soc 1010 exam 2

Culture

material objects, knowledge, beliefs, values, customs, and practices passed from, person to person, and from one generation to the next, in a society

Material Culture

• tangible artifacts that people in a society produce, utilize, and share 

  • Art, architecture, fashion, tech

Non-material Culture

• abstract, intangible human creations that influence and affect people’s behavior 

  • Socially constructed meanings, rules, and regulations, formal and informal

Cultural universals

phenomena found in every single culture; must somehow be functional (durkheim)

Pyramid of non material culture

Pyramid of non material culture						Laws
					mores/ folkways
				Norms
			Values
		Beliefs
	Language
Symbols

Language

complex set of symbols we use to think and express ourselves and others 

Belief

statement about fact that may be incorrect 

Values

widely shared ideas about what is appropriate or inappropriate in a society 

Norms

shared expectations for behavior that are culturally specific and situationally specific

Mores

norms with a moral component - govern person and property 

Folkways

the way of the folk - the way we do things 

Laws

norms that have been legislated into code 

• Violation is met with sanctions 

Sanctions

response to a norm violation (norms as a form of social control in the socialization process) - pushing them towards conforming

Paradoxes of Culture

• We both create culture, and we are created by it 

• Culture is always changing yet it is your source of continuity with our past

Ideal Culture

beliefs, values, norms, practices that people in a society claim as their own

Real Culture

beliefs , values, norms, practices, that people in society actually hold 

Trans-Valuation

When a particular phenomena in society that is viewed as negative comes over time to be viewed as positive or vice versa

Cultual Lag Time

when material culture and related nonmaterial culture changes

High culture

those activities, art forms, forms of entertainment, sports, foods, fashion that are assumed to appeal primarily to the upper class

Popular Culture

 those activities, art forms, forms of entertainment, sports, foods, fashion that are assumed to appeal to the middle and working classes 

Endogamy

marriage within one's own social class

Cultural Capitol Theory

created by Pierre bordieu: high culture is an exclusionary social class to ensure endogamy - gives you an advantage above others

Culture Shock

a feeling of disorientation experiences when a person finds them self in a cultural setting that is dramatically different from one's own

Ethnocentrism

the belief that one's own life and culture are superior than others and form a measure that other culture should be judged; most prevalent in countries w/ colonial history  

Xenophobia

fear and hatred of foreigners and outsiders

Cultural Relativism

opposite of ethnocentrism; judging another culture based on its own beliefs, norms, and values 

Dominant culture

represents ideas and practices of those in positions of power

Culture war

intense disagreement about core values and moral positions

Sub culture

large sub component of culture that share  beliefs, practices, norms different from those of the larger society; ethnicity, activities, amish

Countercultures

subculture that champions values and lifestyles distincly opposed to those of dominant culture

Multiculturalism

large number of distinctive subcultures; the U.S. is an example b/c everyone is an immigrant

Structural Functionalism

culture enables people to meet their needs in society 

• culture is a tool kit for society

Conflict theory

culture is influenced and crafted by the socially powerful in order to control members of subordinate classes by influencing their thoughts and actions through effectively managing their impressions of social order

Why is the social class system self perpetuating?

b/c each different social class has its own distinctive “class-culture”

Symbolic interactionism

culture is emergent: created, maintained, and modified by people in their day-to-day lives through the shared meanings they experience during their interactions

• Culture changes as our collectively shared meaning of social phenomena change 

Epistemology

our ways of knowing the world

Normative approach

worldview informed by legend, religions, superstition, common sense; custom habit, tradition, old wives tales, our friends relatives, peers, television, newspapers, the internet

• Common sense observations - are not systematic and partially incorrect 

Empirical approach

world view informed by science, that is: systematic observation, collection of data, and analysis to draw verifiable conclusions (positivist)

Explanatory research

attempts to explain cause-and-effect relationships. It must be quantitative (utilizing mathematics)

3 necessary prerequisites for cause-and effect:

• correlation

• ordering

• Absence of “spurious” relationships

Correlation

variables must occur together more frequently than expected by chance 

• 1.0 perfect correlation 0.0 no correlation

Perfect correlation

• a one unit increase one dimension equals a one unit increase on the other dimension 

Ordering

the independent variable must precede the dependent variable 

• Independent variable - the cause

• Dependent variable - the effect

Absence of “spurious” relationships

A apparently causes C is correlated with B that causes C 

Variable

• a concept with measurable traits (height, weight) 

Explanatory research is __________

“deductive”

Descriptive research is __________

“inductive”

The theory and research cycle

Hypothesis

statement about the relationship between variables that is to be investigated

Sample

a group within the population selected to represent the whole

Random sample

every member within the population has an equal chance of inclusion

Representative sample

shares the main characteristics of the larger population

Descriptive research

attempts to illuminate and sensitize us to typically obfuscated data… to “describe” hidden social worlds… particularly useful for initial discoveries about previously unknown social phenomena - called naturalistic research

