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Lecture Notes on Biology, Culture and Society | SOC 108, Study notes of Introduction to Sociology

Southern Illinois University (SIU) - CarbondaleIntroduction to Sociology

Material Type: Notes; Class: Intro to Sociology; Subject: Sociology; University: Southern Illinois University Carbondale; Term: Fall 2001;

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Introduction to Sociology
Biology, Culture and Society: Chapter 5
Instinctual theories.
A. Posit that human social behavior is the result of genetic endowments which structure action,
rather than environmental factors which condition individuals to behave in particular ways.
Genotype.
A. Genetic makeups which determine what you could be.
B. The genetic given or potential.
Phenotype.
A. Product of genotype and environmental history which determines what you are.
B. The physical reality.
Behavioral Genetics.
A. Study of how genetic makeup influences social and psychological behaviors.
1. Alcoholism, impulsiveness, aggression, intelligence, homosexuality.
B. Twin studies are very helpful in determining this.
1. Monozygotic (identical) twins have the exact same genetic makeup.
2. Separated at birth twins are best to study because they were raised in different environments
but have the same genetic material.
C. Adoptees and alcoholism.
1. Schuckit found that biological children of alcoholics were more likely to be alcoholic,
regardless of whether an adoptive parent was an alcoholic.
a. He also found that the odds of becoming an alcoholic were twice as high for those who had
an alcoholic adoptive parent, showing a substantial environmental effect.
The Growth Revolution—intersecting culture, economy, and biology.
A. The "growth revolution" in industrialized countries is a function not of massive genetic
changes, but of the satisfaction of unfulfilled genetic potential.
B. Braudel's survey of life in early capitalism shows that most humans in this period ate only stale
bread or gruel made from moldy bread or unprocessed grains. No meat, No eggs, No vegetables.
C. Illness and malnutrition was rampant. People wore very little clothing (there was none), and
what they had they were not able to change (no clean underwear), thus fostering disease.
Rodney Stark's Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire.
A. While conversion certainly played a role in the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire, this
process of Christian takeover was spurred by biological factors.
B. Like all periods of history before the 20th century, the era of Roman rule was marked by
periodic devastation caused by epidemics.
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Introduction to Sociology Biology, Culture and Society: Chapter 5 Instinctual theories. A. Posit that human social behavior is the result of genetic endowments which structure action, rather than environmental factors which condition individuals to behave in particular ways. Genotype. A. Genetic makeups which determine what you could be. B. The genetic given or potential. Phenotype. A. Product of genotype and environmental history which determines what you are. B. The physical reality. Behavioral Genetics. A. Study of how genetic makeup influences social and psychological behaviors.

  1. Alcoholism, impulsiveness, aggression, intelligence, homosexuality. B. Twin studies are very helpful in determining this.
  2. Monozygotic (identical) twins have the exact same genetic makeup.
  3. Separated at birth twins are best to study because they were raised in different environments but have the same genetic material. C. Adoptees and alcoholism.
  4. Schuckit found that biological children of alcoholics were more likely to be alcoholic, regardless of whether an adoptive parent was an alcoholic. a. He also found that the odds of becoming an alcoholic were twice as high for those who had an alcoholic adoptive parent, showing a substantial environmental effect. The Growth Revolution—intersecting culture, economy, and biology. A. The "growth revolution" in industrialized countries is a function not of massive genetic changes, but of the satisfaction of unfulfilled genetic potential. B. Braudel's survey of life in early capitalism shows that most humans in this period ate only stale bread or gruel made from moldy bread or unprocessed grains. No meat, No eggs, No vegetables. C. Illness and malnutrition was rampant. People wore very little clothing (there was none), and what they had they were not able to change (no clean underwear), thus fostering disease. Rodney Stark's Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire. A. While conversion certainly played a role in the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire, this process of Christian takeover was spurred by biological factors. B. Like all periods of history before the 20th century, the era of Roman rule was marked by periodic devastation caused by epidemics.

C. Pagan religions had no "ethical" standards, no rules for how humans were to relate to one another. You pay homage to the Gods and everyone fends for themselves. D. Christian ethical standards demanded care for the sick, while pagans left the sick to die in the streets. E. Christians often survived the epidemic because of basic care (water and soup), thus allowing them to develop immunity to the diseases, so that they would be better able to survive the next epidemic. Russell Thornton's American Indian Holocaust A. In a similar fashion, the biggest impact on native American population occurred because of "virgin soil" epidemics brought by the Spaniards, and not because of systematic genocide.

