Sociology test 1

Sociology

1/13/24

• Tests are on what we talk about in class

Chapter 1: the sociological perspective

• Sociology: scientific study of social/shared behavior

  • Sociological perspective focuses on groups rather than individuals

  • There ae individuals that are so different of dynamic that they have a significant impact on the culture around them. Trump is definitely on of those people; he is so different he has an influence on the culture. He is still influenced by the culture around him.

• Patterns of shared behavior:

  • Social forces that encourage conformity

  • Sometimes those who are different cause problems, sometimes they help society progress or have new ideas.

  • The social construction of reality: we are trying to figure out reality around us and when it doesnt make sense we try to figure it out. 

    • Sometimes when it doesn’t make sense wer do it anyway because everyone else is even though we don’t know why.

    • People in authority can lose the trust of people when what they say never ends up making sense

• Benifits of Spciology

  • Develops sociological imagination

    • That is a term that means it helps connect events in personal life to events in society. It could be thinks like egg prices, school, gas prices, law, it relates the personal things to around you

  • How can better understanding society better help you through a personal situation?

    • You can see similar patterns. If you look at a group of 100 people who get divorced per se you can see similar causes or reasons even though those are ll personal things

  • Knowing hoe social forces affect our lives can help prevent us from being prisoners  of those sources

  • Research contributes to public policies and programs.

    • We can’t see how policies are going to effect the future, but we can do social research and see possible outcomes

  • Enhances occupational skills

    • A lot of occupations use social research. Look at business, they do that a lot

• The beginnings of sociology

  • Sociology developes in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries

  • Why europe?

    • A lot of countries the size of a state and they were at odds with each other even inside their own country. 

    • Look at the French Revelution

    • Some of the earliest social thinkers were thinking about what was good for their country; were they progressing or going backwards?

  • Also the industrial revolution was going on

  • France

  • One of the earliest historical sociologists is Auguste Comte.

    • To improve society, social behavior had to be studies scientifically

      • How can people make good decisions if you don’t understand people?

      • Also he was from france

    • Called this science sociology. He applied the principles that they were using to study science to the study of people

    • He is the father of sociology

    • He also talked about the science of positivism or the knowledge we can be positive or more sure. Isnt talking about the level of happiness, is about level of certainty

  • Harriet Martineau

    • She lived in England and was a big fan of comte and his writings.

      • She studied oppressive social prictices like slavery and womens rights

    • She really liked the idea of methodology or doing research on people in a methodical way and she alos developed the first book of research methods that even comte hadnt spelled out yet

  • Emile Durkheim

    • Helped develop statistical social research

    • He took things that people didn’t think you could prove with statistics and did it

    • He did some important study on suicide rates. He thought you could predict it with data

      • Showed human behavior affected by social factors too like religion

      • He looked at protestants and catholics in europe and thought that he would find difference in the rates of suicides.

      • Catholics were lower in the rates, they also found that catholics had a better support network and tighter communities. Protestants were less tight to each other by the very nature of breaking off.

      • Individual decisions often have a lot to do with the environment

      • french

  • Karl Marx

    • Apart from communism he looked at materialism and the very industrialized world around him.

    • He is from germany

    • He sees the factories and how awful the conditions are for the workers and how well off the upper class groups that own the factories are going

    • Because of this, he is deeply troubled by capitalism. It really bothered him how the small group of people that were the upper class were making all of the money and the majority is overworked and underpaid exceedingly. Literal mill worker issue

    • Economic philosopher

    • Saw society as competing classes with conflicting values and interests

    • He ends up writing the book the communist manifesto

      • Talks about a classless society where people are willing to share all the resources and would have had to be a very selfless society

      • Some of his writings were basis for communism

      • Even in communism ghere is still a group that is profiting

    • In american history he is the bad guy. His ideas may not work in the system we have in america, but he was trying to write about a system of society that would work better. It didn’t, but his heart may honestly have been in the right place.

  • Max Weber

    • Thought research should be value free (no bias)

    • He is german

    • He believed in examining ones own biases before doing research and being free of those while you do your research

    • We need to be aware of the way we think, but it isnt possible to rid of all bias

    • To understand social behavior you had to mentally put yourself in place of others (verstehen) 

      • Its trying to se how other people see and understand their way of thinking even if you don’t change your views to match.

  • Herbert Spencer

    • Society like a human body – all parts working together

    • Didn’t think Social Reform Necessary… believed in Social Darwinism

    • Also he is english

    • One of the big parts he contributes to sociology is it all working together. However, since he thought that it was all working then he wasn’t advocating for change in any areas. This included slavery, he was opposite of Martineau because he just didn’t see the need for change or to leave oppressive practices.

