ex. intermittent schedules)
partial report technique
requires participants to identify a subset of the characters from the visual display using cued recall (tests sensory memory, usually eidetic/iconic memory/photographic memory)
word association testing
a test of personality and mental function in which the subject is required to respond to each of a series of words with the first word that comes to mind or with a word of a specified class of words
operational span testing
determines your ability to store short-term memory while using working-memory on tasks
psychophysical discrimination testing
determine our perception of stimuli in relation to the stimuli’s true physical properties (tests how accurate our perception of stimuli really is)
operation span
the maximum amount of words a person can remember (short term memory) after the working memory tasks
whole report testing technique
tests visual short-term memory: asked to immediately recall all the letters shown
partial report testing technique
tests visual short-term memory: asked to immediately recall a specific row of letter
what does whole report and partial report test?
visual short-term memory (demonstrates that short-term memory can hold a ton of information, but only for a very short amount of time)
incentive stimulus
relates to incentive theory of motivation, includes external factors in one’s environment (ex. community, cultural values, social networks)
proximal stimulus and distal stimulus are defined based on:
where the stimulus comes from and the physiological changes it can cause a person
proximal stimulus
the transduction of an external stimulus (eg. phototransduction pathway caused by receiving light into the eye)
distal stimulus
the source of the external stimulus (eg. the activation of the phototransduction pathway is caused by the sun or a source of light)
sensory stimulus
refers to the type of information being received by your receptors which elicits a response
George Herbert Mead is associated with which school of sociology?
symbolic interactionism/social behaviourism
social behaviourism
the mind and self emerge through the process of communicating with others
symbolic interactionism
micro-sociological theory, specifically focuses on how individuals interact with one another to create symbolic worlds, and in return, how these worlds shapes individual behaviours.
