Sociology Chapter 6: Organizations, Institutions, & Structures

Premodern thought

a belief in supernatural sources of truth and a commitment to traditional practices

Nation-states

Large territories governed by centralized powers that grant or deny citizenship rights.

Modern thought

A belief in science as the sole source of truth and the idea that humans can rationally organize societies and improve human life.

Rationalization

The process of embracing reason and using it to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of human activities.

Comparative sociology

A research method that involves collecting and analyzing data about two or more cases that can be usefully compared and contrasted

Case

An instance of a thing of interest; it can be a person, a group of people, an organization, an event, or a place.

Social organizations

Formal entities that coordinate collections of people in achieving a stated purpose.

Divisions of labor

Complicated tasks broken down into smaller parts and distributed to individuals who specialize in narrow roles.

Bureaucracies

Organizations with formal policies, strict hierarchies, and impersonal relations.

rational legal

based on a fair and understandable system of laws that are followed and apply to everyone

McDonaldization

George Ritzer's term; the process by which more and more parts of life are made efficient, predictable, calculable, and controllable by nonhuman technologies

To become the largest fast-food chain in the world, Ritzer argued, McDonald's maximized three features of its organization:

1. Efficiency (delivering a product in the shortest time possible).

2. Predictability (ensuring that the product tastes the same no matter when or where it's ordered).

3. Calculability (prioritizing quantity over quality).

Postmodern thought

A rejection of absolute truth (whether supernatural or scientific) in favor of countless partial truths, and a denunciation of the narrative of progress.

Gig work

A segment of the labor market in which companies contract with individuals to complete one short-term job at a time.

Social institutions

Widespread and enduring patterns of interaction with which we respond to categories of human need.

Family

An institution we're born into that provides interpersonal intimacy, childrearing, and elder care.

Education

An institution we're entered into as young children that socializes and trains a next generation of workers.

Economy

An institution we participate in throughout our lives that regulates the production and consumption of goods and services.

Law

an institution we're subject to that sets formal rules, settles disputes, and administers criminal punishment

State

The nature of the societies we live in is determined by these institutionalized patterns of interaction that involve governing a territory and its citizens

Ideologies

Shared ideas about how human life should be organized.

Social structure

The entire set of interlocking social institutions in which we live.

Structural position

The features of our lives that determine our mix of opportunities and constraints.

Egoistic suicide

Social institutions fail to ensure social cohesion and people are left isolated from their social group (in this case, very low integration predicts suicide).

Altruistic suicide

People are socialized to identify with the group instead of the self and may choose to sacrifice themselves for it (this is suicide prompted by very high integration).

Fatalistic suicide

A person's opportunities are blocked by rigid and oppressive institutions, leading the m to think that death is the only way out (suicide in response to very high regulation)

Anomic suicide

Institutions fail, resulting in a normlessness that makes a person feel that life is meaningless (suicide in response to very low regulation)

Institutional discrimination

Widespread and enduring practices that persistently disadvantage some kinds of people while advantaging others.

Social stratification

A persistent sorting of social groups into enduring hierarchies.

According to anthropologists, foragers were guided by what was understood to be

divine will

A belief in science as the sole source of truth and the idea that humans can rationally organize societies and improve human life is known as

modern thought

Who was the first sociologist of religion?

Max Weber

Participation in social institutions is not

voluntary

When institutions fail, resulting in a normlessness that makes a person feel that life is meaningless, this is known as

anomic suicide