Intro to Sociology CLEP glossary
Terms
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- accommodation
- process by which smaller society can preserve major features of its culture even after prolonged contact w/ larger culture
- acculturation
- process by which members of a civilization incorporate norms & values of other cultures
- achieved status
- position/rank earned through efforts of the individual
- age grade
- set of statuses & roles based on age
- ageism
- ideology justifying prejudice & discrimination based on age
- agencies of socialization
- groups of ppl, along w/ interactions occurring w/in those groups, influencing a person's social development
- agents of socialization
- individuals who socialize others
- alienation
- feeling of powerlessness re: control of one's own destiny; a worker's feeling of powerlessness owing to inability to control work process
- animism
- form of religion: all forms of life & aspects of the earth are inhabited by gods/supernatural powers
- anomie
- state of normlessness
- anticipatory socialization
- prepares individual for a role he/she is likely to assume later in life
- assimilation
- pattern of intergroup relations: minority group is absorbed into majority pop.--> disappears as distinct group; process by which culturally distinct groups in larger civilization adopt norms, values, & language of host civilization & can gain equal statuses in its groups & institutions
- authority
- power considered legitimate by those who exercise it & those affected by it - governed by norms & statuses of organizations
- behaviorism
- thry: all behavior is learned &this learning occurs through conditioning
- bisexuality
- sexual orientation twd either sex
- bureaucracy
- formal organization characterized by clearly defined hierarchy w/ commitment to rules, efficiency, & impersonality
- capitalism
- system for organizing the production of goods & services - based on markets, provate property, & business firm/company
- caste
- social stratum into which ppl are born & in which they remain for life
- charisma
- special quality/"gift" motivating ppl to follow a particular leader
- charismatic authority
- authority coming to an individual through personal calling, often claimed t/b inspired by supernatural powers, legitimated by ppl's belief that the leader does indeed have God-given powers
- church
- religious organization w/ strong ties to the larger society
- citizenship
- status of membership in a nation-state
- civilization
- cultural complex formed by identical major cultural features of a number of societies
- civil religion
- collection of beliefs & rituals existing outside religious institutions
- civil society
- sphere of nongovernmental, nonbusiness social activity carried out by voluntary associations, congregations, etc.
- class
- social stratum defined primarily by economic criteria ie occupation, income, & wealth
- class consciousness
- group's shared subjective awareness of objective situation as a class
- closed question
- question requiring respondent to choose among a predetermined set of answers
- closed society
- society: social mobility does not exist
- closed stratification system
- stratification system: rigid boundaries b/w social strata
- collective behavior
- nonroutine behavior engaged in by large nos. of ppl responding to common stimulus
- community
- set of primary & secondary groups in which individual carries out imp. life functions
- conditioning
- shaping of behavior through reward & punishment
- confidentiality
- promise that info provided to researcher by respondent will not appear in any way that c/b traced to respondent
- conflict thry
- sociological perspective emphasizing role of conflict & power in society
- control group
- subjects not experiencing a change in independent variable
- controlled experiment
- researcher manipulates independent variable in order to observe & measure changes in dependent variable
- core state
- technologically advanced nation w/ dominant position in world economy
- correlation
- specific relationship b/w 2 variables
- counterculture
- subculture challenging accepted norms & values of larger society & est. alternative lifestyle
- crime
- act/omission of an act that is prohibited by law
- crowd
- large no. of ppl gathered together in close proximity to one another
- crude birthrate
- no. of births occurring during a year in a given pop, divided by midyear pop
- crude death rate
- no. of deaths occurring during a year in a given pop, divided by midyear pop
- cult
- new religion
- cultural evolution
- process by which successful cultural adaptations are passed down E 1 gen to next
- cultural lag
- time required for social institutions to adapt to a major technological change
- cultural relativity
- recognition that all cultures develop own ways of dealing w/ specific demands of their environs
- culture
- all modes of thought, behavior, & production handed down E 1 gen to next by communicative interaction rather than genetic trans.