Intellectual Superiority or Noble Savages? A. The history of human discussions of "modern" life and social order has been fraught with debates over the innate nature of mankind. Are we morally and intellectually superior to beasts, including humans of more simple cultural origins? Or, is modern man inherently fallen from the natural order or life, condemned to an unethical treatment of animals and humans alike? B. Jean-Jacque Rousseau's notion of the "noble savage" posited that in primitive societies there was no need for a social contract, government, or stratification. C. Konrad Lorenz

  1. Claimed that humans are a morally inferior, violent species of ape. Owing to our late progression to carnivorous diets, humans had not developed instincts which inhibit intraspecies aggression. The result is murder, violence and war. D. Jane Goodall
  2. Her work with chimpanzees in Tanzania showed that not only are our living ancestors capable of using tools (rocks, sticks, and such), which was thought to be a uniquely human trait, but they also eat meat and are at times very violent. They hunt for pigs and small deer, and they go to war against baboons and even other groups of chimpanzees. E. Primate Culture.
  3. primates learn things, a fundamental element of culture. Further, these things are transmitted from one generation to another. Without this information, primates lose their ability to form social groups (once thought to be instinctual), to play, and to mate. 2. Language. a. Non-human primates can't talk. b. A number of chimpanzees have been taught American Sign Language. Vocabularies are relatively limited, by human standards, however, several hundred words can get you a long way. c. Chimps who know sign language have been shown to pass this on to their children, clear evidence of cultural transmission or socialization. D. Chimps can think in abstract terms, and can invent new signs for relationships among objects. They aren't simply describing what's in front of their noses. 3. Physical environment and Primate Culture. A. Macques from Japan placed in a more limited space in Oregon changes from a matriarchal pattern of dominance to one with a male-dominated hierarchy.
  4. In Japan, the males went off on their own and ignored the kids and females. In Oregon, the males couldn't get away because of space constraints.
  5. In Japan, dominance in the group was based on how strong your mother was. Mothers broke up fights and beat up other mothers and their kids. The kids of the strongest mothers became dominant, not because of their size or strength, but because of respect for their mother.
  6. In Oregon, males had to become involved in these disputes, and dominance was established on the basis of how strong the male was.

Socialization and Social Roles Learning Theory. A. Stimulus-Response.

  1. Imitative Behavior.
  2. this simple conditioning theory fails to explain how people (or other primates) could create relationships which are more abstract. Stimulation and Cognitive Development. A. Skeels and Dye have shown that contact with other people raises the IQ of infants compared to a control group of infants who don't receive stimulation. Jean Piaget's Stages of Development A. In response to S-R theories, Piaget proposed that the brain functions through cognitive structures which direct reasoning. B. Cognitive development is a result of mastering increasingly complex rules of reasoning, and development takes place in stages. Cognitive Development and the Self. A. An important aspect of cognitive development is to be able to put yourself in the place of someone else in order to view actions, describe scenery, mediate instructions, and the like. B. Flavell found that 8 year olds couldn't describe the rules of a board game to someone who was blindfolded, but 14 year olds could. This demonstrates differences between the pre-operational and concrete operational stages of development. Many humans never develop the intellectual capacity to enter the formal operational stage of development, where they can reason beyond actual events and objects and engage in abstract thinking.

A. Working class parents place a higher value on obedience, cleanliness, neatness and such for the children, whereas middle class parents valued curiosity, happiness, and consideration for others. B. Working class parents want their children to conform to the expectations of others, while middle class parents are more concerned that their children become able to express themselves and be independent in thought and action. C. Working class parents punish children for what they did, while middle class parents were concerned with the child's motives for breaking rules. D. Working class parents tend to have a division of childrearing responsibilities, with mothers taking primary responsibility for supporting the children. Fathers are primarily responsible for punishment. Middle class parents tend to share supportive and punishment tasks. E. The bottom line is that conformity is expected in working class occupations, and free expression is punished. Consequently, working class parents raise their children to conform to external expectations. Middle class occupations require independent thinking, the ability to get along with others, and individual initiative. F. Personality toward conformity versus individuality was seen to be shaped by experiences in the workforce which reward conformist or expressive personality traits.

  1. Hence, socialization continues to take place over the life course, throughout adulthood, and not only in the home, but also in other social institutions, such as school and the workplace. Bringing Culture Back In: Chris Ellison and Darren Sherkat A. Social class is fine and dandy, and probably does influence personality and childrearing attitudes, however, we were very disturbed that somehow Kohn and colleagues had dismissed the importance of culture entirely. B. Duane Alwin (a Kohn student and later colleague), "demonstrated" that Catholic Protestant differences in values placed in children had diminished to insignificance, thus eliminating the "last" cultural source of personality. C. Alwin misanalyzed the data, causing him to reject the possibility of cultural influences on qualities valued in children. D. First, the strongest predictors of childrearing orientations in the United States are religious factors. Fundamentalist Protestants and Catholics still value obedience in children more than other groups. Further, fundamentalists are strong supporters of corporal punishment, for particular reasons, not simply to be mean to kids. E. The Culture of Fundamentalism dictates that children MUST conform to the dictates of authorities, both at home and at work or school or wherever. The penalty is eternal damnation, and parents are responsible for the souls of their children. F. The hierarchical strucuture of Catholicism still influences parental values which support conformity, even controlling for class position.

