Exam 2 Sociology Practice Questions

Which of the following is a social aggregate?

People waiting at Terminal C for Flight 205

People milling around in crowds waiting for a bus, or strolling on a beach make up a?

social aggregate

When a group of people share common characteristics such as gender or ethnicity the group is labeled a?

social category

which of the following is more likely to be an in-group

a family

A new group recently emerged calling itself the "real Americans" this group's activities reflect disdain and prejudicial attitudes toward recent immigrants could be classified as a?

out group

which of the following is an example of a primary group?

three best friends in high school

Shelley spends most of her time at school and work, which leaves her with little time to socialize with her family and friends. Lately, Shelley is feeling socially isolated because she?

is interacting mostly with people in secondary groups, which tend to be large and produce impersonal relationships

The group a person uses to measure his or her own social worth is called?

a Reference group

Reference Groups provide us with?

a standard for judging our attitudes and behaviors

Juan and sally got divorced after three years of marriage and both moved on to establish new relationships. Their divorce demonstrates that dyads are fragile social groups because?

if one person leaves, the group disappears

According to Georg Simmel, an important aspect of a group is?

as group sizes increase, their intensity decreases, but stability and distinctiveness increase

The members of the drama club at Suzie's high school had a disagreement about who should play the lead in the upcoming production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Therefore, 5 of the 25 drama club members decided to leave the group, but this had little impact on the stability of the drama club, and it was able to go forward with the production because?

the withdrawal of members from larger groups has little impact on the survival of the group

Solomon Asch's experiment illustrated that:

even if it makes people uncomfortable many people are willing to discount their own perceptions rather than go against the group consensus

The experiments by Solomon Asch and Stanley Milgram illustrate that:

conformity and authority are powerful factors affecting people's actions

Stanley Milgram's study demonstrated that even in extraordinary situations, ordinary people will:

obey those in positions of power

James and Shannon both graduated from college with a good GPA and resume in the field of accounting. A year after graduation, James was working as a waiter, and Shannon was working at an accounting firm that was headed by her father's best friend. Shannon most likely got the job because:

She had an advantage due to her father's social networks, eve if she didn't know her father's best friend well

What are formal organizations?

they are rationally designed to achieve their objectives

All language organizations tend to be what? According to Max Weber

Bureaucracies

Max Weber argued that what is necessary in modern societies?

A bureaucracy

According to Max Weber, which of the following is difficult to achieve in a rigid bureaucratic organization?

Innovation

Max Weber believed the more an organization approaches the ideal type of bureaucracy, the more efficient it will be in pursuing the objectives for which it was established. However, he also recognized the bureaucracies can create some negatives such as:

inefficiency because of the strict adherence to rules and regulations that make it difficult to respond to new issues

According to Max Weber's ideal type of bureaucracy:

There is a set of rules that govern the conduct of officials at all levels of the organization

Robert Merton noted that bureaucrats are trained to:

rely strictly on written rules and procedures

The McDonaldization of society refers to

the increased uniformity and rationality of society

A made of reward or punishment that reinforces socially expected forms of behavior is called a?

Sanction

According to Robert Merton at a time when society as a whole is becoming more affluent, why does crime rates continue to rise?

a sense of relative deprivation among those at the bottom

In Robert Merton's typology, drug dealers would be:

Innovators

According to differential association theory, who is more likely to be a delinquent?

A middle-class person whose friends frequently commit crime

Which theory best explains why a neighborhood that had only minor problems such as abandoned cars and graffiti began to see an increase in other more serious types of property crime?

Broken Windows theory

Sociologists study what? when they are looking at the structured inequalities in society

Social Stratification

In all systems of stratification, people are ranked by:

social categories

The caste system of stratification can be best classified as:

a closed system in which all individuals stay within the social position they are born into

Scholars believe that what? has encouraged a shift to class-based systems

Globalization

What do sociologists call a large group of people who occupy a similar economic position in society?

Social Class

In class systems, the boundaries between classes are:

fluid and not very clear-cut

Oprah Winfrey was born into poverty and raised by a single mother, yet today she is on the the richest women in America. Her life story demonstrates that in a class system, the social position we are born into affects out life chances, but our class position is also:

in some part achieved

The social honor or prestige that is accorded to individuals by other members of society is referred to as:

Status

Wealth and income are both determinants of social class. Which of the following best characterizes the relationship between wealth and income in the United States?

The same factors that limit people's income also limit their ability to accumulate wealth

The position that holds that inequality is both necessary and justifiable comes from:

Structural Functional Theory

In Structural-Functional Theory, rewards for performing essential tasks must be proportional to the?

Importance of the task, the unpleasantness of the task, and the scarcity of talent and ability necessary to perform the task

A major criticism of the structural-functional theory of stratification is that it:

ignores the fact that job importance can be socially created an artificially maintained

Which of the following is a strong predictor of one's occupation, income, and wealth in later life?

One's educational attainment

Poverty statistics show that:

more people are white than Hispanic or African American

Which measure of social class ranks people on income, education, occupation, or some combination?

Socioeconomic status

Social Mobility refers to:

the movement of individuals and groups between class positions

Inter-generational mobility is best described as when:

a person has a different class position from that of his or her parents or grandparents

Bruce's first job after college was district sales manager for a small aircraft company. At 30, he purchased his own aviation company. At 40, when the company was doing extremely well, he sold out, bought 40 acres and became a farmer. Sociologists would call this:

Intragenerational mobility

Downward mobility is when:

a person's income, wealth, or status is lower than his or her parents

At the beginning of her sophomore year of high school, Janis's family can't afford to buy her new clothes and shoes or enough supplies for school. Janis feels poor compared to her classmates who can afford these things. Janis experiences?

Relative Poverty

When a person does not have adequate resources to maintain his or her health, such as enough food to eat, the person is said to be in:

Absolute Poverty

If a person believes that people are poor because they have been socialized into a set of values, beliefs, and norms that result in behavior that leads to poverty, then that person is said to believe which of the following theories of poverty?

Culture of poverty

When was the Modernization theory popular?

in the decades after WWII

Which sociological view of social change is based on evolutionary and Functional Theory?

Modernization Theory