What are the political implications when there is a decline in social capital?
Fewer people will exercise their right to vote.
More people feel removed from the political process.
Democratic ideals are jeopardized.
More people feel impotent to influence social, political, and economic change.
Introductory sociology classes tend to have fairly large enrollments, perhaps more than one hundred students. In contrast, graduate seminars have small enrollments, usually fewer than fifteen students. How does this difference in enrollment influence the
If a student skips the introductory class, it will have little or no effect on the class, whereas if a student skips the seminar, it will influence the class more.
A large grouping of people that engages in concerted collective actions to achieve specific objectives is called:
an organization
Psychologists study the emotions and behaviors of one person. Sociologists, on the other hand, study the patterns within groups. What is the smallest size that can make up a social group
a dyad
Reference groups provide us with:
a standard for judging one's attitudes and behaviors
Which of the following best characterizes the place of women in executive positions within American corporations?
While the percentage of women senior executives has increased, the number of women in key corporate positions continues to lag.
What is (are) the distinguishing feature(s) of an international nongovernmental organization?
They are not-for-profit organizations.
People sharing a common characteristic, such as gender, occupation, or ethnicity, but not necessarily interacting with each other are called a:
social category
The relations between people as stated in the rules of an organization are:
formal relations
Which of the following is an international governmental organization (IGO)?
the European Union
Michel Foucault's term for the supervision of activities in organizations is:
surveillance
All large organizations tend to be ________, according to Max Weber.
bureaucracies
Milgram's experiment on obedience to authority occurred more than forty years ago. Scientists do not replicate Milgram's experiment and update the findings because:
universities have installed greater research protocols to protect subjects
Which of the following is an example of a primary group?
a high school girl's clique
People in modern societies depend on ________ to take care of everything from how we are born, to our daily supply of running water, and even to the way we die.
organizations
Some analysts conclude that we now live in a(n) ________, in which information about our lives is gathered by all kinds of organizations.
surveillance society
During the 1990s, what was the fastest-growing category of crime in the United States?
Internet fraud
Which of the following behaviors illustrates the social and political definition of deviant behavior?
Marijuana use is illegal; alcohol use is legal.
Ecstasy is illegal; Prozac is legal.
Crack possession carries a higher sentence than cocaine possession.
Owning a marijuana plant is illegal; owning a gun is legal.
If you live in a high crime area, many of the people you will befriend will be involved in criminal activities, thus increasing your opportunity to learn criminal behavior. The conceptual context for this phenomenon is known as:
differential association
In Edwin Lemert's version of labeling theory, the initial violation of social norms is called:
primary deviation
The National Crime Victimization Survey has found that crime rates are:
actually higher than those reported by official agencies
Who used the concept of "delinquent subculture" to refer to groups such as gangs who reject middle-class norms and celebrate deviance?
Cohen
According to Robert Merton, which of the following offers the best explanation for deviant behavior?
Merton would not approve of any of these explanations for deviant behavior.
Withdrawn, emotionless characters who delight in violence for its own sake are known as:
psychopaths
Which of the following disciplines does NOT place the source of deviant behavior within an individual?
sociology
Sociological studies show that prisons:
are more likely to create hardened criminals than rehabilitated citizens
With which of the following statements might a conflict theorist most closely agree?
Deviants are labeled as such by powerful groups who use the label to control the less powerful
In the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, one of the inmates in the mental hospital tells the other inmates that they are not crazy and they should not act as though they were crazy just because the head nurse tells them they are. Which of the followi
labeling
Kai Erikson built on �mile Durkheim's concept of deviance, concluding that:
a society needs a certain quota of deviants to function and maintain itself
According to Edwin Lemert, when a person accepts a label and sees himself as deviant, he engages in:
secondary deviation
The first day of college, you may have felt a little uncertain about how to behave. Durkheim and other sociologists would describe your feelings as:
anomic
According to Merton's strain theory, the majority of people in society are:
conformists
If a female lawbreaker avoids punishment or prosecution by convincing authorities she is impulsive and in need of protection, she has invoked the:
gender contract
Car alarms are examples of:
target hardening
People who reject both the existing values and the means of achieving them, but work to substitute new ones and reconstruct the social system would be what type, according to Robert Merton?
