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MAT sociology
Sociology Topics to Study for the Miller Analogies Test (MAT)
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| action theory | Talcott Parson's belief that social science must consider motives when studying actions |
| antipositivism | belief that social sciences not subject to same methods of understanding as natural sciences |
| cultural relativism | Franz Boas's belief that civilization is relative, not absolute; NOT a relationship between culture and race |
| demography | study of living populations |
| diffusion | how innovations spread |
| endogamy | practice of marrying only a person of a certain group or class |
| functionalism | view that society's parts work together to create stability |
| Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft | "community and society"; two normal types of association; Ferdinand Tonnies |
| hidden curriculum | lesson learned in classroom that were not intentionally taught |
| labeling theory | tendency of majorities to label minorities |
| macrostructure | large-scale organization of society |
| norm | guideline that determines behavior in society |
| overchoice (aka choice overload) | too many consumer choices leads to poor choices or no choice at all |
| ponerology | study of social injustice |
| positivism | belief that in the social and natural sciences the only valid truth is scientific truth |
| social capital | collective benefits resulting from social cooperation between people or groups |
| tertius gaudens | one person gaining from disagreement between two others |
| xenocentrism | preference for products/ideas from other culture (vice ethnocentrism) |
| Jacques Barzun | American cultural historian |
| James Coleman | American--social capital |
| Auguste Comte | founder of sociology and positivism |
| WEB DuBois | American--founded NAACP |
| Emile Durkheim | French--father of sociology |
| Talcott Parsons | American--action theory |
| Georg Simmel | German--antipositivism |
| Herbert Spencer | English--sociologist/biologist; "survival of the fittest" applied to humans |
| Ferdinand Tonnies | German--Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft |
| Thorstein Veblen | American--"The Theory of the Leisure Class"; division of labor continues from feudal system |
| Max Weber | German--antipositivism |
| Bandaranaike, Sirimavo | Ceylon's (now Sri Lanka) and the world's first female head of government (minus all the English queens, of course) |
| Garvey, Marcus | Jamaican proponent of Black nationalism |