





Study with the several resources on Docsity
Earn points by helping other students or get them with a premium plan
Prepare for your exams
Study with the several resources on Docsity
Earn points to download
Earn points by helping other students or get them with a premium plan
Community
Ask the community for help and clear up your study doubts
Discover the best universities in your country according to Docsity users
Free resources
Download our free guides on studying techniques, anxiety management strategies, and thesis advice from Docsity tutors
Notes for First Exam Material Type: Notes; Professor: Stevens; Class: Introduction to Sociology; Subject: Sociology; University: Macon State College; Term: Spring 2011;
Typology: Study notes
1 / 9
This page cannot be seen from the preview
Don't miss anything!
Sociology Exam 1 Sociology: the scientific study of social behavior and human groups. Broad in scope; it focuses on social relationships; how those relationships influence people’s behavior; and how societies, the sum total of those relationships, develop and change Sociological imagination: C. Wright Mills: awareness of the relationship between an individual and the wider society. It is based on the ability to view our own society as an outsider might, rather than from the perspective of our limited experiences and cultural biases. Sociology is a social science; sociology emphasizes the influence that groups can have on people’s behavior and attitudes and ways in which people shape society. Knowledge that relies on common sense is not always reliable. Sociologists must test and analyze each piece of information they use. Sociologists employ theories to examine relationships between observations or data that may seem completely unrelated. 19 th^ Century thinkers;
Sociological Imagination: theory in practice and research in action; by thinking globally; by focusing on the significance of social inequality; by speaking across race, gender, and religious boundaries and by highlighting social policy around the world. Clinical sociology: the use of the discipline of sociology with the specific intent of altering social relationships or restructuring social institutions. Anomie: the loss of direction felt in society when social control of individual behavior has become ineffective. Conflict perspective: sociological approach that assumes that social behavior is best understood in terms of conflict or tension between competing groups. Dramaturgical approach: view of social interaction in which people are seen as theatrical performers. Dysfunction: element or process of a society that may disrupt the social system or reduce its stability. Feminist view: Ida Wells-Barnett: approach that views inequality in gender as central to all behavior and organization. Globalization: worldwide integration of government policies, culture, social movements, and financial markets through trade and the exchange of ideas. Ideal type: construct or model for evaluating specific cases. Interactionist Perspective: approach that generalizes about everyday forms of social interaction in order to explain society as a whole. Latent function: unconscious or unintended function that may reflect hipped purposes. Manifest function: an open, stated and conscious function Natural Science: study of physical features of nature and the ways in which they interact and change. Nonverbal communication: sending messages through the use of gestures, facial expressions, and postures. Theory: a set of statements that seeks to explain problems, actions, or behavior Chapter 2 Scientific Method: defining the problem, reviewing the literature, formulating the hypothesis, collecting and analyzing the data, and developing the conclusion. Operational definitions: used to study abstract concepts, such as intelligence or prejudice. Hypothesis: states a possible relationship between two or more variables.
Hawthorne effect: unintended influence that observers of experiments can have on their subjects. Mean: a number calculated by adding a series of values and then dividing by the number of values. Median: The midpoint or number that divides a series of values into two groups of equal number of values. Mode: single most common value in a series of scores Operational definition: an explanation of an abstract concept that is specific enough to allow a researcher to assess the concept. Qualitative research: relies on what is seen in the field or naturalistic settings more than on statistical data Quantitative research: collects and reports data primarily in numerical form. Research design: detailed plan or method for obtaining data scientifically Chapter 3 Shared culture helps to define the group or society to which we belong George Murdock: List of Cultural Universals; common practices found in every culture, including marriage, sports, cooking, medicine and sexual restrictions. Human culture is constantly expanding through the process of innovation, which includes both discovery and invention Diffusion: the spread of cultural items from one place to another-fostered globalization. But people resist ideas that seem too foreign as well as those they perceive as threatening to their own values and beliefs. Language: important element of culture includes speech, written characters, numerals and symbols as well as gestures and other forms of nonverbal communication. Language both describes culture and shapes it. Sociologists distinguish between norms in two ways: classifying them either as:
Ethnocentrism: assumption that one’s own culture is better than another Cultural relativism: practice of viewing other people’s behavior from the perspective of their own culture Argot: specialized language used by members of a group or subculture Culture: the totality of learned, socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects and behavior. Culture Lag: a period of maladjustment when the nonmaterial culture is still struggling to adapt to new material conditions Culture Shock: feeling of surprise and disorientation that people experience when the encounter cultural practices that are different from their own. Diffusion: the process by which a cultural item spreads from group to group or society to society Discovery: the process of making known or sharing the existence of an aspect of reality Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: hypothesis concerning the role of language in shaping our interpretation of reality. It holds that language is culturally determined. Chapter 4 Socialization: the process through which people learn the attitudes, values, and actions appropriate for members of a particular culture: it affects the overall cultural practices of a society; it also shapes the images that we hold of ourselves Heredity and environmental factors interact in influencing the socialization process Charles Horton Cooley: advanced the belief that we learn who we are by interacting with others; the Looking Glass self Erving Goffman: Impression management: trying to convey distinct impressions of who we are to others Anticipatory socialization: processes of socialization in which a person ‘rehearses’ for future positions, occupations, and social relationships Cognitive theory of development: theory that children’s thought progresses through four stages of development Degradation ceremony: humiliating rituals