Introduction to Social Sciences I
Midterm Exam
2024
Your third Social Sciences exam is on Friday, Dec. 16. The exam will take place at 3pm
in room 129. You’ll have 60 minutes to complete the exam. Please bring a pen with
you to writeyour answers in the exam booklet.
The exam will cover material from the last five units of the semester: Socialization,
Social Psychology, Class, Gender, and Race. My presentations for all the lectures
are on the SS101Blackboard site, in the folder called “Lectures.”
Part I. Multiple-Choice Questions (worth 30 points)
The first part of the exam will consist of 30 multiple-choice questions. Approximately
half thequestions will be drawn from the lectures, and the other half will come from
the assigned readings.
I am giving you a list of terms/concepts you ought to know from the lectures. I will
leave it upto you to determine what are the important ideas and arguments for the
readings.
Socialization – the process by which individuals absorb culture and become fully
functioningmembers of society, the process of passing on the rules and norms to
newcomers (children, immigrants) thus assuring the functional survival or any
group, community, or society.
,the socialization process
-necessary for the survival of individuals and groups
-through the process of socialization, individuals learn culture (the
symbols that allow people to communicate and the appropriate
norms and behaviorsof the group)
-Learning culture is what allows you to become a functioning
memberof society.
, self-identity – a person’s conscious experiences of herself as distinct and
different from other individuals, her understanding of how she compares
to other individualsin society.
-socially constructed – we find our identity through society and others
-Zimbardo experiment
-self-identity only comes from interactions with others
the Looking Glass Theory – I am not what I think I am. I am not what you think
I am. Iam what I think you think I am.
role theory – George Herbert Mead
-the ability to take the role of others during interaction
social roles – the set of behaviors associated with a particular place (status) in
societyrole-taking – the ability to the role of others in social interaction
-Responding to cues of others
-Change behavior based on others reaction to your behavior
-So that you can function successfully in society
Durkheim’s study of suicide
social integration and social regulation
-Integration (social bonds)– the degree to which individuals in a
society sharecollective experiences and collective culture (beliefs, values,
knowledge)
-Regulation (social norms) – the degree to which individuals feel
constraintfrom social norms (share standards of behavior)
egoistic suicide – suicide that results from the lack of social integration (of
just theindividual – rich people, unmarried people)
anomic suicide – suicide that results from the lack of social regulation
(situational – ex:people in Southie or someone with AIDs)
anomie – a condition afflicting a society where social norms are absent or
ineffective(usually in a period of rapid change or crisis)
Social Psychology – the scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes
of humanbehavior and though in social situations
“definition of the situation” (The Thomas Dictum) – “if men define situations as
, real,
they are real in consequences.” How we define a situation determines how we act.