SYG 2000 Exam Review 2023

SOCIOLOGY - Answer- A systematic approach to thinking about studying and understanding society, human social behavior, and social groups THEORY - Answer- set of interrelated arguments that seek to describe and explain cause-effect relationships - Offers new explanations for observed patterns - Predicts expected findings (predict—NOT PROVE) ORGANIZED SKEPTICISM - Answer- Accepts nothing on the basis of faith or common sense REACTIVITY - Answer- People tend to behave differently when they are being studied than they normally would Change over time and place - Answer- - Relationships change significantly over time and place - Local studies are not always generalizable: findings may be different in another locality Studying ourselves - Answer- Sometimes it is hard to be objective because we are studying humans SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION - Answer- Looking for all possible social forces influencing someone's actions or social position helps us understand how the social situation shapes our private realities - Helps us overcome the "typical" U.S. belief that individuals are fully responsible for everything - While we make and are responsible for our choices, social forces influence everything we do Auguste Comte - Answer- - Coined the term "sociology" - Believed that human behaviors were governed by regular laws and principles that could be understood using the scientific method (positivism) Max Weber () - Answer- - Argued that the Protestant Reformation created a culture necessary for the development of capitalism - Believed that social scientists should be value neutral as much as possible APPLIED SOCIOLOGY - Answer- Use of sociological knowledge to solve social problems, design policy, and obtain information relevant to making decisions VALUES - Answer- Personal judgments or preferences about what is good or bad, or about what is liked or disliked - Cannot be proven true or false, no matter how much information you collect HYPOTHESIS - Answer- Single statement about reality that can be tested VARIABLE - Answer- A concept that can either take on different values or that has two or more categories INDEPENDENT VARIABLE (PREDICTOR) - Answer- The one the researcher thinks influences the other variable or precedes it in time DEPENDENT VARIABLE - Answer- The one thought to follow or be influenced by the independent variable VALIDITY - Answer- Means that a measure is correctly measuring the concept the researcher intends to measure RELIABILITY - Answer- Means that a measure gives consistent results CORRELATION - Answer- When one variable changes, the other one also changes NATURAL EXPERIMENTS - Answer- use naturally occurring events with pre- and posttests to assess effects of such events on a dependent variable - Ex: student performance before and after parental divorce; behavior before and after a particular intervention (educational program, etc.) SAMPLE - Answer- subset of a population that is used to represent the entire population 1. Must be representative - Everyone in population must have an equal chance of being selected into sample (randomly chosen) 2. Must be large enough to give reliable results (usually 2000 to 3000 for U.S. population) PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION - Answer- Researcher participates in some way in the behavior being observed - Should researcher reveal that participants are being observed? - Offers less precise numbers, but allows far greater depth of knowledge - Subject to problems of reactivity, people altering their behavior in front of observer UNOBTRUSIVE OBSERVATION - Answer- Field observation in which the researcher does not in any way become involved with the behavior being observed. - Counting locked cars, watching human behavior from a window, etc. - If done properly, it eliminates problems of reactivity - It tends to lack depth (it's hard to gather too much data without some sort of social contact) MACROSOCIOLOGY - Answer- Concerned with explaining large-scale social patterns MICROSOCIOLOGY - Answer- Concerned with processes that work at the individual level and that are concerned with interactions between individuals and the larger society FUNCTIONALIST PERSPECTIVE - Answer- Any society takes its particular form because that form works well for society, or helps to preserve the society, given its particular situation - Each society must adapt in ways that improve its chances of surviving Interdependency - Answer- Each society is made up of inderdependent parts - A malfunction in one area can affect the health of the entire social organism Functions - Answer- Each part of the social system exists because it serves some FUNCTION (a social need/requirement) MANIFEST FUNCTIONS - Answer- Functions that are obvious and openly stated LATENT FUNCTIONS - Answer- Functions that are not obvious or openly acknowledged - Latent functions are especially important to study because, while not obvious, they are important CONSENSUS - Answer- Certain basic values that nearly everyone in society agrees upon (freedom, democracy) COOPERATION - Answer- If people fail to cooperate in one area, effects will be felt through the entire system SOLIDARITY - Answer- The feeling that we share things in common with each other EQUILIBRIUM - Answer- A state of balance; once a society has achieved equilibrium, it will remain in that condition until it is forced to change by some new condition (technology, etc.) DYSFUNCTIONS - Answer- Consequences that are harmful to society - When social