Sociology Chapters 1-5

Socialization

The process by which people learn the culture of their society.

Behaviorism

A psychological perspective that emphasizes the effect of rewards and punishments on human behavior.

Social learning

A perspective that emphasizes the way people adapt their behavior in response to social rewards and punishments.

Looking-glass self

The concept developed by Charles Horton Cooley that our self image results from how we interpret other people’s views

Primary groups

Small groups characterized by intense emotional ties, face to-face interaction, intimacy, and a strong, enduring sense of commitment.

Secondary groups

Groups that are impersonal and characterized by functional or fleeting relationships.

Reference groups

Groups that provide standards for judging our attitudes or behaviors.

I

According to George Herbert Mead, the part of the self that creatively responds to a social situation. It is the impulse to act; it is creative, innovative, unthinking, and largely unpredictable.

Me

According to George Herbert Mead, the part of the self through which we see ourselves as others see us.

Role-taking

The ability to take the roles of others in interaction.

Significant others

According to George Herbert Mead, the specific people who are important in children’s lives and whose views have the greatest impact on the children’s self-evaluations.

Generalized other

The abstract sense of society’s norms and values by which people evaluate themselves.

Cognitive development

The theory, developed by Jean Piaget, that an individual’s ability to make logical decisions increases as the person grows older.

Egocentric

Experiencing the world as if it were centered entirely on oneself.

Psychoanalysis

A psychological perspective that emphasizes the complex reasoning processes of the conscious and unconscious mind.

Id

According to Sigmund Freud, the part of the mind that is the repository of basic biological drives and needs.

Ego

According to Sigmund Freud, the part of the mind that is the “self,” the core of what is regarded as a person’s unique personality

Superego

According to Sigmund Freud, the part of the mind that consists of the values and norms of society insofar as they are internalized, or taken in, by the individual.

Hidden curriculum

The classroom socialization into the norms, values, and roles of a society that schools provide along with the “official” curriculum.

Anticipatory socialization

Adoption of the behaviors or standards of a group one emulates or hopes to join.

Total institutions

Institutions that isolate individuals from the rest of society to achieve administrative control over most aspects of their lives.

Resocialization

The process of altering an individual’s behavior through control of his or her environment, for example, within a total institution.

Dramaturgical approach

Developed by Erving Goffman, the study of social interaction as if it were governed by the practices of theatrical performance.

Presentation of self

The creation of impressions in the minds of others to define and control social situations.

Ethnomethodology

A sociological method used to study the body of common-sense knowledge and procedures by which ordinary members of a society make sense of their social circumstances and interaction

Conversation analysis

The study of how participants in social interaction recognize and produce coherent conversation.

Culture

The beliefs, norms, behaviors, languages, and products common to the members of a particular group that bring meaning to their social worlds.

Material culture

The physical objects that are created, embraced, or consumed by society that help shape people’s lives.

Nonmaterial culture

The abstract creations of human cultures, including language, ideas about behavior, and social practices.

Beliefs

Particular ideas that people accept as true.

Values

The abstract and general standards in society that define ideal principles, such as those governing notions of right and wrong.

Folkways

Fairly weak norms that are passed down from the past, the violation of which is generally not considered serious within a particular culture.

Mores

Strongly held norms, the violation of which seriously offends the standards of acceptable conduct of most people within a particular culture.

Taboos

Powerful mores, the violation of which is considered serious and even unthinkable within a particular culture.

Laws

Codified norms or rules of behavior.

Ideal culture

The values, norms, and behaviors that people in a society profess to embrace.

Real culture

The values, norms, and behaviors that people in a society actually embrace and exhibit.

Cultural inconsistency

A contradiction between the goals of ideal culture and the practices of real culture.

Etic perspective

The perspective of the outside observer.

Emic perspective

The perspective of the insider, the one belonging to the cultural group in question.

Cultural relativism

A worldview whereby the practices of a society are understood sociologically in terms of that society’s norms and values, and not the norms and values of another society

Subcultures

Cultures that exist together with a dominant culture but differ from it in some important respects

Language

A symbolic system composed of verbal, nonverbal, and written representations that are vehicles for conveying meaning.

Multiculturalism

A commitment to respecting cultural differences rather than trying to submerge them into a larger, dominant culture.

High culture

Music, theater, literature, and other cultural products that are held in particularly high regard in society

Popular culture

The entertainment, culinary, and athletic tastes shared by the masses.

Mass media

Media of public communication intended to reach and influence a mass audience

Simulacra

: Copies of objects and things that have no reality in the first place.

Hyperreality

Mass reproduction of images and realities leading to a culture where language and images are separated completely, and reproductions of reality are more real than the reality they intend to produce.