Socialization and Social Roles Roles and Role Performance A. Another aspect of the tradition of socialization is characterized by role-playing as opposed to role- learning. In this view, socialization is less important than the interaction between role players.

  1. Erving Goffman's Presentation of Self in Everday Life. a. We perform roles in a particular fashion, with attention and apt inattention to specific aspects of the role. We play our many roles as an actor would perform on a stage. b. Front stage and Back Stage. 1. Because of our limited role-performance abilities, the need to perform many roles, the limitations placed on roles, and the need for role preparation, we perform roles in two settings, in the Front Stage and the Back Stage. 2. Front Stage --performance of a role in its act. Students learning in classrooms or taking exams, physicians checking patients in an examining room, parents instructing children at the dinner table, etc. 3. Back Stage --the preparation area of role performance, including aspects of role players which are unrelated to the particular role being played. Professors often discuss students before evaluating them, doctors joke about patients in the X-ray room, teachers often come to class unprepared. C. Impression management.
  2. The use of props, scenery, costumes and the like to project a particular role to others. a. when your parents come to visit, what happens to your room? D. Teamwork and Interaction in role performance.
  3. Role players must work together to make the skit work.
  4. Studied Nonobservance---ignoring failures in role performance to keep the show going.
  5. Howard Becker 's classic example is the socialization of physicians in medical school. a. In Becker's view, what is learned is not so much the content of medical practice, but the role of the physician. Physicians are immediately treated differently by patients and other physicians, and it is from this role-playing that they gain their "authority" in the workplace, not from their wealth of medical knowledge. DEVIANCE AND CONFORMITY Deviance A. The violation of norms. B. Variable
  6. Some deviance is considered quite serious while other acts of deviance are considered trivial or even somewhat normal. A. Murder and speeding.
  7. Some things are deviant in some places or among some groups and are not deviant in other places or for members of other groups.

Walt Gove: Age, Gender and Crime:. A. As people get older rates of arrest for all types of crimes drops off. B. Women have lower rates of arrest for nearly all crimes, and very rarely commit some types of violent crime. C. Gove hypothesizes that much criminal activity requires levels of physical strength and energy which only the young possess. D. Hence, body types, particularly the popularised mesomorphic muscular physique, should be related to rates of criminality. D. This is also related to levels of testosterone and other neurotransmitters which drive aggressive responses. Personality Theories of Crime: A. Hans Toch and Leonard Berkowitz have asserted that while generally personality is unrelated to criminal activity, very low self esteem is related to violence. B. Note that the general research literature on the relationship between crime and psychological dispositions goes against the type of employee testing which American companies waste millions of dollars on. Interactionist theories of Violence: A. Luckenbill has posited that the interaction between individuals who have poor interaction skills and "thin skins" results in an escalation of abusive behaviors and often violence. If you don't hit the other person you lose face, and you have no skills which would allow you to save face in a non- violent fashion.

Edwin Sutherland: Differential Association Theory A. Since all behavior (in this theory) is the result of socialization developed through interaction with others, deviant behavior must also result from such attachments. B. Boys become delinquents because they have too many attachments to kids who engage in deviant behavior. Importantly, these deviant kids think that the "deviant" acts are "normal". C. Robert Burgess and Ron Akers: Learning theory and Differential Association.

  1. Deviant attachments teach us to deviate by rewarding deviant behavior and by not rewarding conformist behavior. Travis Hirschi and Gary Jensen: Whither the cause? A. Do delinquent peers "cause" people to become delinquent by rewarding their behavior, or do delinquents find themselves isolated and able to form attachments only to others who are similarly situated. Hirschi and Jensen have argued that the absence of attachments facilitates criminality, not the presence of delinquent attachments. B. Kids who have a stake in attachments to parents, school, friends, and other organziations are unlikely to commit deviant acts which would jeopardize those attachments. C. How did you get those delinquent friends anyway? Another problem with differential association theories is that it assumes that somehow people are mechanically driven by attachments which form a'priori. People choose their friends, and some people choose deviant friends while others avoid such people. Blaming your delinquency on your friends will work on your mother, but it isn't a "cause" in the social scientific sense. Subcultures of Deviance A. Deviant associations may exist as a cultural milieu which surrounds people and reenforces certain behaviors and understandings over others. B. The Southern Subculture of Violence
  2. John Shelton Reed has argued that Southerners are socialized into a particular culture which condones, indeed mandates, violence in certain situations. Particularly, violence is seen as a normal thing if someone physically confronts or challenges a person, or if someone has violated social norms about the boundaries of physical violence or behavior (such as beating a woman or committing a crime).