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Sociology exam 1
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| sociology | The study of human society. |
| sociological imagination | The ability to connect the most basic, intimate aspects of an individual’s life to seemingly impersonal and remote historical forces. |
| social institution | A complex group of interdependent positions that, together, perform a social role and reproduce themselves over time; also defined in a narrow sense as any institution in a society that works to shape the behavior of the groups or people within it. (17) |
| positivism | The approach to sociology that emphasizes the scientific method as an approach to studying the objectively observable behavior of individuals irrespective of the meanings those actions have for the subjects themselves. (20) |
| Verstehen | German for “understanding.” The concept of Verstehen comes from Max Weber and is the basis of interpretive sociology. (27) |
| interpretive sociology | A type of scholarship in which researchers imagine themselves experiencing the life positions of the social actors they want to understand rather than treating those people as objects to be examined. (28) |
| anomie | A sense of aimlessness or despair that arises when we can no longer reasonably expect life to be predictable; too little social regulation; normlessness. (28) |
| positivist sociology | The approach to sociology that emphasizes the scientific method as an approach to studying the objectively observable behavior of individuals irrespective of the meanings of those actions for the subjects themselves. (28) |
| double consciousness | A concept conceived by W. E. B. Du Bois to describe the behavioral scripts, one for moving through the world and the other incorporating the external opinions of prejudiced onlookers, which are constantly maintained by African Americans. (30) |
| functionalism | The theory that various social institutions and processes in society exist to serve some important (or necessary) function to keep society running. (32) |
| conflict theory | The idea that conflict between competing interests is the basic, animating force of social change and society in general. (33) |
| symbolic interactionism | A micro-level theory in which shared meanings, orientations, and assumptions form the basic motivations behind people’s actions. (33) |
| postmodernism | A condition characterized by the questioning of the notion of progress and history. Satire or subversion, and multiple, perhaps even conflicting, identities resulting from unconnected affiliations. |
| social construction | An entity that exists because people behave as if it exists and whose existence is perpetuated as people and social institutions act in accordance with widely agreed-on formal rules or informal norms of behavior associated with that entity. (35) |
| midrange theory | A theory that attempts to predict how certain social institutions tend to function. (36) |
| microsociology | A branch of sociology that seeks to understand local interactional contexts; its methods of choice are ethnographic, generally including participant observation and in-depth interviews. (44) |
| macrosociology | A branch of sociology generally concerned with social dynamics at a higher level of analysis—that is, across the breadth of society. (44) |
| culture | The sum of the social categories and concepts we embrace in addition to beliefs, behaviors (except institutional ones), and Practices; everything but the natural environment around us. (84) |
| ethnocentrism | The idea that one's own culture is superior to others; the tendency to view all other cultures from the perspective of one’s own |
| nonmaterial culture | Values, beliefs, behaviors, and social norms. (88) |
| material culture | Everything that is a part of our constructed, physical environment, including technology. (88) |
| cultural lag | The time gap between the appearance of a new technology and the words and practices that give it meaning. (88) |
| culture shock | Doubt, confusion, or anxiety arising from immersion in an unfamiliar culture. (89) |
| code switch | To flip fluidly between two or more languages and sets of cultural norms to fit different cultural contexts. (89) |
| ideology | A system of concepts and relationships; an understanding of cause and effect. (90) |
| cultural relativism | Taking into account the differences across cultures without passing judgment or value. (92) |
| cultural scripts | Modes of behavior and understanding that are not universal or natural. (92) |
| subculture | particular group in society; a group united by sets of concepts, values, symbols, and shared meaning specific to the members of that group and distinctive enough to distinguish it from others within the same culture or society. (94) |
| values | Moral beliefs. |
| norms | How values tell us to behave |
| socialization | The process by which individuals internalize the values, beliefs, and norms of a given society and learn to function as members of that society |
| reflection theory | The idea that culture is a projection of social structures and relationships into the public sphere, a screen onto which the film of the underlying reality of social structures of a society is projected. (97) |
| media | Any formats, platforms, or vehicles that carry, present, or communicate information. (99) |
| hegemony | A condition by which a dominant group uses its power to elicit the voluntary “consent” of the masses. (101) |
| consumerism | The steady acquisition of material possessions, often with the belief that happiness and fulfillment can thus be achieved. (113) |
| culture jamming | The act of turning media against themselves. (115) |