functions outweigh dysfunctions, social arrangements are likely to continue ANOMIE - Answer- Lack of societal consensus on rules and values, resulting from fast modernization, resulting in suicide and structural social problems CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE - Answer- Different social groups have conflicting self-interests, and the nature of the society is determined by the outcome of conflict between these groups Emile Durkheim - Answer- - Conflicting self-interests among different groups is the most important force shaping society - Social arrangements exist because they are useful, but only for the dominant group - The wealthy can influence public opinion through their power over the media (which is why freedom of the press is repressed in much of the world) - Wealthy enjoy overrepresentation in government and other key institutions Different groups have conflicting self-interests, so they also have different views about social issues - Beliefs and ideologies are based on what serves our self-interests - People can be manipulated into believing in the values and ideologies that support the existing order - Eventually, disadvantaged groups see that their interests are in conflict with those of the wealthy and powerful (class consciousness) To a conflict theorist, the inherent tendency of society is toward conflict rather than consensus Karl Marx - Answer- - Saw society as shaped by a struggle between those who own means of production and those who do not - Capitalism would be extremely efficient (thus, inevitable), but only through worker exploitation - Workers would be replaced by robots, and would revolt, "classless communist society" would prevail W. E. B. DuBois - Answer- - Combined sociological research with social activism: a founder and longtime leader of NAACP - Believed that, for African Americans, true self-consciousness lay in accepting and celebrating both black and American identities - Felt that inequality could only be changed by challenging existing power structure SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONIST PERSPECTIVE - Answer- - Interpretation of reality can often be an important factor in determining ultimate reality - An individual's experience of social reality is based on the meaning each person gives to the situations, rules, and messages received by society - Individuals do their best to interpret each situation, message, or rule SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY - Answer- The reality that you experience is determined by your understanding of the meaning of what happens - The meaning you attribute something is largely determined by your experiences in similar situations - How you interpret the meaning of the situation will influence how you respond to it THE LOOKING-GLASS SELF - Answer- We see ourselves as we think others see us - We develop our self-image on the basis of the messages we get from others, as we understand them - We eventually develop a complex set of ideas about what kind of a person we are, based on the messages we get from others SELF-FULFILLING PROPHESY - Answer- People expect something to happen, and because they expect it to happen, they behave in such a way that they cause it to happen (Ex: Teacher expectations and student achievement) SOCIAL ROLES - Answer- Sets of expectations about how people are supposed to behave, which are attached to positions within the social system - We perform a variety of roles, each with its own set of expectations - Knowledge about how to behave in roles comes from messages we receive from others DRAMATURGICAL PERSPECTIVE - Answer- In each role we fill, we try to convince people that we are filling it in a way that we think will provoke a positive response - We give different performances on different occasions - We develop our ideas about the proper image to project through messages from others - Front stage behavior: aimed at impression management - Back stage behavior: private settings where we let our guard down and evaluate our performance - "Studied nonobservance" occurs when we work hard to ignore flaws in others' performances EXCHANGE THEORY - Answer- People enter into relationships with one another when each participant has something to offer that the other desires - Begins with the assumption that people seek to advance their self-interests - Sometimes there is conflict; other times there is consensus CULTURE - Answer- Shared knowledge, beliefs, values, and rules about behavior that exist within a society IDEOLOGY - Answer- Set of ideas; system of knowledge, beliefs, and values that is shared in a society - Ideology can give legitimacy to a social structure (promoted by influential people) - Can represent consensus in a stable society - Can cause people to promote a new social structure to match their ideology STATUS - Answer- A social position ASCRIBED STATUS - Answer- Statuses people are born into (race, gender, parental income, etc.) ACHIEVED STATUS - Answer- Statuses that people get at least in part as a result of something that they did MASTER STATUS - Answer- The status that stands above all others in terms of its influence over a person's life - We don't always choose our master status (race, gender) ROLE CONFLICT - Answer- Conflicting expectations of our various roles ROLE STRAIN - Answer- When one role carries conflicting expectations - Any given role calls for interaction with a variety of other statuses ROLE SET - Answer- Combined roles attached to each status SOCIAL STRATIFICATION - Answer- An unequa