SOC 100 Exam 1 UIUC

What is sociology?

•The scientific study of human behavior, social groups, and society.
•The study of human society and social life and the social causes and consequences of human behavior.

What is the sociological imagination?

The ability to connect one's personal experiences to society at large and greater historical forces. Using our sociological imagination allows us to "make the familiar strange" or to question habits or customs that seem natural to us.

What is a sociological institution?

•A group of social positions, connected by social relations, that perform a social role.

•Ex: The legal system, the labor market, language itself all have a great influence on our behavior and are constantly changing.

Functionalist Theory

•The theory that societies contain certain interdependent structures, each of which performs certain functions for the maintenance of society.
•Institutions are understand by the functions they perform for society as a whole.

•Ex: -Families- control sexual behavior and raise children to become functioning adults.
-Education- trains young people to become productive adults
a) Babysit kids while their parents work
b) Keeps young people off the job market

Conflict Theory

•A theory that views conflict as inevitable and natural and as a significant cause of social change.

•Ex: Education- a site of intense values conflict
-Sorts people into groups
-Certifies people with credentials as "reliable"

Interactionist Theory

•Stresses interactions between people and the social processes that occur within the individual that are made possible by language and internalized meaning.
•Focuses on everyday life rather than larger structures of society.

•Ex: Professors teach, lecture, and give tests
-students take notes

Feminist Theory

•A sociological perspective that emphasizes the centrality of gender in analyzing the social world and particularly the uniqueness of the experience of women.

Evolutionary Theory

•A theory of social development that suggests that societies, like biological organisms, progress through stages of increasing complexity.

•Ex: technology, population growth, food and production of land, legal systems, freedom

Exchange Theory

•A theory of interaction that attempts to explain social behavior in terms of reciprocity of costs and rewards.

•Ex: work, gifts, money, affection, and ideas- all offered in the hopes of getting something in return.

What is the sociological perspective?

•A way of looking at society and social behavior that involves questioning the obvious, seeking patterns, and looking beyond the individual in an attempt to discern social processes.

Sociology and other social sciences

•Sociology is one of the social science disciplines that tries to systematically and objectively understand social life and predict how various influences will affect it. Each social science attempts to accumulate a body of knowledge about a particular aspect of society and the social world. Other social sciences include economics, political science, anthropology, psychology, history, and geography.

Sociology and suicide

Men have a higher rate of committing suicide than women

Sociology and mass shootings

•Everyone who had committed a mass shooting had experienced psychological problems and acted differently when around others, but no one ever thought differently about it. They just assumed the shooter was weird.

Micro sociology

•The level of sociological analysis concerned with small-scale units such as individuals in small group or social interactions (Concerned with how individuals behave in social situations).
•Interactionist theory, exchange theory
•Ex: veterans, unemployed workers, a divorceé

Macro sociology

•A level of sociological analysis concerned with large-scale structures and processes (Broad social categories and social systems).
•Functionalist theory, conflict theory, evolutionary theory
•Ex: war, unemployment, and divorce

Steps of the Research Process

1.State and define the problem
2.Review the literature
3.Development of Hypothesis or Statement of Research Objectives
4.Choice of Research Methods
5.Data collection
6.Data analysis and interpretation
7.Development of conclusions
8.Posing new research questions

Independent variable

•The experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect is being studied.

Dependent variable

•The outcome factor; the variable that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable.

Random sample

•A sample selected in such a way that every member of a population has an equal chance of being chosen.

Systematic sampling

•Obtaining a sample from a population by following a specific pattern of selection, such as choosing every 10th person

Stratified Sampling

•Sampling in which a population is divided into groups and then subjects are chosen at random from within those groups

Experimental group

•In an experiment, the group that is exposed to the treatment, that is, to one version of the independent variable

Control group

•In an experiment, the group that is not exposed to the treatment; contrasts with the experimental group and serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment

Hawthorne effect

•When people's behavior changes because they realize they are being studied

Realibility

•The extent to which research produces consistent or dependable results

Validity

•The extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to

Why was the research described in "Tea Room Trade" unethical?

