Sociology 1101

How does the sociological perspective differ from other perspectives?

The sociological perspective is a perspective on human behavior and its connection to society as a whole. It invites us to look for the connections between the behavior of individual people and the structures of the society in which they live

Emile Durkheim's study of suicide demonstrates…

• argued suicide is more likely to occur under particular social circumstances and in particular communities

• Durkheim was first to see suicide as manifestation of changes in society rather than psychological shortcomings

• used comparative method using existing historical records and statistics

• if suicide was purely individual desperation then why would rates vary from society to society and year to year.

• fatalistic suicide, anomic suicide, and egoistic suicide existed

fatalistic suicide

• Occurs when people commit suicide due to it being a better option than living a harsh life that will never improve

EX. prisoners, slaves

Anomic suicide

• Occurs when people's lives are suddenly disrupted by major social events.

EX. depressions, wars, famines.

Egoistic suicide

• Occurs among divorced, widowed, single people or with no kids due to the nature of the social life among these people.

• people feeling disconnected or alone

Macro level social interaction

• social interaction in which our lives are largely a product of structural societal and historical processes.

• society is an object that creates us

Micro level social interaction

• society is part and parcel of individual-level human interaction.

• we constantly are creating, maintaining, reaffirming and transforming society as individuals.

The 4 main sociological perspectives

1.) Functionalism

2.) Conflict and Power

3.) Symbolic Interactionism

4.) Feminist Perspective

Functionalism perspective

• found by Emile Durkheim and Talcott Parsons

• Societies are made up of many parts, known as institutions which work together and are inter-related and interconnected.

• SOCIETY IS ORGANIC

• Our behavior is structured by society

• Everything has a Function, even deviance

• Society needs Order

• aimed at Macro-level

Conflict and Power perspective

• While functionalists see conflict as temporary and change as rare, Conflict/Power theorists see

conflict as ongoing and change as common.

• Conflict is a central feature of human societies.

• Conflict is the engine of change

• Inequalities in the distribution of Power in society condition all human interactions.

• KARL MARX and MAX WEBER

• aimed at Macro-level

Symbolic Interactionism

• a perspective that is geared toward Micro-level understandings

• Proceeds from premise that humans are unique in attaching meanings to things

• GEORGE MEAD

• Human beings act on things based on the meanings they have attached to them

• We use our own thought process develop our own interpretation of symbols.

Feminist Perspective

• Gender is socially constructed, not biological

• It is the product of social, cultural, and historical forces.

• Focuses on patriarchal structures which promote and perpetuate male dominance in all spheres of social life

• Bridges the Micro-/Macro- gap to achieve fuller understanding of the social world

social construction of reality

• The process through which facts, knowledge and truth are discovered, made known, reaffirmed, and altered by members of a society

• when human created ideas become so firmly accepted, that to deny them, is to deny common sense.

the elements of society are human creations that provide structure to our everyday lives and allow us to perceive the world.

The 3 stages in the social construction of reality

1.) Externalization: The ongoing outpouring of human being into the world, both in the physical and the mental activity of people

2.) Objectivation: attainment by the products of this activity of a reality that confronts its original producers as a facticity external to and other than

themselves (institutionalization)

3.) Internalization: the reappropriation of humans of this same reality, transforming it once again from structures of the objective world into structures of the subjective consciousness

(socialization)

The Hawthorne effect

• when people will modify their behavior when they know they are being watched

Discovered when Social scientists conducted studies to see how workers might be more motivated at Western Electric's Hawthorne Works.

Regardless of what stimulus was added, the workers productivity increased solely because they were being watched.

ethical issues the ADLERS encountered in doing their research on drug dealers

• Alder personally involved herself in the drug dealers activities in order to study them.

• The right thing to do would have been to report their neighbor to the police and have the police do their job, not help the crime occur, which could cost lives due to addiction.

• may not have been 100% ethical, however was it needed to save lives and decrease trafficking for the future?

Ethical Standards in Research

1.) confidentiality: to protect the privacy and confidentiality of their subjects, like using fake name etc…