| Socialization | The process by which individuals internalize the values, beliefs, and norms of a given society and learn to function as members of that society. (124) |
| Self | The individual identity of a person as perceived by that same person. (128) |
| I | One's sense of agency, action, or power. (128) |
| Me | The self as perceived as an object by the I; the self as one imagines others perceive one. (128) |
| Other | Someone or something outside of oneself. (129) |
| Generalized other | An internalized sense of the total expectations of others in a variety of settings, regardless of whether we've encountered those people or places before. (130) |
| Resocialization | The process by which one's sense of social values, beliefs, and norms are reengineered, often deliberately, through an intense social process that may take place in a total institution. (138) |
| Total institution | An institution in which one is totally immersed and that controls all the basics of day-to-day life; no barriers exist between the usual sphere of daily life, and all activity occurs in the same place and under the same single authority. (140) |
| Status | A recognizable social position that an individual occupies. (141) |
| Role | The duties and behaviors expected of someone who holds a particular status. (141) |
| Role strain | The incompatibility among roles corresponding to a single status. (142) |
| Role conflict | The tension caused by competing demands between two or more roles pertaining to different statuses. (142) |
| Status set | All the statuses one holds simultaneously. (142) |
| Ascribed status | A status into which one is born; involuntary status. (143) |
| Achieved status | A status into which one enters; voluntary status. (143) |
| Master status | One status within a set that stands out or overrides all others. |
| Gender roles | sets of behavioral norms assumed to accompany one's status as male or female. (143) |
| Symbolic interactionism | A micro-level theory in which shared meanings, orientations, and assumptions form the basic motivations behind people's actions. (149) |
| Dramaturgical theory | The view (advanced by Erving Goffman) of social life as essentially a theatrical performance, in which we are all actors on metaphorical stages, with roles, scripts, costumes, and sets. (150) |
| Face | The esteem in which an individual is held by others. (152) |
| Ethno-methodology | Literally "the methods of the people"; this approach to studying human inter-action focuses on the ways in which we make sense of our world, convey this understanding to others, and produce a shared social order. (155) |
| dyad | group of two |
| triad | group of three |
| mediator | The member of a triad who attempts to resolve conflict between the two other actors in the group. (169) |
| tertius gaudens | The member of a triad who benefits from conflict between the other two members of the group. (169) |
| divide et impera | The role of a member of a triad who intentionally drives a wedge between the other two actors in the group. (169) |
| small group | A group characterized by face-to-face interaction, a unifocal perspective, lack of formal arrangements or roles, and a certain level of equality. (172) |
| party | A group that is similar to a small group but is multifocal. |
| large group | A group characterized by the presence of a formal structure that mediates interaction and, consequently, status differentiation. (174) |
| primary groups | Social groups, such as family or friends, composed of enduring, intimate face-to-face relationships that strongly influence the attitudes and ideals of those involved. (174) |
| secondary groups | Groups marked by impersonal, instrumental relationships (those existing as a means to an end). (175) |
| in-group | Another term for the powerful group, most often the majority. (176) |
| out-group | Another term for the stigmatized or less powerful group, the minority. (176) |
| reference group | A group that helps us understand or make sense of our position in society relative to other groups. (176) |
| social network | A set of relations—essentially, a set of dyads—held together by ties between individuals. (176) |
| tie | The connection between two people in a relationship that varies in strength from one relationship to the next; a story that explains our relationship with another member of our network. (176) |
| narrative | The sum of stories contained in a set of ties. |
| embeddedness | The degree to which social relationships are reinforced through indirect ties (i.e., friends of friends). |
| strength of weak ties | The notion that relatively weak ties often turn out to be quite valuable because they yield new information. |
| structural hole | A gap between network clusters, or even two individuals, if those individuals (or clusters) have complementary resources. (179) |
| elastic ties | Social connections that display the repeated interactions characteristic of strong ties while maintaining a degree of protective social distance (i.e., not knowing more than a first name, if that). (180) |
| social capital | The information, knowledge of people or things, and connections that help individuals enter, gain power in, or otherwise leverage social networks. (182) |
| organization | Any social network that is defined by a common purpose and has a boundary between its membership and the rest of the social world. (194) |
| organizational culture | The shared beliefs and behaviors within a social group; often used interchangeably with corporate culture. (195) |
| organizational structure | The ways in which power and authority are distributed within an organization. (195) |
| isomorphism | A constraining process that forces one unit in a population to resemble other units that face the same set of environmental conditions. (196) |
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dentonja26