rebels
Rank the following locations in terms of violent crime rates, from highest to lowest:
cities, suburbs, smaller towns
Theorists of the new criminology view laws as:
the means by which the elite maintain their positions of power in society
When a professor is delivering a lecture and some students begin to whisper back and forth, the professor may cease the lecture and remain silent. The professor's behavior is an example of:
negative sanction
Formal sanctions defined by governments as principles their citizens must follow are called:
laws
What factor accounts for racial disparities in wealth and income?
education
parent's social class
discrimination
If a person has a different class position from that of his parents or grandparents, he has experienced:
intergenerational mobility
The money a person gets from a wage or salary or from investments is ________; the assets an individual owns are ________.
income; wealth
Which of the following stratification systems incorporates marital endogamy as one of its tenets?
caste
Which of the following best describes the caste system?
It is a stratification system based on one's position at birth.
A stratification system in which certain people are owned as property and more or less deprived of all rights by law is known as:
slavery
Social mobility refers to:
the movement of individuals and groups between class positions
Sociologists stratify groups of people according to many characteristics. Which of the following variables are usually NOT used to stratify groups?
eye color
Why has there been a decline in state-mandated caste systems?
As more countries industrialize, the caste system becomes economically obsolete.
An organization with a promotion barrier that prevents a woman's upward mobility is said to have:
the glass ceiling
A policy that compares pay rates for different jobs based on a presumably objective assessment of skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions is referred to as:
comparable worth
In schools, boys and girls are treated unequally:
in stories and books
in the frequency of interaction with teachers
in the content of their interaction with teachers
As a result of differential treatment in schools, girls are socialized to be:
quiet
Feminists criticize the maternal deprivation thesis, which asserts that children will be ________ if not raised by their own mother or a female mother-substitute.
inadequately socialized
An economic theory suggesting that people who invest more in their schooling, on-the-job training, and work experience get paid more is known as the:
human capital theory
Over the past fifty years, women's participation in the paid labor force:
has risen steadily
When it comes to work in the home, women do most of the ________ while men do most of the ________.
daily chores; occasional tasks
Which of the following assumptions is shared by all schools of feminist thought?
that women have an unequal position in society
Although in the past thirty years the pay gap between men and women has ________, on average ________.
narrowed; men make substantially more than women
Any difference in status, power, and prestige between men and women in groups, collectives, and societies is known as:
gender inequality
Sex segregation results in ________ for ________.
lower pay; both men and women in predominantly female jobs
Which perspective argues that men are responsible for and benefit from the exploitation of women, and advocates abolition of the family and the power relations that characterize it?
radical feminism
When do people begin to treat children in specific ways because of their gender?
from the moment they are born
Male dominance in a society is called:
patriarchy
Unwanted or repeated sexual advances, remarks, or behavior that is offensive to the recipient and cause discomfort or interference with job performance constitute:
sexual harassment
Which perspective explains gender inequalities in terms of social and cultural attitudes, and argues for solutions that involve working in the existing system toward gradual reform?
liberal feminism
What is sociology? How does it differ from psychology?
Sociology is the study if human social life, groups and societies. Psychology is based on the individual.
What are the goals of Sociology, why do we study it?
To dispel foggy assumptions and more clearly view the social world
To understand social phenomena
To improve the social world/foster social change
how do personal issues relate to social issues? What is the sociological imagination? Whose idea is this?
C. Wright Mills
The ability to see the connection between personal issues and the larger social world
Our actions and potential are influenced by the social and historical context in which we live.
The orgins of sociology and the 3 revolutions. Why was the industrial revolution significant?
The Scientific Revolution- using evidence to make a case for a particular point of view; the Scientific Method is born
The Democratic Revolution- people control society and can change it
The Industrial Revolution- massive social change and upheaval
micro vs. Macro-sociology
Microsociology is the study of everyday behavior during face-to-face interaction
Illuminates broad institutional patterns
Macrosociology is the analysis of large-scale social systems
Essential for understanding institutional background of daily life
What is globalization?
