SOCL Exam #1 Flashcards

SOC 1101

Hunt, Spring 2025

                                                          Exam #1 Study Guide

Our first exam will occur in class on Thursday, Feb. 6.   It will be administered via Canvas and will utilize the Lockdown Browser software (see syllabus).  In addition to the assigned readings, you should understand any material covered in class around the following ideas, terms, concepts, etc.:

1. Sociology

Definition: Study of human societies, social behaviors, and the social forces affecting our lives, choices, interests, and personalities 

2. The six main “sub-fields” of sociology

Culture, socialization, social deviance, social psychology, social change, social stratification. 

Culture: the shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that characterize a group of people or society; learned and passed on generation-to-generation

Socialization: first comes from family, what it means to occupy a certain social role, what it means to be a competent human being

Social deviance: how we explain why people sometimes violate the norms and rules of society

Social psychology: refers to study of relationships between society and the individual, how we are the products and producers of society. Stems from the fact that we learned certain rules because our culture provides expectations

Social change: focus and study of how societies change or stay the same over time.

Social stratification: the study of the ways that groups or societies are layered or divided among power, wealth, prestige

3. Origins of sociology (When did the field emerge?  Under what social and historical conditions?)

Great transformation (18th and 19th century)

Origins  

• 18th & 19th centuries in Western Europe  

• Time in history where it stopped being clear how social world worked  

• Before things were taken for granted  

• Agrarian → Industrial  

• Traditional → Modern  

• Contract-like relationships

  • You do this, I’ll pay you this much

4. Key 19^th century social theorists (e.g., Comte, Durkheim, etc.)

• August Comte 

  • Believed could bring an end to social chaos

• Suicide by Emile Durkheim 

  • Male > Female 

  • Single > Married  

  • Married + childless > Married with children  

  • Protestant > Catholics 

5. Sociology as a “distinct approach” (i.e., differences from other types of explanations)

Biological, psychological and sociological. Biological approach talks more about genetics and the brain. Psychological approach talks about the social world and forces outside of the skin. Sociological approach is the social world and the forces outside the skin. 

6. Durkheim’s theory of, and types of, suicide

Emile Durkheim studied suicide in 1897. He saw that males committed suicide more often than females, that single people more often committed suicide than married people, and thatt married childless couples more often committed than married with children, and finally protestants more often than catholics. Dying of suicide is more often when you have less of a community. Types of suicide are egoistic (results from under-integration) and altruistic (results from over-integration).

College freshman have a higher suicide rate than upperclassmen or non college eighteen year olds because of under integration.

A lot of military examples are of over integration, they commit suicide publicly for a societal sign of protest, kamikazi pilots knew they were going on a suicide mission to support the war of their side. 

7. Levels-of-analysis (“micro,” “macro”)

Macro is societal and institutional analysis. Micro is personal and interpersonal analysis.

Examples:

Macro: Whats the relationship between war and conflict in society? How do entire societies evolve over time?

Micro: Family dynamics? Social factors influencing healthy behavior?

8. Mills’ “sociological imagination”

Ability to see our personal lives in the context of history, culture, and social structure of a larger society within which we live. Seeing connections between macro/micro and personal/societal. 

9. Key features of Science vs. Religion as “ways of knowing”

Religion is the belief that knowledge is absolute, unchanging, and can’t be disproven. Truth is fixed and determined by tradition. Science is the belief that knowledge is open to testing and being disproved. Truth may change with new discoveries and changing circumstances. Key features of science: observation, objectivity, and research methods. 

10. Objectivity

Definition is separate observation from our values and beliefs. 

11. Empirical proof

Empirical proof in sociology refers to evidence that is based on systematic observation, experimentation, or data collection rather than personal opinion or theory alone.

Ex. surveys and experiments

12. “Inconvenient facts”

13. Structural Functionalism

One of the three main theoretical perspectives in sociology made by durkheim. He thought that society worked like an organism (all things work together), focusing on forces that hold society together and how society continues over time.

