Sociology exam 1

What does sociology study?

The systematic study of social life, groups, institutions, and patterns.

What does the sociological perspective look for?

Patterns in social life and how groups, institutions, culture, and history shape people's experiences.

What is the sociological imagination?

C. Wright Mills's ability to connect personal experiences (biography) with wider history and social structures.

What is a personal trouble?

A problem experienced by an individual or within their immediate relationships.

What is a public issue?

A wider social condition that affects many people and is shaped by social structures or historical conditions.

How would Mills analyze one student struggling to afford college versus many students facing rising costs?

One student's difficulty can be a personal trouble; widespread unaffordability is also a public issue tied to broader conditions such as tuition, wages, and aid.

What is Berger's key sociological reminder?

Things are not always as they seem; sociology helps us see familiar life in a new way by questioning taken-for-granted assumptions.

What is sociological mindfulness, according to Schwalbe?

Noticing how social life works and how our actions can help or harm other people's chances for a good life.

What does functionalism ask?

How do parts of society and social institutions work together and contribute to social order or cohesion?

What does conflict theory ask?

Who has power and resources, who benefits, and how inequality or class conflict shapes society?

What does symbolic interactionism study?

How people create and interpret meanings through symbols and everyday interaction.

What is micro-level analysis?

Analysis focused on individuals, face-to-face interaction, or small groups.

What is macro-level analysis?

Analysis focused on society-wide structures, institutions, and patterns.

What is quantitative sociology?

Sociological research using numerical data and statistical methods, such as large surveys.

What is positivism?

The systematic study of social patterns using methodological principles modeled on the natural sciences.

What is a paradigm?

A broad pattern of thinking or model used to understand the social world.

What is functionalism in Durkheim's work?

A perspective that studies how institutions, relationships, and shared practices contribute to social order and cohesion.

What are social facts?

Shared values, norms, institutions, and social patterns that exist beyond any one person and influence behavior.

What is the collective conscience?

The shared beliefs, values, attitudes, and knowledge of a group.

What is social solidarity?

Social cohesion: how people are held together as a society.

What is organic solidarity?

Social cohesion based on division of labor and interdependence in complex societies.

integration

How strongly a person is connected to groups, communities, family, religion, and collective life.

What is social regulation?

How strongly norms, rules, and expectations organize life and guide behavior.

What was Durkheim trying to explain with his study of suicide?

Why suicide rates vary systematically across social groups and conditions, especially differences in integration and regulation.

What is egoistic suicide?

Suicide associated with too little social integration or weak ties to groups and community.

What is altruistic suicide?

Suicide associated with too much social integration, when group loyalty overrides the individual.

What is anomie?

A condition where social norms or expectations are weak, unclear, disrupted, or fail to guide people.

What is anomic suicide?

Suicide associated with too little or disrupted social regulation, often during rapid social change.

What is fatalistic suicide?

Suicide associated with excessive, oppressive social regulation and very little autonomy or hope for change.

Which two suicide types are about integration?

Egoistic (too little integration) and altruistic (too much integration).

Which two suicide types are about regulation?

Anomic (too little or disrupted regulation) and fatalistic (too much, oppressive regulation).

Why is an ordinary rule or school policy not automatically fatalistic?

Fatalistic suicide refers to extreme, oppressive regulation that leaves very little autonomy.

What is the difference between suicide deaths/rates and suicidal ideation?

Deaths/rates count suicide deaths in a population; ideation means self-reported thoughts about suicide. They are different measures.

What are the two main classes Marx described under capitalism?

The bourgeoisie, who own or control the means of production, and the proletariat, who sell their labor for wages.

Who are the bourgeoisie?

The owning class that owns or controls productive property and hires wage labor.

Who are the proletariat?

Workers who do not own productive resources and sell their labor power for wages.

What are the means of production?

Productive resources used to make goods and services, such as tools, workplaces, land, machinery, and infrastructure.

What is historical materialism?

Marx's approach explaining social change and organization through changes in economic or material conditions.

What is dialectics in Marx's approach?

An analysis of how contradictions and struggles within society can create pressure for social change and transformation.

What drives social change in Marx's view?

Class conflict and contradictions within material and economic relations.

What is surplus value?

The value workers create beyond the value returned to them as wages, which is appropriated by capital.

What is Marxian exploitation?

A class relation in which workers create value through labor but owners appropriate surplus value beyond wages.

What is alienation?

Workers' separation or estrangement from their work, its product, other people, or their own human potential.

What is alienation from the product?

Workers have little control over what they produce or what happens to the product.

What is alienation from the labor process?

Workers have little control over how, when, or at what pace they do their work.

What is alienation from other workers?

Work can make workers compete rather than cooperate or feel connected.

What is alienation from the self or human potential?

Work can limit creativity, purposeful activity, personal growth, and the ability to develop one's potential.

Does consumer advertising or manipulation automatically count as Marxian exploitation?

No. It may show corporate power or consumer manipulation, but Marxian exploitation specifically concerns the labor relation and surplus value.

What is medicalization?

Defining an experience or problem as a medical issue that may require diagnosis or treatment.

How can Big Pharma be analyzed through conflict theory?

Ask how corporate profit and power shape medical messages, prescribing, access, and who benefits or bears costs.

What is a calling in Weber's account of the Protestant ethic?

Work understood as a meaningful vocation or duty from God.

What is predestination in the Protestant ethic materials?

The belief that salvation is already decided by God; disciplined work does not earn salvation.

What is worldly asceticism?

Self-discipline, restraint, and a methodical life, often including avoiding luxury and saving or reinvesting money.

How did the Protestant ethic help support capitalism in Weber's argument?

Some Protestant beliefs encouraged disciplined work and restrained consumption; these practices unintentionally supported systematic, rational economic activity.