• American sociologists (early)

• A lot of early american sociologists were activists that used scientific methods to show 

• Sociology started in europe but magnified in the US

  • WEB Dubois

    • Early cibil rights activist, used methods and stats to show and understand inequality

    • He predicted the problems that would cokme by the inequality

  • Charles Cooley

    • Developed theories about self concept and how it is effected by others

    • He focused on the influence ot things around you an dhow they effect you

• Macrosociology vs. Microsociology

  • Macro is the study of societies as a whole kind of a lot like the european early sociologists

  • Micro is the study of people as they interact within societies. Kind of like charles cooley. 

  • For example, individual cause of committing a crime compared with societies crime rate is like micro vs. macro.

• There are so many different ways to see the world based on different perspectives and experiences.

This highlights the importance of understanding both levels of analysis to gain a comprehensive view of social phenomena.

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• What is sociology? The science of studies and shared behaviors.

• Theoretical perspectives

  • 3 main perspectives in sociology

    • Functionalism

    • Conflict theory

    • Symbolic interactionism

  • Symbolic interactionism: (micro view)

    • Emphasizes actual interaction between people. Based on symbols.

  • Assumptions of symbolic interactionism:

1. We learn meaning of symbols from the way we see others react to them

   1. Gestures are symbolic and are learned depending on culture. They vary between cultures as well.

2. We base what our interaction (behavior) on their interpretations of symbols

3. We guide our interactions by how we think others expect us to behave and how we expect them to behave

• Dramaturgy is a sub theory og symbolic interactionism by erving goffman

  • He compared it to theater. Compared human behacior to theoretical performance. 

  • All the world is a stage and one person plays many parts. 

  • We display a series of masks to others and set ourselves in the best light

  • Claims that people don’t have a fixed character and are just a collection of their masks.

  • People have front and back stage performances

  • Impression management is another term for this

  • Give the people the grace of not being two faced since we all act different

• Assumptions of Functionalism: (macro)

1. Society is stable and well integrated.

2. Society seeks stability especially after upheaval. Mainly this is pursuing the stability and equilibrium

3. Most aspects of society contribute to its wellbeing. Healthcare is a good example of this. People often dislike or have trauma of it, but we still assume it is needed

   1. When things are deemed as unneeded then society rids itself of them

4. Society is maintained through cooperation and consensus. 

• Conflict theory: (macro)

  • It is cynical and emphasizes conflict, competition, change, and control within society.

  • Kind of assumes that instead of, for example, being a politician to help the community that it is for personal power for powers sake.

• Assumptions of conflict theory

1. Society experiences conflict and inconcsistancy everywhere

   1. Assumes it isnt integrated but is inconsistent. Hypocrisy

2. Society continually subjected to change

3. Society maintained by constraint and coercion. 

   1. What keeps you from speeding for example? Is it the fear of danger or the fear of a cop? If it is the cop it is def this.

4. Also side note, social sciences are not like physical sciences and a lot of theories apply.

Chapter 2: Social Research

Non scientific sources of knowledge

• Intuition

• Common sense

• Authority

• Tradition

• Can provide false or misleading info

Scientific sources

• Expected to

  • Be objective (prevents personal bias)

  • Be verifiable (reliability)

    • Can be repeated

• Researchers strive for validity

  • Measure what intended to measure

• The scientific method:

1. Ask a question

2. Research sources/review literature

3. Formulate the hypotheses

   1. Speculative statement about relationship between 2 or more variables

• Independent variable

  • Causes something to occur or change

• Dependent variable

  • Effect or thing that has changed - depends on influence of independent variable

• Multiple causation

  • Events occur due to several factors combines

• Spurious correlation

  • Apparent relationship between 2 variables actually produced by a third variable

  • Correlation is not causation

4. Choose a research design:

   1. Quantitative (numerical data, stats, etc.)

   2. Qualitative: (subjective info, example: open ended questions)

5. Conduct study/collect data

   1. Data collection methods:

      1. Surveys (interviews and questionnaires)

         1. Advantages of surveys are 

            1. that they allow anonymity,

            2.  easily get factual info, 

            3. discover how people think and feel, 

            4. can track preferences.