Rape culture

A social culture that provides an environment conducive to rape that blames victims for their victimization

Social class reproduction

The way in which class status is reproduced from generation to generation, with parents passing on a class position to their offspring.

Cultural capital

Wealth in the form of knowledge, ideas, verbal skills, and ways of thinking and behaving.

Habitus

The internalization of objective probabilities and subsequent expression of those probabilities as choice.

Globalization

The process by which people worldwide become increasingly connected economically, politically, socially, culturally, and environmentally

Global culture

A type of culture—some would say U.S. culture—that has spread across the world in the form of Hollywood films, fast-food restaurants, and popular music heard in virtually every country.

Shallow Integration

One country makes a product and exports it

Deep Integration

Many part made in many nations

Scientific method

A process of gathering empirical (scientific and specific) data, creating theories, and rigorously testing theories

Deductive reasoning

Starts from broad theories about the social world but proceeds to break them down into more specific and testable hypotheses.

Hypotheses

Ideas about the world, derived from theories, that describe possible relationships between social phenomena.

Inductive reasoning

Starts from specific data, such as interviews, observations, or field notes, that may focus on a single community or event and endeavors to identify larger patterns from which to derive more general theories.

Quantitative research

Research that gathers data that can be quantified and offers insight into broad patterns of social behavior and social attitudes.

Qualitative research

Research that is characterized by data that cannot be quantified (or converted into numbers), focusing instead on generating in-depth knowledge of social life, institutions, and processes.

Scientific theories

Explanations of how and why scientific observations are as they are.

Concepts

Ideas that summarize a set of phenomena.

Operational definition

Describes the concept in such a way that it can be observed and measured.

Variable

A concept or its empirical measure that can take on two or more possible values.

Qualitative variables

Variables that express qualities and do not have numerical values.

Quantitative variables

Factors that can be counted

Correlation

The degree to which two or more variables are associated with one another.

Causal relationship

A relationship between two variables in which one variable is the cause of the other.

Spurious relationship

A correlation between two or more variables caused by another factor that is not being measured rather than a causal link between the variables themselves.

Positive correlation

A relationship showing that as one variable rises or falls, the other does as well.

Negative correlation

A relationship showing that as one variable increases, the other decreases.

Principle of falsification (or falsifiability)

The principle, advanced by philosopher Karl Popper, that to be scientific, a theory must lead to testable hypotheses that can be disproved if they are wrong.

Validity

The degree to which concepts and their measurements accurately represent what they claim to represent.

Reliability

The extent to which researchers’ findings are consistent with the findings of different studies of the same thing or with the findings of the same study over time.

Bias

A characteristic of results that systematically misrepresent the true nature of what is being studied.

Social desirability bias

A response bias based on the tendency of respondents to answer a question in a way that they perceive will be favorably received.

Objectivity

The ability to represent the object of study accurately

Value neutrality

The characteristic of being free of personal beliefs and opinions that would influence the course of research.

Replication

The repetition of a previous study using a different sample or population to verify or refute the original findings.

Research methods

Specific techniques for systematically gathering data.

Survey

A research method that uses a questionnaire or interviews administered to a group of people in-person or by telephone or e-mail to determine their characteristics, opinions, and behaviors.

Sample

A small number of people; a portion of the larger population selected to represent the whole.

Population

The whole group of people studied

Random sampling

Sampling in which everyone in the population of interest has an equal chance of being chosen for the study

Stratified sampling

Dividing a population into a series of subgroups and taking random samples from within each group.

Fieldwork

A research method that uses in-depth and often extended study to describe and analyze a group or community; also called ethnography

Interview

A detailed conversation designed to obtain in-depth information about a person and their activities.

Leading questions

Questions that tend to elicit particular responses

Experiments

Research techniques for investigating cause and effect under controlled conditions.

Independent or experimental variables:

Variables the researcher changes intentionally

Dependent variables

Variables that change as a result of changes in other variables.

Statistical data

Quantitative information obtained from government agencies, businesses, research studies, and other entities that collect data for their own or others’ use.

Document analysis

The examination of written materials or cultural products: previous studies, newspaper reports, court records, campaign posters, digital reports, films, pamphlets, and other forms of text or images produced by individuals, government agencies, private organizations, or others.

Deductive Research

Research studies what other have done, leads existing theories of whatever phenomenon they are studying, and then test hypotheses that emerge from those theories

Interpretive Research

Research from an experience-near perspective; in that the researcher does not start with concepts determined a prior; but rather seeks to allow these to emerge from encounters in “the field”

Critical Research

Capacity to inquire ‘against the grain’; to question the conceptual and theoretical bases of knowledge, design research that go beyond prevailing assumptions and understandings