American society is influenced everyday by globalization
We are connected to people all over the world
Our actions have consequences for others and vice versa
Auguste Comte
Invented the word sociology
Sociology should contribute to the welfare of humanity by using science to understand and predict human behavior
�mile Durkheim
Study social facts as things!"
The continuation of society depends on cooperation
Organic solidarity�specialized systems must function as integrated whole
Societies exert social constraint over members' actions
Division of labor expands, people become mo
Karl Marx
Social change is mainly prompted by economic influences
Society is not cohesive; it is divided by class differences
Capitalism breeds conflict
Ruling class seeks to exploit workers and working class seeks to overcome exploitation
Max Weber
Ideas and values have as much impact on social change as economic factors
Advance of bureaucracy inevitable
Society becomes more efficient but poses problems for democratic participation
Harriet Martineau
Sociology must include analysis of women's lives
Focused on ignored issues including marriage, children, religious life, race relations
W. E. B. Du Bois
Established identity through the lens of African Americans
Traced problems facing African Americans to social and economic history
Connected social analysis to social reform
Is sociology a science? Can sociology help?
Employs systematic methods of investigation
Evaluation of theories based on evidence and logical argument
Not modeled on the natural sciences
Studying humans is fundamentally different
Scientific Thinking Vs. Non-Scientific Thinking
Biases influence our thinking in daily life
Sources of bias:
Tradition
Authority
Casual Observation
Overgeneralization
Selective Observation
Qualification
Illogical Reasoning
Ego
Premature Closure of Inquiry
Mystification
Gambler's Fallacy
The gambler's fallacy is the mistaken notion that the odds for something with a fixed probability increase or decrease depending upon recent occurrences.
The seven steps of the research process are:
Defining the research problem
Reviewing the evidence
Making the problem precise
Working out a design
Carrying out the research
Interpreting the results
Reporting the findings
Independent variable
Produces an effect on another variable
Dependent variable
The variable affected
Control
Variables held constant in order to look at effects of others
Causation and Correlation
Causation cannot be directly inferred from correlation
Causation: one event or situation produces another
Correlation: regular relationship existing between two variables
Methodological Issues
Reliability- does the measurement procedure yield consistent results?
Validity-does the measurement procedure measure what it is supposed to?
Generalizability- Can we apply these findings beyond the cases examined?
Causality- the analysis of cause and eff
Surveys (ads and disads?)
Advantages
Answers are easily quantified
Large groups can be studied
Researchers can employ agency to collect responses
Disadvantages
Findings might be superficial or doubtful
Levels of nonresponse are high
What Is Culture?
Values
Language
Norms
Symbols
Material goods
What Is Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism is judging other cultures in terms of one's own standards
Sociologists try to avoid this
Society
Society is a system of interrelationships that connects individuals
Culture could not exist without society and vice versa
Nature or Nurture?
Biologists, psychologists
Emphasize biology
Sociologists
Stress role of learning and culture
Humans make conscious choices, therefore neither biology nor culture wholly determines behavior
Folkways and Mores
Folkways- less important norms of a culture
Punishment is less severe for breaking folkways
Mores- core norms of a that people feel are essential for the survival of a group or society
Punishment can be severe for breaking core norms
Social Control
A system of rewards and punishments with the goal of enforcing conformity to cultural expectations (norms)
Sanctions- the rewards and punishments aimed at enforcing cultural expectations
Sanctions can be positive (rewards) or negative (punishments)
Cultural Universals
Common features of human behavior found in all societies are called cultural universals, such as:
Language
Marriage
Prohibition against incest
Art
Dance
Joking
Hygiene
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism calls for respecting cultural diversity and promoting equality of different cultures (salad bowl)
Global Culture
Increased global communications and economic interdependence represent more than the growth of world unity
Forces that produce a global culture:
Television
Unified global economy
Global citizens
International organizations
Electronic communications
subcultures
Industrialized societies have subcultures
Diverse cultures within a society
Different languages or cultural patterns
Culture helps perpetuate norms, but subcultures offer opportunities for creativity and change such as the following:
Can reject prevailing
What is socialization?
The active process by which humans learn their culture- including norms, values, and roles.
They do so by entering and disengaging from a succession of roles and becoming aware of themselves as they interact with others.
