Ohio University Sociology 3000 Midterm

Explanations about how and why humans behave, interact, and organize themselves

Sociology Theories Definition

Family, economy, polity, religion, and education

Institutions of Society

Structural Functionalism, Conflict Theory, Symbolic Interactionism, Exchange Theory, and Post-Modern Theory

Five Paradigms of Sociological Theory

Economic restructuring, Political restructuring, Intellectual revolution

3 Factors Leading to Emergence of Sociological Theory

An event in 1789 that lead to the spread of democracy and the downfall of traditional aristocracies across Europe

The French Revolution

The Founder of Sociology

Auguste Comte

1. The Theological Stage (fictious or supernatural)

2. The Metaphysical Stage (abstract or speculation)

3. The Positivistic Stage (scientific or empirical)

Comte’s Law of Three Stages

What did Comte label as “the queen of the sciences”?

Sociology

Society by analogy with a biological organism held together by adaptation and growth

Comte’s Body Social

Social statics = order

Social dynamics = change

Comte’s Social Dynamics

Founder of Structural Functionalism

Herbert Spencer

A school of thought according to which each of the institutions, relationships, roles, and norms that together constitute a society serves a purpose, and each is indispensable for the continued existence of the others and of society as a whole.

Structural Functionalism

Theory where Herbert Spencer drew parallels between society and organic organisms

The Organic Analogy

A society is more significant than and different from an “organism.” It is a comprehensive system of social organization’s constituent parts and their related roles. It is an organization that exists above and beyond the level of the organism.

Spencer’s Super-Organic Analogy

Growth, Differentiation, Integration, Adaptation

Spencer’s Stages of a Super-Organic Body

1. Operative/Sustaining System (family, economy)

2. Regulatory System (government, laws)

3. Distributive System (news, trains)

Spencer’s 3 Basic Functional Subsystems of Super-Organic System

Founder of Conflict Theory

Karl Marx

1. Friedrich Hegel (German Idealism)

2. Saint-Simon (French Socialism)

3. Adam Smith (British Political Economy)

Intellectual Influences of Marx

(Hegel) - Materialism meant that the material world has objective reality independent of mind or spirit and ideas arise only as products and reflections of material conditions.

Dialectic Materialism

(Saint-Simon) - Human history is largely the history of wars between classes over the control of property

Saint-Simon’s Influence on Marx

(Smith) - The value of anything is the amount of labor it takes to produce it

Labor Theory of Value

The theory postulates that all institutions of human society (e.g., government and religion) are the outgrowth of its economic activity. Production and reproduction are fundamental social processes of change.

Marx’s Historical Materialism

States that value is determined by the amount of labor that went into producing a commodity

Marx’s Labor Theory of Value

Profit comes out of the extra hours of work, over and above what the worker is paid for. This extra work is called _____. Thus, profit is from the exploitation of labor.

Marx’s Surplus Value

In capitalist system, workers become cogs in a machine, selling their own labor as a commodity, and are stripped of any meaningful relations with the goods they produce. They are thus alienated from the process of production and that of distribution and alienated from themselves and from their fellow worker. A system of dehumanization.

Marx’s Alienation

Working class people were living in a state of _____ _________, they did not see capitalists as their enemy. They were influenced by the dominant bourgeois ideas that prevented them from perceiving the true nature of their social or economic situation.

Marx’s False Consciousness

The German word for “interpretative” meaning “understanding” or “insight” – an approach used to describe the subjective meanings people attach to their actions as these meanings are related to the intentions, values, beliefs, and attitudes that underlie people’s behaviors.

Weber’s Verstehen

An approach to construct a concept that allows sociologists to generalize and simplify data by ignoring minor differences in order to accentuate major similarities.  

Weber’s Ideal Type

Any system of authority is built upon organizational orders which must be legitimated

Weber’s Theory of Authority/Domination

• Traditional Authority: Based on popular belief in the virtue of sanctity of age-old rules and powers.

• Charismatic Authority: based on popular belief in a person with extraordinary character, often endowed with divine powers.

• Rational-Legal Authority: Based on popular belief in the state’s constitution and procedural law.