•Critics argued that Humphreys observed and interviewed participants without fully disclosing his intent to conduct research. He also manipulated information by writing down the vehicle tag numbers to obtain home addresses and used these, later, to interview participants again.
•One of the main problems that existed during the time of Humphreys' "Tearoom Trade" study was the absence of Institutional Review Boards (IRB)in higher education. Institutional Review Boards are ethical review committees whose main duties are to approve, monitor, and review research studies involving human subjects

Karl Marx

•Was a major social theorist and contributor to economic and philosophical thought. He believed that capitalism was dominant in the shaping of society. He argued that social conflict—struggle and strife—was at the core of society, the source of all social change. He asserted that all history was marked by economic determinism— the idea that all change, social conditions, and even society itself are based on economic factors—and that economic inequality results in class struggles.
•Believed society was comprised largely of two social classes: bourgeoisie (the owners and rulers) and the proletariat (the industrial workers). These conflicts between the rich and the poor, the owners and the workers (also referred to as the haves and have-nots), lead to feelings of alienation, a feeling of frustration and disconnection from work and life among the workers.
•The recognition among workers that society is stratified and that they share the same plight is known as class-consciousness, which according to Marx, leads ultimately to revolution. It was Marx's belief that conflict, revolution, and the overthrow of capitalism were inevitable.

Emile Durkheim

•He refused to explain social events by assuming that they operated according to the same rules as biology or psychology. To Durkheim, social phenomena are social facts that have distinctive social characteristics and determinants. He defined social facts as "every way of acting, fixed or not, capable of exercising on the individual an external constraint. In short, individuals are more the products of society than the creators of it.
•Although an individual can come to know and be a part of society, society itself is external to the individual. For this reason, Durkheim concentrated on examining characteristics of groups and structures rather than individual attributes. Instead of looking at the personal traits of religious believers, for example, he focused on the cohesion or lack of cohesion of specific religious groups.
•Such communal interaction gives rise to what Durkheim called a collective conscience—a common psyche (spirit) that results from the blending together of many individual mentalities yet exists over and above any individual. Although the collective conscience is socially created, it is a powerful reality that comes to control us and cannot be denied. From this perspective, for example, whether God exists as a supernatural being is secondary to the fact that God exists as a result of people sharing and demonstrating their belief in God. To those sharing that belief, God is unquestionably and undeniably real, and thus an inescapable force.

Max Weber

•Technological development by itself won't produce social change
•Technologies only develop and find uses in places where people can culturally incorporate them
•In the absence of this, technologies might lay dormant for years or not develop at all
•Believed that sociologists must study not just social facts and social structures but also social actions—external objective behaviors as well as the internalized values, motives, and subjective meanings that individuals attach to their own behavior and to the behavior of others. The goal, Weber believed, was to achieve a "sympathetic understanding" of the minds of others. He called this approach verstehen (pronounced "ver-shtay-en"): understanding human action by examining the subjective meanings that people attach to their own behavior and to the behavior of others. Once values, motives, and intentions were identified, Weber contended, sociologists could treat them objectively and scientifically.

Herbert Spencer

•One of his major concerns was with the evolutionary nature of changes in social structure and social institutions.
•He believed that human societies pass through an evolutionary process similar to the process Darwin explained in his theory of natural selection. It was Spencer who coined the phrase "survival of the fittest"—and he was the first to believe that human societies evolved according to the principles of natural laws
•Just as natural selection favors particular organisms and permits them to survive and multiply, societies that have adapted to their surroundings and can compete will survive. Those that have not adapted and cannot compete will encounter difficulties and will, eventually, die.
•Viewed societies not simply as collections of individuals but as organisms with a life and vitality of their own.

Harriet Martinteau

•Considered to be one of the earliest founders of sociological thought and research

W.E.B. DuBois

•Was devoted to bringing attention to the divisiveness between whites and blacks and the overall plight of blacks in America. He was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), where he worked to empower African Americans to fight for social rights. Eventually, he became a follower of Marx and Engels, increasingly becoming disillusioned by the lack of changes occurring in the U.S.

Jane Addams

•Jane and one of her traveling companions, Ellen Starr, committed to opening a settlement house in Chicago. In 1889 they opened Hull House—America's first settlement house and a place to serve Chicago's immigrant population. Addams would often invite scholars from the Chicago School to visit Hull House; she worked closely with some, including George Herbert Mead. In 1931, Addams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work and remains, to date, the only sociologist to have received this distinguished award.

Values

•Abstract ideas about what is good, right, snd beautiful

Norms

•Concrete guidelines for behavior in specific situations

Mores

•Norms of conduct associated with strong feelings of right or wrong, violations of which bring intense reaction and some type of punishment.

