socio test prep

Sociology: the social science study of societies behavior as a whole

Theories: A general attempt to describe/explain something

Perspectives: The way we see each other and the world

Sociology started during the industrial revolution era

• Cities became to crowded

• Crimes

• Housing crisis

• Unemployment

• Equality

The term sociology was first coined in 1780 by the French essayist Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès (1748–1836) in an unpublished manuscript (Fauré et al. 1999). In 1838, the term was reintroduced by Auguste Comte (1798–1857).

1. Auguste Comte

• Positivism

• Can be proven scientifically

• Through limited experiences

• Social experiments

• Father of sociology

• He believed it would unite all sciences and improve society

2. Emilie Durkheim

• Functionalism

• Everything in society has a contribution/function

• Saw society as a human body 

• If one isn’t working, the whole system collapses

• Saw society as a series of interrelated parts

• Society exerted powerful force on individuals

• The collective consciousness (Norms, and beliefs) binds individuals together and creates social integration

3. Max Weber

• Functionalism

• Social action theory

• What we do is connected to society and vice versa

• We act based on society's reactions to cause and effect

• Humans adapt their behavior based on social context

• Groups within a society

• Verstehen

• To understand something, we must see it from different perspectives

• Put yourself in your shoes

4. Karl Marx

• The structure of society is structured based on how its economy is organized

• Conflict theory

• To criticize capitalism

• Capitalism relies on social conflicts between the bourgeoisie and proletariat

• The wealthy stays in power and the labors stay as subjects of the government

• The labors overthrow a revolution to introduce a classless society (communism)

• The wealthy uses religion as the opium of the people to suppress the conflict

• Religion can be a way to distract people with false hope and fate (why be rich now when u can be rich in the after life)

5. Erving Goffman

• Interactionism/dramaturgy

• The dramaturgical approach to human interaction

• Guide/control on how other people see us

• How we are is different between home and outside

• The front stage and the backstage

• Our real emotions are behind a curtain

• To fit in with social norms

• How we act depends on social settings

• The theatrical presentation of life

• Life is a theater, our real selves are behind a curtain

6. Herbert Spencer

• Biological view of society

• Saw society as organisms

• Natural selection

• Survival of the fittest

• Nature selects the richest to live as they are the most capable to live

• Poor are left to die/suffer because that's nature's way of getting rid of them. 

• Doctrine of social darwinism (Theory of evolution)

7. C. Wright mills

• Sociological imagination

• Connect our personal issues to public/social issues

• To blame oneself then a bigger group

• A framework for understanding the social world that far surpasses any common sense notion

• Might derive from limited social experience

• Common sense notion

• Using imagination to widen a perspective

• The awareness of the relationship between personal experience and wider society

• Reconcile “Society” & “individuals”

Capitalism: Gaining money/profit

• Money makes your way

• Makes everybody work