( i think theres more in my notes )

• Structural functionalism (Durkheim) focuses on the sources of order and stability 

• If a feature of society exists, it must contribute something 

• Focus on forces that hold society together 

• Body analogy – different structures fulfill different functions 

• Change in one-part triggers change in another part 

• Social life depends on consensus and cooperation 

• Social change is viewed as negative (unnatural) 

• Sociologist's job – study how parts of society function for the maintenance of society as a whole 

• Conservative – assumes the status quo 

• People are poor because they’re not fitting in  

• Latent = another outcome that ends up happening (underlying, secondary function) 

• Manifest – schools transmit knowledge 

14. Conflict Theory

Imagine societies as different groups struggling for different resources, focusing on inequality and power divisions in society. Society is constantly driven by these conflicts. 

Societies are arenas of struggle and conflict between groups with competing interests. Rather than consensus and order, the view of social life is one of conflict and competition over scarce resources. Change is viewed as natural and inevitable. The sociologists job is to examine competing groups and show how the powerful maintain their positions. 

The basic question: Who benefits from a social practice or social arrangement? Functional for whom?

Race conflict theory and gender conflict theory?

15. Symbolic Interactionism

Deals with micro questions. Focuses on how people negotiate the meaning of social life in their interactions with other people. Focuses on our “meaning making” capacity as symbol users. And the ways we negotiate a shared sense of reality in social interactions. Stresses the “agency” side of the structure/agency dualism. Social structures impose restrictions on us but we also have agency.

Agency: the ability to act and think independently of those constraints

Humans are symbol users, humans act based on the meanings that things have for them (stimulus to mind response), successful interaction requires shared meanings.

Symbol: something that stands for something else that we use for purposes of communication

Meanings are historically and contextually relative

Garfinkel's “breaching experiments”

16. Manifest vs. Latent functions

Manifest means intended and obvious. Latent means unintended 

17. Research methods

18. Independent and dependent variables

Independent variable is the presumed cause, dependent is the presumed effect. 

19. Quantitative and Qualitative research

Qualitative and Quantitative. Qualitative methods are any methods that focus on depth and semi structured modes of observation or interviewing. Examples are field research, interviews, and focus groups. Quantitative methods are any methods  that attempt to quantify peoples thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. Examples are surveys, experiments, secondary data analysis, rely on data. The difference between the two is that quantitative research is interested in things like marital status, whereas qualitative research is interested in the experience of marriage. 

20. Surveys

Refers to the use of questionnaires to measure independent and dependent variables.

a) pay attention to who is being asked (sampling) random vs non random b) pay attention to what is being asked (question content) c) social desirability d) advantages: ability to generalize to much larger populations (with random sampling) also good for collecting demographic information and some attitudes/opinions e) disadvantages: studying attitudes and reports of behavior (not behavior itself) and lose “context of real life”

21. Experiments

Controlled settings (laboratory) where the researcher controls and manipulates and independent variable to see its effect on some dependent variable.

a) experimental and control groups (random) b) advantages: best for identifying cause and effect c) disadvantages: artificial setting, experimenter effects

22. Field Research

23. Unobtrusive methods

24. Values and Social Research

25. Ethics of Social Research

26. Milgram’s Obedience experiment

His main conclusion is that the most fundamental lesson of the study is that ordinary people simply doing their jobs and without any particular hostility, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. 

27. Culture

Definitions: “a perspective on the world that people come to share as they interact”, “the ideas, values, and beliefs that are useful in contributing to a groups survival”, “the central ideas, values, and beliefs characterizing a group.” 

Culture is learned 

28. Subculture

Definition: a group whose beliefs and behavior set them apart from others in a society

29. Counter-culture

Definition: a group whose beliefs and behavior are in opposition to the broader society

30. Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

Reality reflects language. Example of the colors in different cultures (some have very different definitions and gradients) 

31. Types of norms (e.g., folkways, etc.)

Social norms definition: “behavioral guidelines that regulate our behavior in relationships.” Norms are essential for societal protections, they help provide and maintain order. There are three types of norms: folkways, mores, and taboos. 