Folkways

•Norms of conduct of everyday life that bring only mild censure or punishment if they are violated

Ethnocentrism

•The view that one's own culture is superior to others and should be used as the standard against which other cultures are judged

Xenocentrism

•The belief that what is foreign is best—that our own lifestyle, products, or ideas are inferior to those of others

Temporocentrism

•The belief that our own time is more important than the past or future

Symbol

•Something that is used to represent something else, such as a word, gesture, or object used to represent some aspect of the world

Language

•The systematized use of speech and hearing to communicate feelings and ideas

Technology

•The application of nonmaterial and material knowledge by a society to maintain its standard of living and lifestyle

Material culture

•There are certain material techniques and products used by societies to maintain their standards of living and their lifestyles (technology and artifacts)

Subcultures

•Group of people who share in the main culture of a society but also have their own distinct values, norms, and lifestyles
•Exist within the confines of a larger culture
•Ex: sororities and fraternities, athletic teams, political sides

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

•The hypothesis that societies with different languages perceive the world differently because their members interpret the world through the grammatical forms, labels, and categories their languages provide

High culture

•The materials and ideas of wealthy, affluent, or upper classes (in contrast to popular culture)

Folk culture

•The culture of the working class or ethnic groups

Popular culture

•Trends, social activities, and shared experiences of everyday people (in contrast to elite culture)

I

•The I presents the acting person, as in "I attend class".
•The I is not self-conscious. When taking a test in class, the I concentrates on the test, not on the self.
•Infants only know the "I"

Me

•The Me represents the part of the self that sees self as an object, the part that is concerned with society's expectations of self, such as, "Society expects me to go to class". It is the me, seeing self as an object, which stays after class "You really did great on the exam!" or after the party says, "You really made a fool of yourself!" The socially constructed Me spends a good deal of time talking to the I
•Infants learn the "me" through social interaction

Generalized other

•We use the generalized other to shape our own personality throughout life. We may decide, for example, that attending class is a waste of time or that multiple-choice tests are unfair. We may choose to go along with the norms, or we may choose to argue against them. To do either, however, we must understand the expectations of the generalized other-the school, in this case. We develop our own mind, our own ability to think, based on the expectations of the generalized other.
•Children develop a concept of the "generalized other" which allows them to apply norms and behaviors learned in specific situations to new situations.

Eric Erikson

•Established a theory of a psychological development that identifies 8 stages that span a person's lifetime.
•Each stage involves a specific conflict that a person must resolve in order to move on to the next stage.
•Infant (0-18 mo.)- Trust vs Mistrust
•2-3 yrs- Autonomy vs shame and doubt
•3-5 yrs- Intuition vs guilt
•6-11 yrs- Industry vs inferiority
•12-18 yrs (adolescence)- Identity vs role confusion
•19-40 yrs- Intimacy vs isolation
•40-65 yrs- Generativity vs stagnation
•65+- Ego integrity vs dispair

Total institution

•An institution in which one is totally immersed that controls all the basics of day to day life

Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

•Interested in how children learn (empirically) about the world
•Based on his observations on the similarity of incorrect responses exhibited by children of similar ages
•Discussed 4 stages of cognitive development

Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development: Sensorimotor Period (birth- 2 yrs)

•Preoccupied with objects
•Child develops:
-depth perception
-sense of time and causality
-object permanence

Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development: Pre operational Period (2-6 yrs)

•Language and symbolic thought
•Animism (think everything's alive)
Egocentrism (everything revolves around them)
•Inability to solve "conservation" problems
-Ex: Tall glass with water, short glass with water- taller one has more water to them
-Kids think a nickel is worth more than a dime because a nickel is bigger

Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development: Concrete operational period (7-11 yrs)

•Child can take the role of others
•Thinks logically
•Can understand humor
•Has trouble with abstract problems

Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development: Formal operations period (12 yrs +)

•Fully functioning adult cognitive mind

Ascribed status

•_______ status is one we are born with that is unlikely to change

Achieved status

•_______ status is one we have earned through individual effort or that is imposed by others

Lawrence Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development: Pre-conventional stage (Elementary school age)

•During this stage of moral development, Kohlberg argued that children act according to what authoritative figures expect from them. They view what pleases or displeases those in authority, such as their parents and teachers. Morality is external, and children are simply trying to avoid punishment.