Social Roles and Identity
Through socialization individuals learn about social roles�socially defined expectations for a person in a given social position
The "Looking Glass Self
Charles Horton Cooley
The way our feelings about who we are depend largely on how we see ourselves evaluated by others.
I" vs. "Me
George Herbert Mead
"I"- the subjective and impulsive aspect of the self that is present from birth
'Me"- the objective component of the self that emerges as people communicate symbolically and to take the role of the other
Generalized other- a person's i
Primary Socialization
The process of acquiring the basic skills needed to function in society during childhood
Significant others- people who play important roles in the early socialization experiences of children
Secondary socialization- socialization outside the family after
generalized other
...
What Are Agents of Socialization
Agents of socialization are structured groups or contexts within which significant processes of socialization occur:
Family
Schools
Peers
Mass Media
Work
Social Roles and Identity
This process leads to the development of a social identity, the characteristics that other people attribute to an individual
Social identity marks ways in which individuals are the same as others
Self-identity refers to the process of self-development thr
Hidden curriculum-
instruction in what will be expected of students as conventionally good citizens once they leave school
Socialization and the Life Course
Socialization continues throughout the life cycle
At each phase of life there are transitions to be made or crises to be overcome
Five stages of the life course are:
Childhood
Teenager
Young adulthood
Mature adulthood
Old age
Gender Socialization
Gender socialization begins as soon as an infant is born
Even parents who believe they treat children equally tend to produce different responses to boys and girls
Differences are reinforced by many cultural influences
Gender roles- The set of behaviors a
Resocialization and Total Institutions
Powerful socializing agents deliberately cause rapid change in one's values, roles, and self-conception, sometimes against one's will
Total Institution- settings where people are isolated from the larger society and under the strict control and constant s
Elements of Social Interaction
Each person engaged in social interaction tends to adhere to specific norms
Each person involved acts according to the demands of a particular role
Each person assumes a certain status
What Is Microsociology?
Microsociology is the study of individual and group interaction
Erving Goffman, who pioneered this field of research, argued studying social interaction was important for three reasons:
Studying the routine interactions of our social lives can tell us a l
status
is the prestige or social honor accorded to members of a particular group by society
To avoid embarrassment, people collaborate with others in daily activities to "save face
What Are Microsociology and
Macrosociology?
Microsociology (study of everyday behavior) and macrosociology (study of broader features of society) are closely connected
Nonverbal communication links gender to status and can be manifested differently in different cultures
How is social interaction maintained?
Domination- nearly all power is concentrated in the hands of people of similar social status, while people of different status enjoy almost no power (fear)
Competition- power is unequally distributed but the degree of inequality is less than in systems of
What Is Nonverbal Communication?
The exchange of information and meaning through facial expressions, gestures, and movements of the body are forms of nonverbal communication
Context and content are generated by the combination of innate reflexes and culture
Social Roles and Impression
Management
Each of us uses impression management to prepare the presentation of our social roles
Social roles are socially defined expectations that a person in a given status or social position follows
Audience Segregation
Social interaction can be studied as if those involved were actors on a stage (the dramaturgical model)
Just as in theater, clear distinctions exist between front regions (the stage) and back regions (backstage) in one's social life
People have multiple r
What Are Social Groups?
Social groups are collections of people who share common identity and interact with each other based on shared expectations
Shape almost all our experiences
Reference Groups and Group Size
Reference groups provide standards to judge ourselves in terms of how we think we look to others
Size is an important factor in group dynamics
Larger groups are more stable than groups of two (dyads) or three (triads)
Groups of more than a dozen usually d
In-groups and Out-groups
In-groups are groups one feels they belong to
Out-groups are groups toward which one feels contempt or antagonism
Sense of group identity is created through scorn for the other
Types of Leadership
Leaders influence behavior of other members of a group
Most are transactional�routine leadership concerned with getting job done
Less common are transformational�concerned with changing nature of group
What Are Social Networks
Networks constitute broad sources of relationships, direct and indirect
Strength in weak ties
Connections important in business and politics
Women, people of color, and lower income people have less access to most influential economic and political networ
Milgram study
If a person in a position of authority ordered you to deliver a 400-volt electrical shock to another person, would you follow orders? Most people would answer this question with an adamant no, but Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a s
Bureaucracy
A large impersonal organization composed of many clearly defined positions arranged in a hierarchy
Characteristics:
Permanent, salaried staff or qualified experts arranged in a hierarchy
Written goals, rules, and procedures
Efficiency- achieving the goals
Gender and Organization
Modern organizations have evolved as gendered institutions
Women traditionally segregated into low paying occupations involving routine work
Subordinate to men; are not provided opportunities for promotion
The "McDonaldization" of Society?
