Unit 1 Flashcards
Emile Durkheim’s explanation for the way modern societies rely on differentiation to form social bonds. Different parts of society function as a whole, much like an organism.
Organic Solidarity
A type of field work in which the researcher observes and participates in the activity being studied.
Participant Observation
A process in society that disrupts the social system or reduces its stability.
Dysfunction
The name given to theories about society that claimed to apply concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology.
Social Darwinism
Research that describes a problem or situation.
Descriptive research
The phenomenon that refers to a change in a subject’s behavior in an experiment or study because they know they are being observed.
Hawthorne effect
A subset of the population observed for the purposes of making inferences about the nature of the larger population of interest.
Sample
The group (usually of people) about whom we want to be able to draw conclusions.
Population
The academic study of social behavior using empirical investigation and analysis to draw conclusions about social order, disorder, and change.
Sociology
The stated, intended consequences of an institution, action, or social group.
Manifest Function
One of the most important rules that govern research on humans; it requires that participants in a study are aware of all the potential risks, health, and emotional, that could result from their participation.
Informed Consent
The unconscious or unrecognized consequences of an action within the framework of a social group.
Latent Function
An applied practice of sociology that focuses on health intervention, such as working with medical practitioners, community health services, social policy and public health campaigns.
Clinical Sociology
Occurs when the differences between the groups being studied are the result of factors other than chance.
Statistically Significant
Social bonds in small traditional societies which are based on common values.
Mechanical Solidarity
The application of the scientific approach to the social world in order to understand it.
Positivism
Objects, words, or actions that stand for something else.
Symbols
Defines a trait or characteristic in terms of a process, test, or unit of measure that is needed to determine its existence, duration, and quantity. It makes a hypothesis about a characteristic testable.
Operational Definition
The term coined by C. Wright Mills to describe a way of understanding the world that involves thinking about things from different perspectives and putting personal circumstances into a wider context.
Social Imagination
Any kind of communication between people that is understood to have meaning.
Sociological Interactions
A process in society that contributes to the social system and its stability.
Function
A formal organization that has defined terms of membership, written governance, and written communication, as well as a division of labor, responsibility, and accountability.
Bureaucracy
A type of research focusing on data that can be measured numerically (typically emphasizing complex statistical techniques.
Quantitative
In statistics, _____________ is a feature of the statistical technique or inputs, which causes the study results not to accurately reflect reality.
Bias
W.E.B. DuBois’ concept of a feeling of “twoness” where the experience of one’s identity is fragmented into several contradictory facets, making it hard to develop a sense of self.
Double Consciousness
External circumstances or events that have an effect on the way individual people behave, such as economy, religion, or government.
Social Facts
The relationship of cause and effect between variables.
Causation
The extent or degree of statistical association among two or more variables.
Correlation
A term that describes professionals who use sociological theories and methods outside of academic settings in order to produce social change.
Applied Sociology
A factor that can vary or change from one case to another.
Variable
A systematic study of people and cultures, where the researcher observes the people or society being studied from the point of view of the subject being studied
Ethnography
Research that explains why a social phenomenon occurs.
Explanatory Research
A tentative statement of the relationship between two or more concepts.
Hypothesis
A set of logically interrelated statements that attempts to describe, explain, and sometimes predict social events.
Theory
A type of field research in which the researcher observes what is being studied.
Direct Observation
Replacing traditional motives, values, and emotions for social action with rational, calculated ones, a replacement that leads to more efficient social institutions.
Rationalization
A type of research focusing on observations or descriptions and using these to analyze underlying meanings, patterns, or themes of social relationships.
Qualitative