Lawrence Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development: Conventional stage

•At this stage children have internalized what has been taught to them. They began to view right and wrong in terms of what is socially acceptable. Instead of avoiding punishment, they want to be a good person and do what is right, such as obeying the law.

Lawrence Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development: Post- conventional stage (teen years)

•In this stage, individuals are more concerned with the rights of others than with the laws of society. A person's basic rights to life, liberty, etc., are more important from a moral standpoint, than laws that would deprive individuals or groups of these things.

Erving Goffman's dramaturgical theory

•Views social life as a theatrical performance in which we are all actors on metaphysical stages with roles, scripts, costumes, and sets

Erving Goffman's face theory

•Wrote about face in conjunction with how people interact in daily life. He claims that everyone is concerned, to some extent, with how others perceive them. We act socially, striving to maintain the identity we create for others to see. This identity, or public self-image, is what we project when we interact socially. To lose face is to publicly suffer a diminished self-image.

Harold Garfinkel

•Developed a method for studying social interactions, called "breeching experiments", which involved having collaborators exhibit "abnormal" or "atypical" behaviors in social interactions in order to see how people would react

Components of social structure

•Means that society is organized in a way that makes human behavior and relationships predictable. Social structures provide us with familiarity in everyday life, thus allowing us to make sense of our social interactions.
•Components:
-Statues
-Ascribed and achieved status
-Social roles
-Role ambiguity, role strain and role conflict
-Roles as relationships: pattern variables

What does Zimbardo's research reveal about social roles?

•Zimbardo's famous prison experiment demonstrates the power of social structure and roles over personality. He had to cancel his experiment early because of how the students "the cream of the crop of their generation" had internalized the roles of the guards and prisoners that they were assigned to play. People tend to play into the role that they are assigned sometimes causing major problems.
•In prisons, Zimbardo concluded, abuse is virtually guaranteed if three components are not present: clear rules, a staff that is well trained in those rules, and tight management that includes punishment for violations.

What are the pattern variables and how do they affect our social role activity?

•Sets of contrasting expectations that pertain to every role we enact in our lives. In carrying out any role, there are patterns that regulate how we judge people, how much emotion we are expected or allowed to express, the extent to which we are concerned with our own well-being or the well-being of the group, the depth or scope of the relationship, and whether or not we respond to people based upon their ascribed or their achieved statuses.

Primary group

•A small, informal group of people who interact in a personal, direct, and intimate way

•Ex: your family, close friends, girlfriend, boyfriend, and some neighbors

Secondary group

•A group in which the members interact impersonally, have few emotional ties, and come together for a specific, practical purpose

•Ex: committees, professional groups, sales-related groups, classroom groups, or neighborhood groups

How is the concept of reference groups related to relative deprivation?

•Reference groups are the groups with which we identify psychologically. They serves as sources of self-evaluation and influence how we think and act and what we believe.
•In relation to relative deprivation, people often feel deprived, not necessarily cause of the objective conditions they face, but because they compare themselves to a reference group. This is known as relative deprivation.

What happens to social groups as size increases?

•As group size increases, the stability of the group decreases
•As size increases, so does the division of labor
•As size increase, cohesion decreases
•As size increases, activities tend to become specialized
•As size increases, small groups and informal networks exist within the large group or complex organization
•There are generally changes in the division of labor, formality, leadership, communication, and cohesion

Alison Pugh - "How do parents address their children's
consumption desires?"

•Parents from lower social classes rely heavily on the school and outside resources to be able to send their kids to school. However the children of lower social classes were not involved in extracurriculars, while the children of higher social classes were. In addition, wealthier social classes had parents who were more involved in their child's lives.

Exposure to screen time and children's brains

•Screen time has the effect of addiction on our brains. Our brains show the same results on a MRI scan that it would if someone was addicted to something.

Annette Lareau - "unequal childhoods"

•Social class really matters
•How much your family has determines where you end up in life.

C.J. Pascoe - "Dude...you're a fag"

•It's okay for a guy to be gay, but it's not okay for a guy to be feminine
•The term "fag" is used to call someone a loser.

Alison Graham - "How Does Social Media make us AntiSocial?"

•Social media makes us not able to communicate with others face to face. We are more focused on how many likes we get, if we were invited to the party or many other things. We are more focused on our ideal selves rather than who we truly are as a person.