            5. Can use stats to analyze

         2. Disadvantages of surveys:

            1. Don’t allow unanticipated questions

            2. Low response rates

            3. Questions can be biased if researchers aren’t careful

      2. Field research:

         1. Study subjects where they live, work, etc.

         2. Often use observation and interviews

         3. Can use interviews (open ended type)

         4. Advantages of field research:

            1. In the natural environment

            2. More adaptable

            3. God for observing how people behave

         5. Disadvantages of field research:

            1. Hard to understand why people behave a certain way

            2. Difficult to generalize and duplicate

            3. Many research methods including field research can suffer from the “Hawthorne effect”

               1. People change their behavior when they know they are being studied.

               2. The only way to avoid it is for people to not know you are doing it.

      3. Experiments:

         1. Artificially created situation

         2. Manipulate variables

         3. Advantages of experiments:

            1. Useful for testing “if-then” statements: ID a thing happens, THEN another thing results

         4. Disadvantages of experiments

            1. Ethical limitations

            2. May be difficult to apply to real world

      4. Case studies:

         1. Most popular method used in field research

         2. Study one case (event, person, etc.)

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• Ideas and Beliefs

  • Are influential whether they are true or false

• Ethical guidelines in social research

  • Informed consent

  • Protect safety, privacy of participants

• Scientific method continues

  • Step 6: analyze data/draw conclusions

  • Step 7: report/publish results

Chapter 3: Culture

• Culture: 

  • Patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving in society

  • Includes material objects and symbols

• Society

  • Group of people living in defined territory who share a culture

• Elements of Culture

  • Norms and sanctions

  • Values

  • Ideas and beliefs

  • Material objects and symbols

  • Language

• Norms

  • Rules that define appropriate and inappropriate behavior

  • Types of norms:

    • Folkways: rules about everyday behavior

    • Mores: rules that embody the morals and values of a group

      • Kind of like what the taliban does to women

  • Laws: most are related to mores but some are folkways

  • Sanctions: rewards or punishments that encourage conformance to norms

• Values:

  • Cultural principles that are desirable in society

  • Norms are based on values

  • Different groups may share same value but have different norms about it

    • Examples? 

      • Giving your life for your culture vs. protesting in vietnam

      • The underlying value is beauty, but the way that different cultures find that is different

• Ideas and beliefs

  • Are influential whether they are true or false

  • Behavior is often based on them

• Material objects and symbols

  • Their meaning is based on cultural beliefs norms and values

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• The same object or symbol doesn’t hold the same meaning in all societies.

  • Hand holding is a great example of this

• Language

  • Speech, written words, numbers, and symbols

  • Considered the foundation of culture

• Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

  • Language shapes thoughts

  • People understand world through culture embedded in language

  • People can change their personalities based off of the language that they are speaking since there is so much culture in it.

• How is cultural diversity promoted?

  • Ignoring differences is almost naive

• Social categories

  • People who share social similarity (age, religion, race, sex, etc)

  • Thye let us know how we as humans are similar and differences

• Subcultures

  • Part of dominant culture but differ in norms, values, etc.

  • The Amish are pretty similar to this. 

  • Chinatown, Latin markets, cowboys, high school cliques, etc.

  • The subcultures can intermix

• Countercultures

  • They are so different they are deliberately and consciously opposed to dominant culture.

  • Defy norms, values, beliefs, etc.

2/3/25

• Ethnocentrism

  • Tendency to evaluate and judge others using our own cultural standards

  • If we are ethnocentric we do this

  • Advantages of ethnocentrism for your culture

    • Promotes: stability for your culture, unity within it, loyalty, commitment, 

  • Disadvantages of ethnocentrism

    • New ideas are suppressed, conflicts are intensified, people aren’t able to give anything else another thought, culture shock intensified if you are too ethnocentric, 

• Cultural Relativism

  • Attempt to understand people from the viewpoint of their culture

  • You need to get yourself outside your norm. There are some positive aspects of ethnocentrism and there are a lot of negatives.

Chapter 4: Society and Social Interaction

• Society and it’s structures

  • Society is largest social structure in existence

    • Made up of smaller ones (family, religion, government, etc.)

  • Major societies

    • Preindustrial societies: before modern tech

    • Industrial society

    • Postindustrial society: where we are now

  • Pre industrial societies

    • Hunting and gathering societies

      • Rely on enviromnet 

      • nomadic

      • based on kinship and cooperation/ equality

    • Pastoral societies

      • Rely on domestication of animals 

      • Created surplus goods

      • Specialized jobs

    • Horticultural societies

      • Grow and cultivate plants crops

      • Form where rain allows stable crops

      • Permanent settlements allowed more stability

    • Agrarian societies

      • Bigger villages or cities

      • Farming more profitable efficient and large scale with better tools tech to farm

      • Social classes become more divisive

    • None of these use a lot of technology other than like plows or things like that for farming. 