3 Types of Authority/Domination

Bureaucracy has come into being as a result of modern trends of rationalization which serves as the instrumentality to make modern large-scale enterprises become operational in political, economic, administrative realms

Weber’s Theory of Bureaucracy

The replacement of traditions, values, and emotions as motivators for behavior in society with concepts based on rationality and reason

Weber’s Theory of Rationalization

The term refers to the way the bureaucratic rationality of modern Western societies comes to fundamentally limit and direct social life and individual lives. It shows how individuals are trapped in systems or organizations which run on the principles of efficiency, rationality, and control

Weber’s Iron Cage

• Weber’s “value-free” approach vs Marx’s “value-laden” approach

• Weber’s “three-dimensional view of social stratification” vs Marx’s “single dimensional view of stratification”

• Weber’s “protestant ethic” vs Marx’s “historical materialism”

Major Differences Between Marx and Weber

A moral code emphasizing hard work, self-discipline, and organizing one's life in service of God. Weber theorized that these Protestant values contributed to the emergence of capitalism in Europe

Weber’s Protestant Ethic

A theory suggesting the interplay between 3 factors in society create stratification.

• Class (wealth) – an economic dimension

• Status (prestige) – a cultural dimension

• Party (power) – a political dimension

Weber’s Three-Dimensional View of Social Stratification

A theory suggesting that society is divided into two main classes: the bourgeoisie (those who own the means of production) and the proletariat (those who sell their labor).

Marx’s Theory of Stratification

Society is not a thing or organism. In Simmel’s view, society consists of an intricate web of multiple relations between individuals who are in constant interaction with one another.

Simmel’s Theory of Sociation

Simmel’s methodological approach designed to identify those basic social forms. Simmel distinguished between “forms” and “content” in social life. Forms refer to the structures or recurring patterns of social interactions. While content refers to specific goals, interests, or emotions involved in a particular social interaction.

Simmel’s Formal Sociology

• In a simple/undifferentiated society (traditional), groups were formed on an organic basis where individuals belonged to primary groups such as family, and their interactions were limited by place of residence, birth, and ethnicity.

• In a complex/differentiated society (modern), groups are formed on rational basis where individuals choose association with more freedom and choice and belong to secondary groups such as multiple social/occupational groups/organizations.

Simmel’s Web of Group Affiliations

• Money as a unit of social exchange has become a major force behind the evolutionary process characterized by differentiation, growth, and rationalization.

• Money provides a common yardstick for economic exchange.

Positives of Simmel’s View of Money as a Form

• Use of money transforms the structure of social relations in society. Everything is “commodified” by money, altering the nature of interpersonal interaction and social relations.

• Money, while giving people more choices, depersonalizes and/or objectifies social life.

Negatives of Simmel’s View of Money as a Form

Relatively undifferentiated social structure, with little division of labor. A traditional society is held together by a sense of oneness. Held together by a collective conscience, similarity and conformity.

Durkheim’s Theory of Mechanical Solidarity

Highly differentiated social structure with greater and refined division of labor. A modern society is held together by the interdependence of need for survival by engaging in different, yet interrelated tasks in society.

Durkheim’s Theory of Organic Solidarity

Theory that proposes that suicide is a “social fact” rather than an individual act.

Durkheim’s Typology of Suicide

The weakening of group ties and collectivities causes potential excessive individualism, depending on only one’s own private interest, which then leads to suicide.

(Caused by weak conformity to community)

Egoistic Suicide

When an individual subordinates their own interests for the interests of the group, believing that their suicide is for the good of the group. Could by obligatory or optional.

(Caused by strong conformity to community)

Altruistic Suicide

When a person who experiences anomie, a sense of disconnection from society and a feeling of not belonging resulting from weakened social cohesion, commits suicide.

(Caused by under-regulation by community)

Anomic Suicide

When excessive regulation, that of a person with futures pitilessly blocked and passions violently choked by oppressive discipline, commits suicide.

(Caused by overregulation by community)

Fatalistic Suicide

Looking at not the individual, but a Society’s aggregate tendency towards suicide. Suicide can be defined as “all causes of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act of the victim himself which he knows will produce this result.” Viewing the key social factors that contributed to the suicide.

Suicide being a “Social Fact”

Values, cultural norms, and social structures that transcend the individual and are superimposed externally. Endowed with the power of coercion, these traits control the individual.

Durkheim’s Social Fact Theory