SOCIOLOGY – Terrible Magnificent Sociology
Introduction – The Science of Social Facts
Sociology The science of society
→ humans are a social specie (we’re born an individual but don’t remain one)
→ influencing and influenced by their community
Social facts Products of human interaction with persuasive or coercive power that exist externally to any individual
= anything produced collectively by people that exerts a force upon us (handshake, natural environment)
= term by Emile Durkheim (turned society into an object of empirical inquiry: look at world for evidence)
Sociological sympathy The skill of understanding others as they understand themselves
→ Martineau: as a type of curiosity and to be impartial
Research ethics The set of moral principles that guide empirical inquiry = respect – justice – beneficence
Sociological theory Empirically based explanations and predictions about relationships between social facts
→ aims to describe probabilistic cause-and-effect relationships and likely but inevitable relationships
Social patterns Explainable and foreseeable similarities and differences among people influenced by the social
conditions in which they live
Standpoints Points of view grounded in lived reality → the world is better understanded with all standpoints included
(developed by women of color)
Public sociology The work of using sociological theory to make societies better
→ sociology speaks in tones that can offend about power, privilege, and the possibilities of change
Sociological imagination The capacity to consider how people’s lives – including our own – are shaped by the social facts that
surround us (helps understand society)
Chapter 1 – The self
a. The self
We are subject of thought (the one who’s thinking) = ME → our personal person
object of thought (what we’re thinking about) =I → monitors our behavior
Theory of mind The recognition that other minds exist, followed by the realization that we can try to imagine others’
(Herbert Mead) mental states (eg. gift giving, lying, team sports)
→ mirror neurons to close the distance between them and us (seeing people yawn)
cold neurons = autism? → not only understanding someone’s feeling but also feeling it
b. Reflecting on the self
Looking-glass self The self that emerges as a consequence of seeing ourselves as we think other people see us
(Horton Cooley) = other people reflect a vision from which we from our self-concepts
= a self-concept (understanding of who we are based on our personality, characteristics, biographies)
→ our first self is given to us by the people around us (caregivers define us before we’re born)
→ perspective of the generalized other - how would an average member of one group evaluate us?
→ to perceive ourselves is to guess: we can never see what others see
Interaction = two opposing mirrors creating an infinity mirror (opt out of social interaction to escape it)
TO SEE OR NOT TO SEE
No looking glasses to reflect → identity fades, become irrelevant
We can pick & choose whose opinions to confirm / adapt to (doesn’t mean we don’t care about the other opinions)
When do we accept an opinion? The kind of relationship with that person
Whether it is part of our self-concept already
Whether it’s reinforced by other available looking glasses
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Self-fulfilling prophecy A phenomenon in which what people believe is true becomes true, even if it wasn’t originally true
→ if enough people consistently reflect us in a certain way, their impressions will shape our impression of
ourselves, and we will act accordingly, bringing into existence the self that they originally saw
Self-concept based on interactions: how do we feel like the same person every day?
→ Our personalities feel fixed because our life circumstances are relatively stable
BUT sometimes face identity crises that prompt real self-reflection and reinvention
c. The story of the self
REMEBERING OURSELVES
Self-narrative A story we tell about the origin and likely future of ourselves
= our self-concept is reliant on our ability to resemble our reality
= built out of a lifetime of experiences and cultural narratives => feeling of authenticity
→ we nest our narratives in the ones of others (connected stories with your parents)
BETWEEN FACT AND FICTION
Our self-narrative is not a true story
o We forget a lot
o It is based on an interpretation/experience
o Some things become part of your story because you identify with them, more than you identify with the truth
o We have another goal then accuracy
o Our brain is vulnerable to suggestion (mirror neurons)
→ strongest memories most likely untrue: the more we recall it, the less we remember it = memory distortion
d. The self as a social fact
Future: Who will I be? The self I fear / think / hope to be = shaped in collaboration with others
= shaped by self-fulfilling prophecy
Develop self-awareness → constructing a self-concept out of our interactions with others
→ committing to memory a narrative about who we are
→ dismissing and misremembering things inconsistent with our self-story
→ imagining who we might be in the future
The nature of our consciousness is a product of human interaction
We are real because social facts are real
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Chapter 2 – Culture and Construction
Culture Differences in groups’ shared ideas, as well as objects, practices and bodies that reflect those ideas
Example: tomatoes are fruit but prefer to think of them as vegetables because it fits our ideas better
Socialization The lifelong learning process by which we become members of our cultures
Culturally competent Able to understand and navigate our cultures with ease
a. Social construction
Social construct An influential and shared interpretation of reality that will vary across time and space
(= formidable social facts) Eg. Language, tomatoes being vegetables, gender, race, money etc.
→ members of same culture, share similar social constructs (staying power of constructs)
TYPES
o Signifiers = things that stand for other things → emoji’s, thumbs-up, Christian cross
o Categories = sufficiently like one another to consider the same → pets, blue, blouses
o Binaries = opposites or otherwise in opposition → friends vs enemies, legal vs illegal
o Associations = only being connected by a third idea → rainbows and flags, red and green
o Sequences = specific chronological order → marry – buy a house – have kids
o Hierarchies = ranked relationships → it’s better to be young than old
Social construction The process by which we layer objects with ideas, fold concepts into one another, and build connections
between them (from which social constructs emerge)
Symbolic structure Constellation of social constructs connected and opposed to one another in overlapping networks of
meaning (universe of ideas and their relationships to one another)
→ structure: complex and rigid network BUT no universal symbolic structure
b. Culture
o Cultural objects (stop sign) natural items are given a symbolic meaning
o Cultural cognitions (red means stop) shared ideas and values
o Cultural practices (most of us stop) habits, routines, rituals that ppl preform
o Cultural bodies (reflex to push brakes) culturally influenced shapes & sizes, capacities and physiological processes
Social learning = transmission of knowledge & practices through individuals (via observation, instruction, reward, punishment)
Dual inheritance theory = notion that humans are products of the interaction of genetic and cultural evolution
c. Socialization
Beliefs Ideas about what is true and what is false
Values Notions as to what’s right and wrong
Norms Shared expectations for behavior
→ agents of socialization = channels of influence through which we become socialized (from which we learn these)
Eg. families, schools, peers, religion, mass media, work, military
INTERPERSONAL AND SELF-SOCIALIZATION
Interpersonal socialization Active efforts by others to help us become culturally competent members of our cultures
Subcultures Subgroups within societies that have distinct cultural ideas, objects, practices, and bodies
Self-socialization Active efforts to ensure we’re culturally competent member of our cultures
Social ties Connections between us and other people
Social networks Webs of ties that link us to each other and, through other ppl’s ties, to whom we’re not directly linked
Social media Social networks mediated by the internet
Homophily Our tendency to connect with others who are similar to us
→ our ties don’t just represent social connections, but also enable cultural contagion
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