    • Prob a test question on this

  • We will do things that are like this but it isn't the same today

  • Industrial societies

    • Science and technology increased production of goods

    • Urban cities grow bigger with diverse people

    • Social mobility increases (people can become rich or poor quicker)

2/10/24

• Industrial Societies

  • Science and technology increased production of goods

  • Urban cities grow bigger with diverse people

  • Social mobility increases (people can become rich or poor quicker)

• Postindustrial societies

  • Is what we live in today. Better because industrial societies were pretty crappy

  • Attributes:

    • Majority of jobs (75%) in service and information industries

    • Plan and control technological consequences. 

    • More gender equality

  • Interaction and your place in society

    • Status: social position in society; helps define our relationship to others

    • Types of status:

      • Ascribed status is one that you don’t really have much choice in i.e. brother, son, etc. you can choose not to act in the roll, but you can’t really shed the status. It is assigned to us or something we are born with.

        • ex.) age, race, etc.

      • Acheived status: is earned. There are things that people do to achieve this status. 

        • ex.) student, grad, prisoner, convict, etc. 

        • Tends to be less controversial

      • Master Status

        • Affect most aspects of a persons life

        • Can be achieved or ascribed.

    • Roles:

      • Expected behavior for a status

        • If your role is a student your role is to study and graduate and if you are a mechanic your role is to fix cars

      • Role conflict:

        • Occurs when a role in one status clashes with a role in another status

      • Role strain:

        • This is when the same status conflicts. Occurs when roles of a single status clash

Chapter 5: Socialization

• Socialization

  • Largely about what is influencing people within these roles.

  • Process where people learn attitudes, values, norms, behaviors, of their culture.

  • Helps shape your personality

  • Is this a nature, vs. nurture debate?

• Sociological theories on socialization

  • Functionalism: 

    • Socialization helps people fit in thus insuring social stability

  • Conflict theory

    • Socialization perpetuates status quo (accept social class, racism, social fate, etc.)

  • Symbolic interactionism

    • Helps us understand more accurately how socialization occurs

    • This is the theory about how we learn

  • The looking glass self theory

    • How do we see ourselves based off of how other people see us. Other people and how they see us are our mirror to how we see ourselves

    • Charles Cooley’s “looking glass self”

      • Self concept which is how we see ourselves

1. We imagine how we appear to others

2. We draw conclusions based on their reactions to us

3. We evaluate ourselves and develop our sense of self

• There is some danger to this as we may not always perceive correctly.

• Significant others

  • Those whose judgements matter most

  • Significant others is anyone that you care about the most

• Role taking:

  • Allows us to anticipate what others will say and do

  • Develops in 3 stage process (according to GH meade)

  • Stages:

1. Imitation stage: 0-2 years old

   1. Learn cause and effect

2. Play stage: 3-4 years old

   1. Act out imagined roles - taking roll of the other. For example if you watched paw patrol as a kid and play that you are one of the characters in it.

3. Game Stage: develops after several years in play stage

   1. Now understand connections between roles

   2. Learn to take role of generalized other

   3. In the play stage you play as if you are the other and in the game stage you understand that people have different lives as well and more aspects of their lives.

• Meads “Me” and “I”: two separate parts of the self

  • The me is formed through socialization

  • When things are predictable we conform using the me

  • The I is the spontaneous and unpredictable part of the self

    • Kind of like impulse/impulse control

• These are all symbolic type concepts

• Anticipatory socialization

  • Prepare to learn new norms and values

• Desocialization

  • Letting go of old norms, values, etc. 

  • For example, there's a difference between high school culture and college and workplace culture.

• Resocialization:

  • Learning new norms, values, etc.

• Forces of socialization

  • Family - 

    • begin acquiring language, norms, beliefs, values and start to acquire self imaging.

  • School - learn knowledge important to society; 

    • it is an impersonal environment (you don’t have an emotional attachment to the people there); and children become less emotionally dependent on parents;

  • Peer groups: 

    • the only force of socialization that is not controlled by adults; if parents control this to the point that the kids don’t get this social expression the kids will get social problems; provide opportunity for self expression and independence

  • Mass media (films, TV, books, online, etc.)

    • First function for kids is cultural info: lifestyles, norms, etc.

    • We see positive and negative effects on socialization