SOC 445/WS 449 - Exam 3 Content Map

A set of flashcards summarizing key concepts from the SOC 445/WS 449 lecture notes.

Social construction

Things produced, shaped, and given meaning by humans, varying historically and cross-culturally.

Diagnosis (Dx)

A category/concept and process of organizing symptoms, prognosis, treatment, research, reimbursement, and identity.

Nosology

A taxonomy/classification system of disease categories; DSM is a psychiatric nosology.

Cultural work of Dx

Marks the boundaries of normality and abnormality, potentially enforcing norms.

Medicalization

The process of framing a nonmedical issue as a medical one, often involving collective action.

Disease mongering

Selling disease by convincing healthy people or mildly affected individuals that they are very sick.

Demedicalization

The removal of a condition from the medical category, such as the removal of homosexuality from DSM.

Erectile Dysfunction (ED)

A physiological difficulty in achieving, sustaining, or being satisfied with erection quality, rebranded from impotence.

Medical social control (MSC)

How medicine enforces norms through technology, ideology/surveillance, and collaboration without needing intent.

Interest politics

The creation or promotion of definitions of deviance/disease serving group interests, even without malicious intent.

DSM-III

Revolutionary edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual that created a reliable symptom-checklist category for psychiatric disorders.

Heteronormativity

The assumption that heterosexual, cisgender binary gender embodiment is the norm.

Reification

The process where a diagnosis becomes perceived as a natural fact.

Diagnostic psychiatry

A DSM-III style of psychiatry focusing on discrete disorders defined by objective criteria.

Cisgender

Gender identity that aligns with the sex/gender assigned at birth.

Paraphilias

DSM categories for unusual/non-normative sexual interests or acts, often derived from classic sexology.

Sexual Addiction/Compulsion

An unstable condition framed as addiction, compulsion, or moral failure, seen as medical social control by some.

Golden Age of Doctoring

A period characterized by high trust in doctors and compliant patients, influencing early trans medicine.

Transgender

Identifying with a gender different from the one assigned at birth, challenging traditional binaries.