SOC CH 5 - Social Structure and Social Interaction Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering key sociological terms, concepts, and theories from Chapter 5: Social Structure and Social Interaction.

Human Society

A system of social interaction that includes both culture and social organization.

Social Interaction

Behavior between two or more people that is given meaning by them.

Macroanalysis

A sociological approach that takes the broadest view of society by studying large patterns of social interaction that are vast, complex, and highly differentiated.

Microanalysis

A sociological approach that studies smaller, less complex, and less differentiated interactions.

Social Institution

An established and organized system of social behavior with a recognized purpose.

Social Structure

The organized patterns of social relationships and social institutions that together comprise society.

Mechanical Solidarity

Durkheim's term for a form of social solidarity in which members play similar roles within society, share the same values, and hold the same things sacred.

Organic Solidarity

Durkheim's term for a form of social solidarity in which people have many different roles that are highly differentiated.

Division of Labor

The relatedness of different tasks that develop within society.

Gemeinschaft

Ferdinand Tönnies's term for community societies characterized by a "we" feeling, strong family relationships, and simple social institutions.

Gesellschaft

Ferdinand Tönnies's term for societies characterized by fewer personal ties and an elaborated division of labor.

Industrial Society

A society that uses machines and other advanced technologies to produce and distribute goods and services, relying on highly differentiated labor and bureaucracies.

Postindustrial Society

A society dependent on the production and distribution of services, information, and knowledge, where technology plays a key role in social organization.

Group

A collection of individuals who interact and communicate with each other, share goals and norms, and have a subjective awareness of themselves as a distinct social unit.

Status

An established position in a social structure that carries a degree of social rank or value.

Achieved Status

A status that is the result of individual effort.

Ascribed Status

A status given at birth, such as race or gender.

Master Status

A person's dominant status within a social structure.

Role

The expected behavior associated with a particular status.

Role Modeling

Imitating or copying the way someone else in a particular role behaves.

Role Set

All the roles occupied by a person at a given time.

Role Conflict

A condition occurring when two or more roles occupied by a person impose conflicting expectations.

Role Strain

A condition occurring when conflicting expectations exist within a single role.

Social Construction of Reality

The idea that our perception of what is real is determined by the subjective meaning assigned to an experience rather than an intrinsic objective reality.

Ethnomethodology

A sociological technique for studying norms by violating them to reveal people's standards and observe their reactions to disruption.

Impression Management

The process by which one watches and manipulates another's behavior and adjusts their own behavior to the other's expectations.

Dramaturgical Approach

Erving Goffman's perspective analyzing social interaction as a performance in a stage play.

Social Exchange Model

A theoretical model arguing that human interactions are determined by rewards and punishments, where rewarded behavior is repeated and punished behavior is not.

Cyberspace Interaction

Virtual communication conducted via personal computers and smartphones through virtual communities such as email, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and LinkedIn.