Sociological Social Psychology and Multi-Level Social Reality

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering sociological social psychology, the four faces of social psychology, micro-meso-macro levels of reality, and Turner's macro-structural dynamics.

Symbolic Interactionism

A theoretical perspective explaining how society is created and maintained through individuals' repeated, meaningful interactions that define the makeup of society.

The Chicago School (Blumer)

An approach to symbolic interactionism arguing that the self emerges from an interactive process, individuals constantly create and recreate experiences in their interactions, and human behavioral patterns must be studied in action as units.

Iowa and Indiana Schools (Stryker and Kuhn)

Approaches to symbolic interactionism focusing on purposive, socially constructed, coordinated social acts, viewing social interaction as intentional behavior that can be observed in small groups and laboratory settings.

Sheldon Stryker's Structural Perspective

A view proposing that meanings and interactions create stable patterns to uphold social structures, wherein individuals learn specific norms for role relationships (e.g., work vs. school behaviors).

Rosengren (1961)

Research assessing how self-meaning changes over time based on how individuals think others see them, particularly when facing stigma or judgment based on socially constructed views (e.g., homeless individuals, strip club workers).

Psychology

Psychology focuses on the individual and personality traits

Social Psychology

social psychology examines how groups behave across different social contexts and how individuals' thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced.

Sociological Social Psychology

A branch of social psychology that applies the sociological imagination to analyze culture, language, symbols, values, beliefs, norms, and material culture.

Social Norms

Collective rules that dictate how individuals are expected to behave in specific situations.

Social Stratification

The rank ordering of social groups from high to low within a society.

Macro Level of Analysis

The structural level of analysis focused on factors influencing human behavior that exist completely beyond the influence of the individual, such as nations, legal systems, and economies.

Meso Level of Analysis

The intermediate level of social analysis examining collective formations such as organizations and communities.

Micro Level of Analysis

The interpersonal level of social analysis examining interactions within families, individual relationships, and individual behaviors.

Psychological Social Psychology (PSP)

studies individuals at the micro level, investigating how characteristics of the immediate environment affect individual behaviors and perceptions.

Social Structure and Personality (SSP)

One of the four faces of social psychology that emphasizes macro-level societal patterns and constraint over agency, using quantitative survey data to examine how social inequality (e.g., class, gender, race) affects individuals' thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors.

Group Processes and Structures (GPS)

One of the four faces of social psychology studying small task-oriented groups, focusing on the effects of power on resource exchanges, intergroup relations, and how status characteristics and social stratification shape group interactions.

Jonathan Turner's Assertion on Sociology

The claim that among all the sciences, sociology is the furthest along in theoretically linking the micro, meso, and macro realms of the social universe.

Macro Chauvinists

Theorists who provide top-down explanations of the social universe from macro to micro because they believe the macro level is the most important.

Micro Chauvinists

Theorists who prioritize bottom-up explanations of the social universe from micro to macro because they believe the micro level is the most important.

The Macro Realm (Turner)

The plane of social reality consisting of inter-societal systems, societies, institutional domains, and stratification systems.

The Meso Realm (Turner)

The plane of social reality comprised of corporate units and categoric units, such as groups and communities.

The Micro Realm (Turner)

The plane of social reality comprised of focused (face-to-face) and unfocused (face-avoidant) encounters among individuals.

Embedding (Turner)

The principle that dynamics within each level of social reality are mediated by the mutual effects between structures and their cultures at different levels.

Structure and Culture (Turner)

Dimensions of social reality that Turner asserts should never be analyzed separately because they are mutually constitutive.

Herbert Spencer's Belief

The proposition that humans and the corporate units organizing them adapt to their physical, biotic, and sociocultural environments, creating pressure to differentiate new sociocultural formations as populations expand.

Four Fault Lines of Human Populations

The fundamental problems of survival that human populations must resolve: 1) production of resources to sustain life, 2) reproduction, 3) regulation and coordination, and 4) distribution; failing to resolve them leads a population to die out, become simpler, or be conquered.

Generalized Symbolic Media

The specialized 'currencies' exchanged within institutional domains: love/loyalty in kinship, money in economy, power in polity, imperative coordination/justice in law, and learning in education.

Institutional Domains

The structural and cultural backbone of society that differentiates as unequal resource distribution drives stratification.

Ideologies and Meta-Ideologies

Cultural frameworks that translate abstract value premises into specific moral codings and imperatives governing what is good or bad for meso-level sociocultural exchange within an institutional domain.

Locational Status

A form of status determined by a concrete job title within the division of labor of a corporate unit (e.g., CEO vs. Janitor).

Diffuse Status

A form of status that originates from an individual's broad demographic background (e.g., working-class male).

Consolidation

A condition occurring when a diffuse status is heavily correlated with a low locational status across society.

Intersection

A condition occurring when members of a categoric unit are spread proportionately across the entire division of labor, causing associated stigmas to fade (e.g., an increasing proportion of women CEOs).