Social Interaction
the process by which people act towar or respond to other people; the foundation for all relationships and groups in society.
Social Structure
the stable pattern of social relationships that exists within a particular group or society.
ex. homeless people have lost this and as a result have lost their personal dignity
Status
a socially defined position in a group or society characterized by certain expectations, rights, and duties.
Status set
all the statuses that a person occupies at a given time
ex. maria may be a psychologist, a professor, a wife, a mother, a Catholic, a school volunteer, and a Texas resident
Ascribed Status
a social position conferred at birth or received involuntarily later inlife based on attributes over which the individual has little or no control, such as race/ethnicity, age, and gender.
ex. Maria is a female born to Mexican American parents; she was as
Achieved Status
a social position that a person assumes voluntarily as a result of personal choise, merit, or direct effort.
ex. occupation, education, and income
Master Status
the most important status that a person occupies.
ex. womans master status is in the family like daughter, wife, mother; mens is usuallu occupation
Status Symbol
a material sign that informs others of a person's specific status.
ex. a wedding ring proclaims that the person is married
Role
a set of behavioral expectations associated with a given status. we occupy a status and play a role.
ex. a carpenter hired to remodel a kitchen is not expected to sit down uninvited and join the family for dinner.
Role Expectation
a group's or society's definition of the way that a specific role ought to be played.
Role Performance
how a person actually plays a role.
Role Conflict
a situation in which incompatible role demands are placed on a person by two or more statuses held at the same time.
ex. feel pulled in diffferent directions so a person would prioritize their roles and do the most important first. Charles would fulfill h
Role Strain
a condition that occurs when incompatible demands are bulit into a single status that a person occupies.
ex. many women experience role strain in the labor force because they hold jobs that are " less satisfying and more stressful that men's jobs since th
Role Exit
a situation in which people disengage from social roles that have been central to their self-identity.
Stage one: experience doubt or burnt out.
Stage two: search for an alternative ex. leave from work/ separate from spouse
Stage three:Finally taking acti
Social Group
a group that consist of two or more people who interact frequently and share a common identity and a feeling of interdependence.
Primary Group
Cooley's term for a small, les specialized group in which members engage in face-to-face, emotion-based interactions over an extened period of time.
ex. family, close friends, and school or work related peer groups
Secondary Group
a larger, more specialized group in which members engage in more-impersonal, goal-oriented relationships for a limited period of time.
ex. schools, church, corperations
Formal Organization
a highly structured group formed for the purpose of completing certain tasks or achieving specific goals
ex. colleges, cooperations, and government
Social Institutions
a set of organized beliefs and rules that establish how a society will attempt to meets its basic social needs. These and groups differ bc social institutions refer to an ideal and group is specific.
ex. mass media, sports, science, medicine, and military
Division of Labor
how the various tasks of a society are divided up and performed
Mechanical Solidarity
Durkheim's term for the social cohesion in preindustrial societies, in which there is minimal dicison of labor and people feel united by shared values and common social bonds.
Organic Solidarity
Durkheim's term for the social cohesion found in industrial societies, in which people perform very specialized tasks and feel united by their mutual dependence.
Gemeinschaft
a traditional society in which social relationships are based on personal bonds of friendship and kinship and on intergenerational stability. People in this type of societies are based on ascribed statuses and have a strong sense of belonging but little p
Gesellschaft
a large, urban society in which social bonds are based on impersonal and specialized relationshops, with litte long-term commitment to the group or consensus on values. Relationships are based on achieved status and interactions among people are both rati
Industrial Society
a society based on technology the mechanizes production. The economy is based on involvment with people and communications technologies such as mass media, computers and the web
ex. a society that has banking, law, and travel industry are characterists of
Postindustrial Society
a society in which technology supports a service- and information-based economy. The economy is based on involvment with people and communications technologies such as mass media, computers and the web
ex. a society that has banking, law, and travel indus
Ethnomethodology
the study of the commonsense knowledge that people use to understand the situations in which they find themselves.
ex. what expectations do you have that you will take turns duing a conversation?
Dramatugical Analysis
the sudy of social interaction that compares everyday life to a theatrical presentation
Impression Management (presentation fo self)
Goffman's term for people's efforts to present themselves to others in ways that are most favorable to their own interests or image.
ex. people that made the bad grades and good grades on the test
Face-saving Behavior
Goffman's tern for the strategies we use to rescue our performance when we experience a potential or actual loss of face
ex. the Aces tell the Bombers that the test was unfair
Nonverbal Communication
the transfermation between persons without the use of speech.
Personal Space
the immediate area surrounding a person that the person claims as private.
Macro Level Perspective
the social structure of society has several essential elements: social institutions, groups, statuses, roles, and norms. Routine of macro level:children are born and socialized, goods and services are produced and distibuted, order is preserved, and a sen
What do Functionalists emphasize about social structure?
that it is essential bc it creates order and predictability in a socity.
What do Conflict theorists emphasize about social structure?
they believe that there is more to social structure than is readily visable and that we must explore the deeper, underlying structures that determine social relations in socitey.
Social Marginality
is the state of being part insider and part outsider in a social structure such a immigrants
Stigma
is any phyical or social attribute or sighn that so devalues a person's social identity that is disqualifies that person from full social acceptance
ex. criminals wearing a uniform
Role Distancing
occurs when people consciously foster the impression of a lack of commitment or attchment to a particular role and merely go through the motions of role performance.
ex. charles talks to the customers at his fast food restaurant about classes they are tak
Social Solidarity
refers to a groups ability to maintain itself in the face of obstacles. This exists when sicial bonds, attravtions, or other forces hold members of a group in interaction over a period of time
ex. church gets burnt down and the congregation still worships
Social Network
is a series of social relationships that links and individual to others
Functionalists emphasize what 5 tasks are performed by social instituions:
1. Replacing members, societies and groups must have socially approved ways of replacing members who move away or die
2. Teaching new members. People who are born into a society or move into it must learn the groups values and customs
3. Producing, distri
Conflict theorists view on social instiutions:
agree with functionalists that social institutions are originally organized to meet basic needs but they do not believe that social institutions work for the common good of everyone. They emphasize that families may be the source of problems bc of child a
Typology
is a classification scheme containing two or more mutually exclusive categories that are used to compare different kinds of behavior or types of societies
Civil Inattention
the ways in which an individual shows an awareness thatnother is presnt without making this person the object of particular attention.
Social Contruction of reality
the precess by which our perception of reality is shaped largely by the subjective meaning that we give to an experience
Self-fullfilling Prophecy
the situation in which a false belief or prediction produces behavior that makes the originally false belief come true.
ex. a person has been told repeatedly that she was not a good student so eventually the person might come to believe it and stop studyi
Symbolic Interactionalists and social contruction of reality
the believe that there is very little shared reality beyond that which is socially created which is refered to as construction of reality.
Micro Level Perspective
see:Social interaction and meaning, social construcion of reality, ethinomethodology, dramaturgical analysis, sociology of emtions and nonverbal communication