Sociology 1 Test ch. 1-4
Terms
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- altruistic suicide
- type of suicide that occurs where ties to the group or community are more important than individual ex. cults
- anomic suicide
- suicide that occurs when the structure of the society is weakened or disrupted and people feel hopeless
- comparative method
- compares exisiting official statistics and historical records across groups to test a theory about the same social phenomenon. ex. Durkheim
- egoistic suicide
- a type of suicide where the individual is stressed over lack of group and community connections ex. no wife, kids, weak bonds
- individualistic explanation
- tendency to attribute peoples achievements and failures to personal qualities
- sociological imagination
- ability to see the impact of social forces onour private lives ex. unemployment, divorce,
- structural functionalist perspective
- focuses on the way various parts of a society are sturctured and interrrelated to maintain stability and order ex. Talcott Parsons, and Neil Smelser ex. education, industry, reproduction
- conflict perspective
- various elements in society promote inequality and conflict among groups of people.
- Symbolic Interactionism
- seeks to understand society and social structure through interactions of people and the ways in which they subjectively define their worlds. ex. the micro level, day-to-day things
- coalition
- a sub group formed when two other members unite against a third member ex. siblings
- culture
- language, customs, beliefs, rules, expectations, that characterize a society
- dyad
- a group of two people ex. spouses
- group
- set of people who interact more or less regularly and who are conscious of identity as a unit ex. family, club, sports
- latent function
- unintended, unrecognized consequences of activites designed to help some part of the social system ex. friendship in college helps to form the mannerisms of a person
- manifest function
- intended consequence of an activity to imrove society ex. going to college to get a degree
- norm
- standard of conduct ex. chewing with your mouth closed
- organization
- large, complex network of positions created for a specific purpose and characterized by a hierarchical division of labor ex. blue collar
- primary group
- direct contact and emotional attachment ex. friends, family
- role
- set of expectations, rights, obligations asscoiated with a particular status
- social institution
- , stable set of roles, statuses, groups and organizations ex. education, politics, economics, health care
- status
- named social position that people occupyex. daughter, cook, girlfriend, parent
- value
- standard of judgement by which people decide on desirable goals and outcomes
- content analysis
- form of unobtrusive research that studies the content of messages, such as books, speeches, poems, songs, ex. to see the way in which african children were portrayed
- dependent variable
- variable that is assumed to be caused by, or to change as a result of the independent variable ex. attitude toward abortion
- empirical research
- research that operates from the ideological position that questions can be answered only through controlled, systematic observations in the real world
- historical analysis
- research that relies on historical documents as a source of data
- incorrigible proposition
- unquestioned cultural belief that cannot be proved wrong no matter what happens to dispute it ex. apocalypse
- indicator
- measurable event, characteristic, or behavior cmmonly thought to reflect a particular aspect ex. turning in homework an indicator of effort
- moral entrepeneur
- group that works to have its concerns translated into law ex. abolitionists, pro-choicers
- probabalistic
- capable of identifying only those forces that have a high likelihood, but not a certainty ex. x will not ALWAYS equal y. btu most of the time
- quantative research
- sociological research based on non-numerical info ex. text, words, symbols, written observations
- representative
- typical of the whole pop being studied
- sample
- subgroup chosen for a study b/c the chracteristics will approximate for the whole group
- self-fulfilling prophecy
- assumption or perdiction that causes the expected event to occur ex. toy sales
- social construction of reality
- process through which the members of a society discover, make known, reaffirm and alter facts, knowledge and "truth" ex. dont let a baby sit in your lab, etc
- unobtrusive research
- research where the researcher examines evidence of social behavior that peole leave behind. ex. a footprint?, the dent in front of the fridge
- variable
- any characteristic, attitude behavior, or event that can take two or more values or attributes
- visual sociology
- method of studying society that uses photos, video and film either as data or sources about social life.
- ethnocentrism
- tendency to judge other's standards using one's own personal judgement ex. trying to convert a buddhist, Hitler
- folkway
- informal norm that is mildly punished when violated. ex. chewing with mouth open
- institutionalized norm
- pattern of behavior within exisiting social situations that is widely accepted in society ex. going to college
- material culture
- artifacts of a society which represent adaptations to the social and physical environment ex. clothes, cars, technology
- more (mor ayz)
- highly codified, formal systemized norm that brings severe punishment when violated ex. killing someone
- nonmaterial culture
- knowledge, beliefs, customs that are sharedby members of a societyand distinguish the society from others
- sanction
- social response that punishes or otherwise discourages violations of a social norm. ex. the public execution of that one guy
- sick role
- set of norms that one is supposed to behave like when one is sick. ex. not behaving normally but also seeking out professional help and medication
- subculture
- values, behaviors an artifacts of a group that distinguish its members from the larger culture
- Stanley Miligram
- This man set out to answer this question. He wanted to know how far people would go in ordering the commands of an authority with a 450 watt flip switch. the results were that people generally listen to authorities