Folkways are the most casual and informal. Customs being handed down intergenerationally, brings minor informal sanctions. Example is covering your mouth when coughing.  

Mores are a little more serious. Moral conduct that is sometimes solidified into laws. For example, rules against assaulting someone or stealing. Lying is also a violation. They have a stronger negative sanction, typically results in public charge of rudeness, or a more legal response if a law is violated. 

Taboos are the most strongly held norms. Have to do with the moral center of a society, even the thought of violating a taboo can be upsetting. Norms whose violation never seem okay. Murder is not a violation of taboo due to change in context. Some examples are incest or cannibalism. Some people violate these in order to survive and have justified taboos.  

32. Ethnocentrism

Definition is judging other peoples and customs from the standpoint of ones own culture (which is assumed to be normal, right, and superior). 

33. Cultural relativism

Definition is judging others from the standpoint of their culture (using their standards and understanding).

34. Socialization

Definition is the process by which people acquire the meanings, ideas, and actions appropriate for a particular group or society. The ways individuals align their own thoughts, feelings, and behavior to fit into society or groups. Socialization is required for individuals and society. Its a key method through which society keeps going and gets reproduced through generations. 

35. Mead’s theory of self-development

Three stages

1. Preparatory stage (until about age 2), beginnings of selfhood and self consciousness

2. Play stage (3-5), first examples of role taking, focus on single significant others

3. Game stage (6-8), learning the generalized other, learning various rules of social interaction

36. Cooley’s “looking glass self” theory

Idea: our sense of self is partly a reflection of the sentiments of other people

Three stages 

1. How we think we appear to others based on observations of others reactions 

2. How we think they judge what they see which is like an imagination of their feelings

3. How we feel about those judgements based on the process of interpretation and self-feeling

37. Thomas Theorem

Idea: if people define a situation as real, they're real in their consequences 

38. “Self-fulfilling prophecy”

Idea: the prime that beliefs/expectations even false ones can evoke behaviors that confirm the original beliefs/expectations

39. Agents of socialization

Parents (rubin study), schools (rosenthal and jacobson study), and others

Rubin study: interview parents immediately after the birth of their child, asked to describe baby (in opposite words like strong vs weak). Infant boys were always rated as stronger and more alert. Girls rated weaker, awkward, and prettier. But in reality, the infants did not differ. 

Rosenthal and Jacobson study: students had more scholastic improvement if teachers expected it from them. The researcher told teachers that some kids were bloomers and going to be really smart, what they observed is that those specific kids actually did show improvement now that teachers had different expectations from them (thus treating them differently). 

40. Killing Us Softly IV (video)

• In what ways are mass-media (e.g., advertising) an agent of socialization?

  • Effect is cumulative and unconscious

  • It is pervasive; we are constantly exposed to the images

    • TV, social media, etc.

  • Sells concepts of love, success → constructed images of the standard   

• What social issues does Kilbourne link to the types of advertising analyzed in the video

  • Sexualiization of children, infantiization of adult women, etc.

  • Body altering surgeries, mental health, mental illness, depression, self-esteem, etc.

  • Failure is inevitable when we compare ourselves to those women

• What drives the advertising industry? Is this type of advertising inevitable?

  • You need to create a profit → need to create a personal problem (?) 

• What theoretical perspective best describes Kilbourne’s analysis?  

• What does it mean to be a women in that culture?

• Ideal image of beauty effects women’s self esteem

• Men judge real women harshly after they see pictures of models

• 754% increase in non-surgical procedures

• 114% increase in actual surgeries (breast enhancements, liposuction, etc.)

• Men don’t live in a world where their bodies are scrutinized and judged  

41. Gender

42. Functionalist vs. Conflict perspectives on gender roles

43. “Androcentric” language

44. Androgyny