SOC100: Module Two Key Terms

Culture

A collection of learned ideas, practices, symbols, customs, and material objects.

• How to board the transit “correctly.”

• Branded clothes.

• Food you eat.

• Music you listen to.

Ethnocentrism

The tendency to negatively judge another culture based on the standards of one’s own culture.

• Thinking the consumption of insects is disgusting and repulsive since it is not common in places like Canada.

Cultural Relativism

The practice of assessing the components of a culture in the context of that culture itself, and not in comparison to another culture.

All cultures have their own norms, values, customs, and practices that must be understood and evaluated on their own terms.

• The consumption of insects is common in other parts of the world and it serves as a inexpensive and attainable source of protein.

Multiculturalism

The policy and practice of respecting and promoting culture diversity. Also called “cultural pluralism.”

• Canadian grocery stores begin to sell insect based products.

Assimilation

The process by which an individual takes on the values, norms, and practices of the dominant culture. The term is usually used in reference to Indigenous peoples and immigrants.

• Indigenous peoples’ experience with European settlers.

Cultural Appropriation

The act of adopting cultural elements (such as practices and goods) from another culture without understanding or acknowledgement, especially by members of the dominant group.

• A Victoria’s Secret model wearing a feathered headdress while ignoring its significance within Indigenous North American cultures.

High Culture

The cultural practices and goods that are high status and associated with a society’s elite.

• A $5,000 cheeseburger.

Mass Culture

The cultural practices and goods that are widely shared and associated with a society’s majority.

• McDonald’s cheeseburger.

Dominant Culture

The values, behaviours, customs, symbols, and objects of the majority.

• In Canada, democracy, hockey, and the English language.

Subculture

A group with distinctive values, behaviours, symbols, and material objects that are apart from the dominant culture but not in opposition to it.

• The various religious groups.

Counterculture

A subtype of subculture that exists in opposition to the dominant culture.

Rites of Passage

A ceremony or ritual that symbolizes a transition from one life stage to the next.

Material Culture

The tangible objects and technologies of a culture.

• Denim used to be utilitarian, but is now worn outside of labour-intensive jobs.

Non-Material Culture

The intangible values, norms, and symbols of a culture.

• Ceremonies, language, and our expectations for all types of behaviour, like how to enter public transit.

Technology

Material goods designed for practical purposes, through the application of scientific knowledge.

• Instagram and Snapchat allow users to create an ideal image of themselves, shaping the expression of their identity.

Consumerism

The tendency for people’s activities and identities to revolve around the purchasing of material goods.

• Consumerism is accentuating patterns of social inequality and implications for the environment. (2 Negatives to Consumerism).

Conspicuous Consumerism

Buying and displaying goods for the purpose of making a statement about one’s status and wealth.

Symbols

Objects and gestures that carry meaning to those within a shared culture.

Deviance

Behaviour that violates cultural expectations or standards of behaviour.

• Gangs, prostitution, etc.

Folkways

Norms related to the commonly-accepted way of doing things in a particular culture.

• Inviting yourself to someone else’s home is breaking a folkway.

• This likely does not elicit a very strong negative reaction.

Mores

Norms related to behaviour that are deemed crucial to the decency of a particular culture.

• Cheating on a test.

• Produces a degree of moral outrage and condemnation.

Laws

Norms that regulate behaviour in a particular culture through a system of rules enforced through state and social institutions.

• Stalking.

• Creates conscious, voluntary behaviours, as people generally wish to avoid behaving in a way that will result in state punishment.

Taboo

Norms related to such a strongly-prohibited behaviour in a particular culture that it produces strong condemnation and punishment.

• Murder.

• There is an overlap between mores and taboos, but taboos are most subject to the law.

Decolonization

A process of a state divesting itself of bureaucratic and cultural colonial power such that the colonized people/nation becomes politically independent.

Resocialization

The process where social agents break down and rebuild a person’s behaviours, values, norms, and beliefs.

• Used in militaries to prepare soldiers to kill in combat.

Socialization

The process an individual goes through to learn the norms and behaviours expected of them in a culture.

• From parents, schools, and the media, we are given an outline of how our “selves” are developed and constructed.

Self

A relatively stable sense of who we are based on our sense of ourselves, our interaction with others, and our place in broader social systems.

The Looking-Glass Self

Our sense of who we are based on how we believe others view us.

• If we believe that others view us a kind or polite, we may have a sense of “pride.”

• If we believe others view us as rude, we may feel “mortification” in our sense of self.

Stages of the Development of Self

1. Imitation - Children begin imitating those around them.

2. Role-Taking - Children play games like “house.”

3. Game - Children engage in complex games where they have several roles (i.e. sports).

4. The Generalized Other - Children begin to understand themselves outside of their family and understand societal norms.

Agents of Socialization

The groups that play a role in socializing a person into society, such as parents, peers, media, or schools.

Primary Socialization

The first stage of the socialization process where children learn basic values, norms, and begin to develop their sense of self.

• Parents.

Secondary Socialization

The process of learning broader norms and values of the wider society and subcultures within a society. This form of socialization takes place outside of the home, such as through school, peers, and the media.

Peer Groups

A group of people with whom one interacts who share similar interests, social positions, age, and backgrounds. Peer groups typically emerge during late childhood and early adolescence and are likely to influence a person’s behaviours and beliefs.

Self-Socialization

The process of shaping our social development.

• A form of self-reflection where people develop an idea about their identity and set goals, pursue interests, and take actions to alter their identity.

Anticipatory Socialization

The process of adopting norms and behaviours in preparation for future roles we aspire to.

• Expecting parents may transition into the role by reading books, taking classes, and seeking advice from other parents.

Total Institutions

Settings that isolate people from the wider society and regulate all aspects of their life.