Qualitative research

use words for interpretive description of social “reality” 

• employs open- ended inquiry allows us to discover the “world view” of those groups of interest to the researcher

Ethnography def.  

 long term research, qualitative, naturalistic, field research in which the researcher assumes a temporary membership role within the population of interest; required participant observation

Ethnology

• have to form a personal relationship with the people you are studying 

• Most qualitative research is “ethnography” 

• Originally developed by anthropologist to conduct a “complete observation” 

• Currently owned by sociology where we do “participant observation” to study hidden populations in urban settings 

Hidden population

does not typically avail themselves to research

Ethics required the ethnographer to…?

identify themselves at the outset of any and every relationship that they have with others who might serve as potential “informants” 

Hawthorne effect

people tend to behave differently when they know they are under observation 

Laud humphreys and sociological ethics

• Changed the landscape of sociological research forever 

• Studied tea room behavior (anonymous homosexual men having sex in public) 

• Went to a rest area in the area around tennessee, illinois, missouri  

• Took their license plates and identified them and send surveys 

• They never identified as gay, they were married some with kids and some in power 

• Had the #1 department of sociology but it got disbanded b/c of him 

• Now research must be pre approved by IRB - institutional review board 

Socialization

a lifelong learning process that takes place during interaction during which we acquire the experience, knowledge, and skill sets to survive in our cultural setting and when we acquire your sense of self - goes on throughout ones life

the totality of one's beliefs and feelings about oneself constitutes their?

Self concept

We are a combination of our __________________

hereditary and environment

Charles Horton Cooley: looking glass theory

1. Look into the mirror and imagine the appearance and personality that you are think are going to appear to others 

2. Present yourself to others 

3. If others respond to us consistently to how we want them to respond it enhances our self concept. If they respond inconsistently, not like we want to, it diminishes our self concept.

Bateson defends Cooley and says -

-that there are 2 types of people one is inner directive and the other is other directive 

inner directed def.

impervious to how others respond (not affected)

other directed def.

seeks approval and acceptance from others

Cooley and mead are contributors to what?

symbolic interactionism

Role taking

mentally assuming the role of another to better understand their world through their point of view

Preparatory stage

• birth - beginning to talk, 0-2) - crudely imitate others around them 

  • Significant other - those who we most wish to impress 

play stage

(verbal skills, mead says ends at 6 but it never really does, pretending to be someone else) - begin to imitate a wide variety of people in a variety of circumstances

Game stage

(complex team sports, softball and later driving) - hone our imagination even further, reasonably predict what others and what you are going to do

Most in modern civilization are?

discontent and its not unusual

Book on sociology: civilization and its discontents

• Civilization is how we acquired discontent 

• Freud says: culture inhibitions are instilled as a baby 

• It is because that we are inhibited that we exist 

• Erotic energy is what drives all human activity 

  • Sublimating our erotic energy

Psyche/ ego

self

ID

pleasure principle, seeks immediate satisfaction

The superego is composed of inhibitions -

-equivalent of the conscious

Ego

component of the psyche that counterbalances the id and superego

Subjective component of yourself-

-makes you different

Objective component of yourself-

-makes you the same as others

Me

 awareness of the generalized other - equivalent of the conscious

5 major agents of socialization

family, school, peers, mass media, and religion

Family

most important in every society, institution for making babies, places where children receive their primary form of socialization, perpetuates social inequality 

School

• formal socialization, teach technical skills in modern society, transmission of culture, social control, personal development, responsible to were you end up in society 

  • Hidden curriculum - tedious busy work with virtually no reward 

Peers

more important when away from your family, sense of belonging, downside they demand a high level of conformity, 

Mass media

 get your impressions from, most important for adults, influences your worldview, inform about events, entertainment,

Religion

morality, honesty, loyalty, belief systems, affects you even if you don’t practice

Erving goffman created this concept

Resocialization

voluntary resocialization

occurs by choice - drug user going to rehab

involuntary resocialization

may occur within a total institution

total institution individual

 gives over all power in their lives to the institution (prison, military, mental hospital)

social structure

stable patterns of interaction and these define our roles and impose order on an otherwise chaotic social world allows us to interpret the reactions that we encounter (school, work)

• have boundaries insiders and outsiders

social marginality

• Being expected the full range of responsibilities but not being afforded the full range of privileges 

• status of being an insider and outsider in a group at once

status

socially defined position that as a specific set of privileges and responsibility - most basic component of social structure

master status

the status through which you define yourself and you wish others to define you as well

status set

all of the social statuses you occupy at once

achieved status

partially due to our own efforts 

ascribed status

one that is put upon you at birth

role

specific set of behavioral expectations linked to a particular status

role set

describes various roles and relationships as a consequence of a person's societal status