Despite emergence of debureaucratization, principles of fast-food restaurants are dominating other sectors of society
Highly standardized and regulated
More automated systems are employed instead of human beings
What Is Social Capital?
Social capital refers to the knowledge and connections that enable people to cooperate with one another for mutual benefit and extend their influence
Social capital has declined in the past quarter century in the United States
May indicate lessening of Am
Aspects of Deviance
Involves breaking a norm and evoking a negative reaction from others
Behaviors that fall outside of a culture's normally accepted range of behaviors
Deviance is culturally relative
No act is deviant in and of itself
Crime
Deviance that is against the law
Laws- norms stipulated and enforced by government bodies
Crime and laws are culturally relative
Stigmatization
People are stigmatized when they are negatively evaluated because of a marker that distinguishes them from others
Hagan's 4 types of Deviance and Crime
Social diversions
Social deviations
Conflict crimes
Consensus crimes
White-collar crime vs. Street Crimes
White-collar crime- an illegal act committed by a respectable, high status person in the course of work.
Street crime- crimes including arson, burglary, assault and other illegal acts disproportionately committed by people from lower classes
Motivational Theories
Strain theory
Subcultural theory
Techniques of neutralization
Differential Association
Victimless Crimes
Crimes that violate the law, but no victim has stepped forward and been identified
Constraint theories
Labeling theory
Master status-
Control theory
Conflict theory
Moral Panic
When many people believe that some form of deviance or crime poses a profound threat to society's well being
Medicalization of Deviance
The process by which medical definitions of deviance are becoming more prevalent
Social Stratification
When individuals or groups occupy unequal positions in society based on socioeconomic factors, it is called social stratification
The three key aspects of social stratification are class, status, and power
Wealth
What you own
Examples- house, car, savings, etc.
Inequality of wealth-
Income
What you earn in a given period
Income classes
Vertical social mobility- refers to the upward or downward movement along the stratification system
Income Strata and Inequality
Distribution of national income among households
Global Inequality
Differences in the economic rankings of countries
Crossnational Variations in Internal Stratification
Differences between countries in their stratification systems
Gini Index- A measure of income inequality. Its values range from 0 to 1.
A zero value indicates that each household earns exactly the same amount of money
A value of 1 indicates that all the i
Ascription-based system of stratification
A stratification system in which the allocation of rank depends on the characteristics a person is born with
The caste system- An almost pure ascription-based stratification system in which occupation and marriage partners are assigned on the basis of cas
Achievement-based system of stratification
A stratification system in which the allocation of rank depends on a person's accomplishment
Marx's theory of stratification
Capitalist growth would eventually produce a society in which there would be no more classes or class conflict
Conflict between the bourgeosie and proletariat would create a "class consciousness"
Class consciousness- awareness of being a member of a class
The Moore-Davis thesis
Functional theory of stratification
Some jobs are more important than others
People have to make sacrifices to train for important jobs
Inequality is necessary to motivate people to make these sacrifices
Weber's theory of stratification
A person's class position is determined by one's "market situation" (includes possession of goods, opportunities for income, level of education, and level of technical skill).
Status groups- groups that differ from one another in terms of the prestige or
Social Mobility
Intragenerational mobility- social mobility that occurs within a single generation
Intergenerational mobility- social mobility that occurs between generations
Structural mobility- social mobility that results from a change in the distribution of occupatio
Poverty Rate
The percentage of people living below the poverty threshold.
The poverty threshold is calculated to be three times the minimum food budget established by the U.S. Department of Agriculture
Poverty myths
The overwhelming majority of poor people are African or Hispanic single mothers with children
People are poor because they do not want to work
Poor people are trapped in poverty
Welfare encourages married women with children to divorce so they can collect