Sociology - Chapter 5

Social Interaction

Which of the following is an important characteristic of social environments?

organized

No set rules exist for appropriate behaviour on a first date. Because of this, what do daters engage in?

role-making

Which statement best characterizes emotional regulation?

Emotions can be partially managed through cultural scripts.

Funeral home employees are required to show sympathy and concern when interacting with mourners. What does this requirement exemplify?

emotion labour

What has Derber found about typical North American conversations?

There is a covert competition for attention.

You agree to come to your younger sibling's birthday party, but you look bored the whole evening. What are you displaying?

role distancing

According to Goffman's terms, which of the following is a backstage area?

your bedroom

Which of the following characteristics are true of parasocial relationships?

one-way emotional bonds between people who have not met each other

What norm are you violating when you stare at someone so long as to be considered rude?

civil inattention

Which statement best characterizes facial expressions of emotion?

Their meanings are quite similar across cultures.

Which statement best characterizes the difference between competition and domination?

The degree of inequality in competition is less.

Which emotion is most characteristic of competition?

envy

Which of the following is a principal determinant of successful action?

power

In dramaturgical analysis, where are the important roles played?

front stage

Which type of status is the title of "Your Royal Highness"?

potentially an achieved or an ascribed status

feeling rules vary across time

true

Status cues indicate a person's social position.

true

There are no differences between masculine and feminine body language.

false

Artificial intelligence like ChatGPT helps users interpret nonverbal communication.

false

In today's large and impersonal urban public spaces, norms of civil inattention means that two strangers who cross paths will mutually ignore one another completely.

false

The endless mental tasks that students have to remember, such as texting your friend on their birthday, paying your cellphone bill, remembering to hand in an assignment, and remembering what time to show up at your work shift are just part of the emotion labour of adulthood.

false

Role strain is a significant problem for public safety personnel (e.g., firefighters, 911 operators, paramedics, police officers), even though they are trained to focus on providing medical care or ensuring public safety, for example, rather than worry about people who have troubles.

true

Sociologists use the word status to describe someone who is highly successful.

false

Wearing a wedding ring is a status symbol.

true

social environment

real or imagined others to whom a person is connected.

organizations

collectivities characterized by structure that encourages patterns in individual action.

status

a culturally defined position or social location.

ascribed status

a social position imposed on a person at birth; related to a characteristic that is impossible or extremely difficult to change.

achieved status

a social position that a person acquires through their efforts and choices.

master status

a social position that is considered central to a person’s social identity.

role-playing

behaviour that involves conforming to existing performance expectations.

roles

clusters of expectations about thoughts, feelings, and actions appropriate for occupants of a particular status.

role-making

the creative process by which individuals generate role expectations and performances.

instrumental communication

sending messages that are a means to an end.

technological determinism

an assumption that the adoption of technologies leads to inevitable and sometimes undesirable effects.

social interaction

the process by which role performers act in relation to others.

mediated interaction

communication that uses technologies to send and receive messages.

expressive communications

sending messages that are ends in themselves.

emotion management

obeying “feeling rules” and responding appropriately to the situations in which we find ourselves.

emotion labour

the process of managing one's own emotions to meet job requirements or relationship expectations

domination

a mode of interaction in which nearly all power is concentrated in the hands of people of high status; fear is the main emotion involved.

dramaturgical analysis

an approach to social interaction that views it as a sort of play in which people present themselves so that they appear in the best possible light.

competition

a mode of interaction in which power is unequally distributed but the degree of inequality is less than in systems of domination; envy is an important emotion.

cooperation

a basis for social interaction in which power is more or less equally distributed between people of different status; trust is the main emotion involved.

power

the capacity to carry out one’s will despite resistance.

role distancing

giving the impression of just “going through the motions” but actually lacking serious commitment to a role.

Ethnomethodology

the study of how people make sense of what others do and say by adhering to pre-existing norms.

stereotypes

rigid views of how members of various groups act, regardless of whether individual group members really behave that way.

Breaching experiments

methods that disrupt interaction patterns to illustrate the importance of pre-existing shared norms and understandings in the establishment of social order.

status cues

visual indicators of a person’s social position.