• Prisons, boarding schools, militaries, and other religious communities.

Status

A relative social position that someone occupies in a particular context.

• Brother, senior citizen, lawyer.

Status Set

A collection of social statuses held by an individual.

• Being a daughter, student, employee, and athlete.

Master Status

A status that overpowers all other statuses in most social interactions, and becomes a crucial feature of someone’s identity.

• Ex-convict, doctor.

Roles

Behaviours expected of a person who occupies a particular status.

• The behaviours expected of being a professor.

Role Conflict

The experience of incompatible demands from two or more roles that a person occupies.

• A parent wants to attend parent-teacher interviews, but their job demands that they stay late.

Role Strain

The difficulties people experience in fulfilling the obligations of a single role.

• As a student, the strain between attending classes, studying, finishing assignments, and balancing involvement in student organizations or employment.

Role Distancing

Intentionally showing a lack of commitment or attachment to a role we are expected to play.

• A manage firing an employee would say, “It’s not my decision, I’m just doing my job.”

Thomas Theorem

The idea that things which people define to be real are real in their consequences.

Ethnomethodology

The study of how people produce social order through interaction. It focuses on the meanings and perspectives people give to their everyday interactions.

Breaching Experiments

Experiments that involve the deliberate violation of commonly held norms, rules, sequences, or background expectations, an observation of the types of social reactions that result, and an analysis of the social structure that makes these reactions possible.

• Speaking to your parent as if you were a stranger and analyzing their reaction.

• Wearing the clothes you want to buy at a store and paying for it while on your body.

Conversation Analysis

An approach that studies talk and other forms of non-verbal communication to analyze and understand the rules and conversations that underlie the talk.

Fundamental Attribution Error

When we attribute people’s behaviour to dispositional and personal factors, like personality, while ignoring situational or environment factors that influence behaviour.

• Talking about how people who commit harm are flawed, but not considering how their behaviour is influenced by their environment.

Social Network

The social ties that link us with others.

Nodes

The individuals, organizations, or entities within a network.

Links

The connection between different nodes in the network.

Distance

The number of nodes that must be traversed for one node to reach another node. Nodes are said to be closer if they have shorter distances.

• The more closely connected the nodes, the more direct and efficient is the exchange.

Weighted Ties

The strength of the connection of the ties between nodes, often described as strong or weak ties.

• Strong ties: Partners, good friends, parents.

• Weak ties: Coworkers, acquaintances.

Social Capital

The resources an individual accrues through connection with other people or a social network.

• Having a connection with a professor. Think of the resources they can provide you with.

Social Support

Protective factors that buffer or cushion an individual from the consequence of exposure to stress.

• Offering material support like money, helping with personal problems, providing information, and offering emotional support.

Social Aggregates

A group of people that occupy the same space.

• People at a mall.

Social Categories

A group of people who share some similar characteristics but who otherwise may not interact.

• Tall person club.

Social Group

Groups of people who interact regularly based on some shared sense of norms or identity.

• University students.

Primary Group

A small group with intense emotional and intimate ties and enduring interactions.

• Family.

Secondary Group

A larger more impersonal group with weaker emotional ties that extend over a shorter period of time. Compared to primary groups, secondary groups involve less intimacy and a more confined rage of interactions.

• Classmates working on a sociology project.

In-Group

People who belong to a exclusive group with a shared identity.

• Racial-ethnic group memberships.

Out-Group

People who are excluded from the in-group.

Reference Group

Any group to whom a person compares themselves.

• Young people’s attitudes towards sex. If their surroundings were comfortable with the topic, they would be too. If they were not, then they also were not.

Groupthink

Pressure to conform to the group despite your own misgivings.

• Bullying to avoid being seen as weak.

Organizations

Social structures created by people working together to achieve specific goals.

• Universities, prisons, child care, retail, insurance companies, banks, hospitals, parks, museums, etc.

Rationalization

The pursuit of goals in a systematic and ordered manner.

Formal Rationality

The most efficient means by which to achieve goals.

• Capitalism.

Substantive Rationality

The achievement of goals and ideals based on custom, tradition, piety, or personal devotion.

• Organizing based on friendship, cultural traditions, and religious value systems.

Bureaucracies

A system to administer organizations, consisting of rules, standardized processes and procedures, a rigid division of labour, clear hierarchies, professional interactions among employees, and promotion based on merit and technical expertise.

Traditional

Authority is derived from long-established customs and traditions.

• The right for kings and queens to rule.

Charismatic

Authority derives from a person’s character, ability, or magnetism.

Rational-Legal

Authority is derived from legal orders.

• Police officers are allowed to detain people or CEO’s have the power to terminate an employee.

Iron Cage of Rationality

The tendency for rationalization to trap us in systems of efficiency and calculation that may ultimately strip us of our individuality and humanity.

• Asking for an extension on an assignment but met with a single set of one-size-fits-all approach that does not consider the particular circumstances of your request.

Red Tape

Excessively bureaucratic and complex rules and formalities which can lead to adverse outcomes.

• Student loans: Students have complained about the unnecessary difficulty in securing loans and delays in receiving funding that force students to pay thousands up front.

Bureaucratic Inertia

The tendency of organizations to perpetuate established procedures, rules, and routines even if they prove to be ineffective or opposed to the organization’s goals.

• Lecturing is one of the most effective ways to convey a lot of information over a short period of time, it can be the least effective for learning.

Embedded

How economic activity is influenced by social relations and networks.

Organizational Culture

The beliefs, norms, and values that are shared within an organization.

• Energy company Enron that promoted cleverness, experimentation, aggression, and pushing limits. The bar of success is constantly raised while failure invokes public humiliation.

Institutions

Taken-for-granted and repetitive social behaviours that tend to last for a long time and help to organize social action and behaviour by shaping norms or providing meaning.