What is Sociology? (Unit 1)

  • Textbook definition: “The study of how societies are organized and how the organization of a society influences the behavior of people living in it”

  • From ASA:

    • A social science involving the study of the social lives of people, groups, and societies

      • Social science = collecting data, attempting to be unbiased, engaging in different types of method

    • The study of our behavior as social beings, covering everything from the analysis of short contacts between anonymous individuals on the street to the study of global social processes

    • The scientific study of social institutions (an entity we move through throughout our lives)

      • Social media, social stratification (class) system, the economy, religion, schools, family, towns, sports leagues, justice/healthcare systems, prison, marriage, laws, etc.

      • Informal and formal norms associated with these

  • Invisible social structures in the background influence where you go to college, if you get married, etc.

    • The card trick video (color-changing t-shirts, tablecloth, and background)

What Do Sociologists Study?

  • Aging and the life course

  • Alcohol

  • Altruism

  • Asia/Asia America

  • Children and youth

  • Education

  • Economics

  • Human rights

  • Religion

  • Technology

  • Political economy and the world system

  • And more!

How Individual Actions Affect Economic Inequality

  • NYU sociologist Guillermina Jasso describes economic inequality as “high” and “increasing”

    • The most common proposals for turning those descriptors around are big-picture government policies; minimum wage

The Impact of Racism, Prejudice in the Social Media Age

  • Non-violent, prejudicial acts are becoming more common 50+ years after the CRM

Common Sense?

  • It’s easy to think of things sociologists study as common sense

  • In mixed group settings (cocktail party, classroom), women talk more than men. Why?

    • For some reason, the societal ‘norm’/expectation is that women talk more

  • What if we said that wasn’t true and we switched it? Why?

    • Other social norms say women are supposed to be passive and men are supposed to be assertive

    • Connotations; if men talk a lot, it’s confidence, if women talk a lot, it’s annoying

  • Empirical research needs to be conducted to know the answer to these questions– our brains automatically make explanations/make sense of the world

  • Confirmation bias: the tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true

How Does Sociology Differ from Other Social Sciences?

  • All social sciences study some aspect of society

  • Umbrella term that includes fields outside of the natural sciences, including anthropology, economics, political science, history, psychology, and communications

Is There Anything Unique to Sociology?

  • Sociological Imagination

    • Suicide:

      • Particular/Personal

        • Occur at the individual level

        • Ex: unhappiness theory

      • General/Public

        • Transcend the individual and are collective interests or values felt to be threatened

        • Ex: why is the rate of suicide higher in Ohio than in California?

    • Understanding the private in public terms

    • The capacity to think about our personal experience in relation to larger social forces that influence every aspect of our lives, whether they are visible to us or not

  • Sociological Perspective

    • Seeing the general in the particular