Sociology 100 Prof. Jacob Miller Exam 1

Social Structure

Things that exist outside our control that exert a force on our lives

...Broken down into two components

...Social hierarchies (can be found in any society in which some groups or individuals are elevated above others).

...Institutional Environments (made up of laws, rules, organizations, and the government in which individuals navigate

The French & Industrial Revolutions

Sociology came about from these two revolutions

The Sociological Imagination

The capacity to think systematically about how many things we experience as personal problems are really social issues that are widely shared by others born in similar time and social location as us. (Interaction of history and biography)

Agency

Our actions and decisions in the world as individuals

Symbolic Violence

The tacit, almost unconscious modes of cultural/social domination occurring within the everyday social habits maintained over conscious subjects

Asch Elevator Experiment

Human nature to follow what others do

Rationalism

Thinking through it on your own

Theory

A statement of how and why specific facts are related. Testable ideas with beginning & end of process

Hypothesis

Prediction about what we are going to discover in our research.

Scientific Method

Theory, hypothesis, test, observation and then it repeats.

Quantitative Methods

Experiment with Surveys (Number Crunching)

Qualitative Methods

In-depth interviews / Ethnography

Experimental Research

A research method for investigating Cause & Effect under highly controlled conditions

Tests a specific hypothesis

Uses random assignment

Uses control groups

Random Assignment

A procedure used in experiments to equally distribute the personal traits of participants across each of the treatment groups.

Experimental Group

The portion of the sample that receives an experimental treatment

Control Group

The portion of the sample that does not receive an experimental treatment

Limitation of Experiments

Very controlled, sterile setting

Survey Method

Most common research method in which participants respond to a series of statements or questions on a questionnaire or in an interview

Good for patterns of behavior in large groups

Statistical Analysis

Demographics, opinions, daily life

In-depth Interview

A research method where researchers ask open-ended questions to participants

Ethnography

A research method in which investigators observe people while joining them in their routine activities.

Interaction

...Individuals & groups with society

...A way of looking at things

...We are only able to Interact with things of this world because of our senses...without them, we would be lost in this world.

Typification

A process of creating a standard social construction based on standard assumptions

Object

Something on which attention or action is focused

Social Construction of Reality

The interactive process by which knowledge is produced and codified, making it specific to a certain group or society

Social Construct

A social phenomenon (for example, a belief, discourse, or category) that was invented by individuals and is shaped by the social forces present in the time and place of its creation.

....Interact with the idea of the object, not the physical object itself ( We define what it is).

Presentation of Self

The process through which individuals try to shape how others perceive them - to shape the meanings and assumptions that others associate with them as object.

Impression Management

The manipulation of cues to control and organize the impression we give others

Front Stage

A region where one's performance (behavior) is open to judgement by those who observe it

Back Stage

A region where actors can discuss, polish, or refine their performance without revealing themselves to their audience

Significant Symbol

A gesture (usually a vocal gesture) that calls out in the individual making the gesture the same response that is called in on others whom the gesture is directed.

Definition of the Situation

The process of sense-making required to determine how one should act and to predict how others may not.

Symbolic Interactionism

The understanding that individuals (their personalities, their preferences, their ideas, etc.) are constructed and shaped by and through communication with other individuals, groups, and institutions.

Generalized Other

An organized and generalized attitude of a social group

Path Dependency

The set of decisions one faces for any given circumstance is limited by the decisions one has made in the past, even though past circumstances may no longer be relevant.

Institution

Enduring customs of social life, like religion or the "institution of marriage," as well as longstanding formal organizations, like government agencies or schools

Functionalism

A theoretical perspective which treats society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability

Structural Functionalism

Views society as stable and orderly. Interested in what makes it this way.

Culture

Systems of belief and knowledge shared by members of a group or society that shape individual and group behavior and attitudes.

Rational Choice Theory

A theory that sees human behavior as the outcome of cost benefit analysis on the part of the individual.

Cultural Toolkit

A set of symbolic skills, devices, or strategies that people learn throughout their lives, and can deploy strategically in different situations.

-Can also supply a set of ideas to justify a course of action retrospectively (Explanations for behavior / Explained before / after action)

Habitus

Lifestyles, values, dispositions and expectations acquired through the experiences of everyday life and shared by particular social groups.

Capital

Something that is not wanted for itself, but for its ability to help in producing or obtaining other goals.

Symbolic Capital

The resources available to an individual on the basis of honor, prestige, or recognition.

Social Capital

Opportunities or resources gained through the networks to which one belongs.

Cultural Capital

Signals, such as education, ways of speaking or taste in art, that offer a person access to status & power.

Embodied (Cultural Capital)

Consciously acquired and passively "inherited" properties of one's self.

Objectified (Cultural Capital)

Objects that are owned and can be transmitted directly (traditional definition) (Don't assume they are physical objects)

Panopticism

The systematic ordering and controlling of human populations through subtle and often unseen forces.

Power

The chance of a man/woman or a number of men/women to realize their own will in a communal action even against the resistance of others who are participating in the action

Three-Dimensions of Power

1.) The power of an individual or group to get another individual of group to do something it wants, which sometimes may involve force.

2.) The power to control the agenda of issues that are to be decided.

3.) The power to persuade others that their interests are the same as those of the power holder.

Marked Category

A category (usually of persons) that falls outside the default category. (Ex: "male nurse" "Black President"

Unmarked Category

A category (usually of persons) that carries a default connotation. (Ex: "President" instead of "White President"

Symbolic Boundaries

Conceptual distinctions made by the social actors that separate people into groups and generate feelings of similarity and group membership.

Boundary Work

Instances in which boundaries demarcations or other divisions between fields of knowledge are created, advocated, attached, or reinforced.

Omnivore

An individual who consumes BOTH high & low status forms of culture

Univore

A consumer who tends to be actively involved in just one, or at least just a few, alternative aesthetic traditions.

Aesthetic Disposition

A code necessary for interpreting and understanding dominant forms of culture. (Ex: For the elite, their's is FORM over FUNCTION)

Homology Argument of Taste

The idea that the cultural goods a person likes will correspond directly with their social background (Snobs v Slobs)

Power Elite

A small group of people, drawn from similar backgrounds and sharing broadly similar world views, that dominates the upper levels of U.S institutions and shapes the policies.

Sociology

Is the study of societies and the social worlds that individuals inhabit within them. (The Study of our lives).