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Sociology

The scientific study of human society, social behavior, and collective patterns. Sociologists primarily identify relationships and correlations across groups rather than single-case individual causation.

Society

A geographically localized group of people who interact with one another and share a common culture. It is a relative concept defined in comparison to other groups, places, or time periods.

Macrosociology vs. Microsociology

Macrosociology analyzes large-scale social processes, institutions, and populations (e.g., nationwide fertility declines); microsociology examines small-group, face-to-face interactions and interpersonal dynamics (e.g., couples deciding whether to have children).

Sociological Imagination

A concept coined by C. Wright Mills describing the ability to connect "history" (broad social forces) with "biography" (individual experiences), allowing us to "make the familiar strange" by questioning everyday assumptions.

Structure vs. Agency

Social structure refers to the enduring institutions and rules that guide and constrain behavior; agency refers to the capacity of individuals to act independently and make choices within those structures.

Auguste Comte

Coined the term "sociology." He viewed society as a living organism and divided its study into social statics (order, stability, and structure) and social dynamics (forces of social change and progress).

Herbert Spencer

Author of the first major sociology textbook who coined the phrase "survival of the fittest." He advocated for non-interference, arguing society naturally evolves from simple to complex and sociologists should merely observe.

Émile Durkheim

Foundational Functionalist who established sociology as an academic discipline. He emphasized studying social facts and showed that suicide rates are shaped by social integration and regulation.

Social Facts

Patterned ways of acting, thinking, and feeling external to the individual that exert social control over them (e.g., laws, language, religious dogmas).

Mechanical vs. Organic Solidarity

Mechanical solidarity is social cohesion based on shared values and similarity in pre-industrial societies; organic solidarity is cohesion based on mutual interdependence from a complex division of labor in modern societies.

Anomie

A state of normlessness or breakdown of social guidance that occurs during periods of rapid social or economic change, leaving individuals feeling disconnected.

Karl Marx

Founder of classical Conflict Theory. He argued that society is defined by class struggles over economic resources between the bourgeoisie (owners of the means of production) and the proletariat (wage-earning workers).

Alienation (Marx)

The condition under capitalism where workers become estranged from the products they produce, the process of production, their own human potential, and their fellow workers.

Max Weber

Pioneer of interpretive sociology who advocated for Verstehen (understanding subjective meanings) and value-free sociology. He argued stratification is multidimensional: based on Class (wealth), Status (prestige), and Party (power).

W.E.B. Du Bois

Sociologist and civil rights activist who pioneered empirical studies on racial inequality and coined the term Double Consciousness (the internal conflict of viewing oneself through the eyes of a prejudiced dominant society).

Structural Functionalism

A macro-level paradigm viewing society as a complex system whose interrelated institutions (family, education, religion) work together to promote solidarity, balance, and stability.

Manifest vs. Latent Functions (and Dysfunctions)

Manifest functions are the recognized and intended consequences of an institution; latent functions are unintended positive outcomes; dysfunctions are unintended consequences that disrupt social stability.

Conflict Theory

A macro-level paradigm arguing that society is characterized by pervasive inequality and power struggles over scarce resources, viewing tension and conflict as the primary drivers of social change.

Symbolic Interactionism

A micro-level paradigm emphasizing that society is continuously created and reshaped through everyday social interactions and the shared subjective meanings people attach to symbols.

Dramaturgical Analysis (Erving Goffman)

A symbolic interactionist perspective that views social life as a theatrical performance where individuals manage impressions using Front Stage behavior (performed for an audience) and Back Stage behavior (private, unpolished).

The Looking-Glass Self (Charles Horton Cooley)

The theory that our self-image develops from imagining how we appear to others, imagining how they judge that appearance, and internalizing those perceived judgments.

The "I" and the "Me" (George Herbert Mead)

The "I" is the spontaneous, impulsive component of the self; the "Me" is the socialized, conventional self formed through internalizing the rules and expectations of others.

The Generalized Other

The integrated widespread norms, values, and expectations of society as a whole that an individual learns during Mead's "game stage" of socialization.

Total Institutions & Resocialization

Total institutions (e.g., boot camps, prisons) are settings isolated from society where daily routines are strictly managed by a central authority to break down past identity and achieve resocialization.

Independent vs. Dependent Variables

The independent variable (IV) is the hypothesized cause or predictor manipulated/measured by the researcher; the dependent variable (DV) is the outcome or effect being measured.

Spurious Correlation

An apparent mathematical relationship between two variables that is actually caused by a hidden third variable (e.g., ice cream sales and drowning rates both rising due to summer heat).

Reliability vs. Validity

Reliability refers to the consistency of a measurement over repeated trials; validity refers to the accuracy of a measurement (whether it genuinely measures what it claims to measure).

Hawthorne Effect

The phenomenon where research participants alter their behavior simply because they are aware they are being observed.

Folkways, Mores, and Taboos

Folkways are informal etiquette norms carrying mild social sanctions; mores are moral rules critical to community welfare carrying severe sanctions; taboos are deeply forbidden acts that provoke universal revulsion and strict banishment.

Ethnocentrism vs. Cultural Relativism

Ethnocentrism is the habit of judging another culture by the standards of one's own; cultural relativism is evaluating a culture's practices and beliefs strictly within the context of that culture's own system.