Introduction to Sociology: Culture, Socialization, Interactions, Deviance, and Social Control

Vocabulary practice flashcards created from SOC101 lecture slides covering core concepts of deviance, social control, culture, interaction, and socialization.

Deviance

An action, belief, or human characteristic that is considered a violation of established group, organizational, or societal norms.

Social Control

Attempts by society to regulate people's thoughts and behaviors in ways that limit or punish deviance.

Laws

Codified norms that are formally enforced by society.

Folkways

Less important cultural norms that carry few negative sanctions or consequences when violated.

Mores (MOR-ays)

More important cultural norms that carry severe negative sanctions when violated.

Affirming Social Control

A form of social control that involves rewarding behavior that conforms to social norms.

Sanctioning Social Control

A form of social control that involves punishing behavior that violates social norms.

Formal Actors

Individuals who hold power and authority due to their position within formal institutions, such as police officers or website moderators.

Informal Actors

Individuals who possess power due to their position in informal institutions and social groups, such as community residents or news commenters.

Direct Social Control

Social control aimed at influencing an individual's behavior without intervening factors, such as through direct one-on-one interaction.

Indirect Social Control

Social control that influences behavior through intervening factors, such as speeches at public gatherings, advertisements, or seeking third-party intervention.

Reference Groups

Groups that individuals use as standards to evaluate and judge themselves and their behaviors.

Bullying

Unwanted, aggressive behavior among school-aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance and is repeated or has the potential to be repeated over time.

Dominant Culture

Cultural patterns that are broadly in line with a society's central cultural ideals and values.

Subculture

A group that accepts much of the dominant culture but differs by one or more culturally significant characteristics.

Counterculture

A group whose values, norms, material culture, symbolic culture, and ideologies are contrary to and sometimes incompatible with those of the dominant culture.

Ethnocentrism

The belief that the norms, values, traditions, and symbols of one's own culture are superior to those of other cultures.

Cultural Relativism

The belief that different cultures have distinct norms and values, and that no culture's practices are universally accepted or superior to others.

Assimilation

The integration of a cultural minority group into the mainstream dominant culture.

Multiculturalism

An environment in which people respect differing cultures in a society and honor their unique contributions to a larger umbrella culture that incorporates multiple subcultures.

Social Interaction

The process by which people act and react in relation to others.

Social Structure

The complex framework of relationships among people, groups, and institutions that gives direction to and sets limits on human behavior.

Social Status

The recognized social position that an individual occupies within a society or social group.

Status Set

All the statuses held by a single person at a given time.

Ascribed Status

A social position in which a person has no choice, being assigned at birth or involuntarily assigned later in life.

Achieved Status

A social position that is earned, accomplished, or obtained with at least some effort on the person's part.

Master Status

The status that others are most likely to use to identify an individual in a given social setting.

Social Role

The set of behaviors, obligations, and privileges attached to a given social status.

Role Set

All the different roles attached to a single social status.

Role Strain

A condition occurring when a person struggles to meet all the competing demands within a single role.

Role Conflict

A condition occurring when a person experiences contradictions or conflict between the expectations of multiple different roles.

Role Exit

The process by which an individual disengages from a social role that has been central to their identity.

Dramaturgical Theory

Erving Goffman's sociological perspective that views social life as a series of dramatic performances taking place on a theatrical stage.

Front

In dramaturgical theory, the expressive equipment and social role adopted by an individual to define the situation for their audience.

Setting

The physical background décor and scenery used by an individual to support their social front.

Personal Front

Personal items, physical features, clothing, and gestures that a performer uses to maintain their adopted front.

Front Stage

The social region where an individual's performance is presented and idealized for an audience.

Back Stage

The private region where an individual feels free to step out of character and express their true self away from an audience.

Impression Management

An individual's conscious or unconscious efforts to shape and control how others perceive them during social interaction.

Socialization

The lifelong process by which individuals learn the values, norms, and behaviors of their culture appropriate to their group and social position.

Agents of Socialization

Specific individuals, groups, or institutions where socialization takes place, such as families, schools, peers, and mass media.

Primary Socialization

The initial socialization process occurring in early childhood through which individuals learn language, values, rules, and basic social roles primarily within the family.

Gender Socialization

The aspect of socialization through which individuals learn the personality traits and social roles associated with their assigned sex/gender.

Race Socialization

The process by which individuals learn the behaviors, values, and attitudes associated with their racial group.

Class Socialization

The process through which individuals learn the norms, values, traits, and behaviors associated with their social class position.

Secondary Socialization

Socialization occurring outside the home in later childhood and beyond, mediated by peer groups, educational institutions, mass media, and consumer culture.

Anticipatory Socialization

The process by which a person learns and adopts the values and standards of a group they expect or plan to join in the future.

Reverse Socialization

A process in which those who are normally the targets of socialization pass cultural norms and knowledge back to their socializers, such as children teaching parents tech skills.

Resocialization

The process by which adults unlearn old behaviors, norms, and values and acquire new ones to adapt to new life roles or situations.

Total Institutions

Closed, all-encompassing residential settings set off from the rest of society that meet all basic needs and strictly control all aspects of residents' lives, such as military basic training.

Values

General standards that a society holds to be good, desirable, and important.

Beliefs

Specific statements or ideas that people within a society hold to be true.

Social Norms

Culturally defined rules and expectations about appropriate thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in specific situations.

Generalized Other

A form of role-taking in which an individual internalizes the general expectations and perspective of their broader society.

Material Culture

The physical objects and artifacts created by a society that reflect its cultural values and norms.

Symbolic Culture

The nonmaterial, intangible aspects of culture, including symbols, language, and nonverbal gestures used for communication.

empirical data

evidence from research studies to create, revise and disprove social theories

macro level of analysis

large scale social forces

micro level of analysis

individual pairs, small groups

structural functionalism

major social isntitutions in society include family, religion, economy, education,etc. manifest functions, latent functions, dysfunction

Structural functionalists

they believe deviance forms a positive function in society clarifying moral boundaries and promoting social cohesion

social control

attempts by society to regulate people’s thoughts and behaviors in ways that limit, or punish,deviance

cultural goal

everyone should strive for wealth

conformity

achieving culturally set goals by way of conventionality approved means (ex. going to college to getting a good paying job)

innovation

achieving culturally set goals by way of unacceptable means, deviant means because society has not provided sufficient means to achieve goals (ex. theft by a poor person)

ritualism

giving up on achieving culturally set goals because society has not provided sufficient means to achieve these goals and devoting one’s self to new means and rules (ex. poor person getting a grocery store job instead of becoming a theft)

retreatism

a person drops out of society rejecting both the conventional means and goals (ex. drug addicts)

rebellion

a rejection of goals and means but in the context of a counterculture- one that supports the pursuit if new goals according to new means (ex. an artist who devotes themself to their art and not for the money)

Strain theory

The amount of deviance in a society depends on whether that society has provided sufficient means to achieve culturally defined goals