- de facto segregation
- segregation created & maintained by unwritten norms
- de jure segregation
- segregation created by formal legal sactions prohibiting certain groups E interacting w/ others/placing limits on such interactions
- deference
- respect & esteem shown to an individual
- demagogue
- leader who uses personal charisma & political symbols to manipulate public opinion
- demeanor
- ways in which individuals present themselves to others E body language, dress, speech, & manners
- democracy
- political system in which all citizens have right to participate in public decision making
- demographic transition
- set of major changes in birth & death rates occurring most completely in urban industrial nations in past 200 years
- democratic socialism
- economic philosophy based on belief that private property may exist at same time that large corps are owned by state & run for benefit of all citizens
- denomination
- religious organization on good terms w/ institution E which it developed but must compete w/ other denominations for members
- dependent variable
- variable a hypothesis seeks to explain
- developing nation
- nation undergoing set of transformations to increase productivity of its ppl, their health, their literacy, & their ability to participate in politcal decision making
- deviance
- behavior violating norms of a particular society
- differential association
- thry explaining deviance as a learned behavior determined by extent of a person's association w/ individuals who engage in such behaviors
- differentiation
- processes whereby sets of social activities performed by one social institution are divided among different institutions
- discrimination
- behavior tx ppl unfairly on the basis of their group membership
- downward mobility
- mov't by individual/group to a lower social stratum
- dramaturgical approach
- approach to reasearch on interaction in groups based on recognition that much social interaction depends on desire to impress those who m/b watching
- dyad
- group consisting of 2 ppl
- education
- process by which society transmits knowledge, values, norms, & ideologies & in so doing prepares young ppl for adult roles & adults for new roles
- educational achievement
- how much student actually learns, measured by mastery of reading, writing, & mathematical skills
- educational attainment
- no. of years of school an individual has completed
- ego
- part of human personality: individual's conception of him/herselg in relation to others
- endogamy
- norm specifying that a person brought up in a partcular culture may marry w/in the cultural group
- endogenous force
- pressure for social change that builds w/in a society
- equality of opportunity
- equal opportunity to achieve desired levels of material well-being & prestige
- equality of result
- equality in actual outcomes of ppl's attempts to improve their material well-being & prestige
- ethnic group
- pop w/ sense of group identity based on shared ancestry & distinctive cultural patterns
- ethnic (or racial) nationalism
- belief that one's own ethnic group constitutes a distinct ppl whose culture is & s/b separate E that of larger society
- ethnic stratification
- ranking of ethnic groups in social hierarchy on basis of e. group's similarity to dominant group
- ethnocentrism
- tendency to judge other cultures as inferior to one's own
- ethnomethodology
- study of underlying rules of behavior that guide group interaction
- exogamy
- norm specifying that a person brought up in a paricular culture may marry outside the cultural group
- exogenous force
- pressure for social change exerted E outside a society
- experimental group
- subjects who are exposed to a change in the independent variable
- expulsion
- forcible removal of 1 pop E territory claimed by another pop
- extended family
- individual's nuclear family plus the nuclear familites of his/her blood relatives
- family
- group of ppl related by blood, marriage,/adoption
- family of orientation
- nuclear family in which a person is born & raised
- family of procreation
- nuclear family a person forms E marriage/cohabitation
- feral child
- child reared outside human society
- field experiment
- experimental situation in which researcher observes & studies subjects in their natural setting
- folkways
- weakly sanctioned norms
- formal organization
- group w/ explicit, often written, set of norms, statuses, & roles that specify e/ member's relationships to others & conditions under which those relationships hold
- frequency distribution
- classification of data describing how many observations fall w/in e. category of a variable
- functionalism
- sociological perspective focusing on the ways a complex pattern of social structures & arrangements contribute to social order
- gemeinschaft
- close, personal relationships of small groups & communities
- gender
- culturally defined ways of acting as a male/female that become part of an individual's personal sense of self
- gender role
- set of behaviors considered appropriate for an individual of a particular gender
- gender socialization
- ways in which we learn our gender identity & develop according to cultural norms of masculinity & femininity
- generalized other
- a person's internalized conception of the expectations & attitudes held by society
- genocide
- intentional extermination of one pop by a more dominant pop
- gerontology
- study of aging & older ppl
- gesellschaft
- term used to refer to well-organized but impersonal relationships among the members of modern societies
- ghetto
- section of a city that is segregated racially/culturally
- group
- any collection of ppl who interact w/ one another on the basis of shared expectations regarding one another's behavior
- Hawthorne effect
- unintended effect resulting E attn given to subjects in an experimental situation
- hermaphrodite
- person whose primary sexual organs have features of both male & female organs, making it difficult to categorize the individual as male/female
- heterosexuality
- sexual orientation tws opposite sex
- homogamy
- tendency to marry a person who is similar to oneself in social background
- homosexuality
- sexual orientation twd same sex
- horticultural society
- society whose primary means of subsistence is raising crops, which it plants & cultivates, often developing an extensive system for watering the crops
- human ecology
- sociological perspective emphasizing relationships among social order, social disorganization, & distribution of pops in time & space
- hypothesis
- statement specifying a relationship b/w 2/more variables that c/b tested E empirical observation
- id
- part of human personality E which all innate drives arise
- ideas
- ways of thinking that organize human consciousness
- identification
- social process whereby an individual chooses role models & attempts to imitate their behavior
- ideologies
- systems of values & norms that members of a society are expected to believe in & act on S question
- impression management
- strategies on uses to "set a stage" for one's own purposes
- in-group
- social group to which an individual has a feeling of allegiance; us., but not always, a primary group
- independent variable
- variable the reseracher believes causes a change in another variable
- informal organization
- group whose norms & statuses are generally agreed upon but are not set down in writing
- informed consent
- right of respondents t/b informed of purpose for which info they supply w/b used & to judge degree of personal risk involved in answering questions, even w/ an assurance of confidentiality
- institution
- more/less stable structure of statuses & roles devoted to meeting the basic needs of ppl in a society
- institutional discrimination
- systematic exclusion of ppl E equal participation in a particular institution b/c of group membership
- interactionism
- sociological perspective viewing social order & change as resulting E all repeated interactions among individuals & groups
- interest group
- organization that attempts to influence elected & appointed officials regarding a specific issue/set of issues
- intergenerational mobility
- change in the social class of family member E 1 gen to the next
- internal colonialism
- thry of racial & ethnic inequality that suggests that some minorities are essentially colonial ppls w/in larger society
- intragenerational mobility
- change in the social class of an individual w/in his/her own lifetime
- Jim Crow
- system of formal & informal segregation existing in US E late 1860s to early 1970s
- kinship
- role relations among ppl who consider themselves t/b related by blood, marriage,/adoption
- labeling
- thry explaining deviance as a societal reaction that brands/labels as deviant ppl who engage in certain behaviors
- laissez-faire capitalism
- economic philosophy based on the belief that the wealth of a nation c/b measured by its capacity to produce goods & services & that these c/b maximized by free trade
- laws
- norms written by specialists, collected in codes/manuals of behaviour, & interpreted & applied by other specialists
- legal authority
- authority legitimated by ppl's belief in the supremacy of the law; obedience is owed not to a person but to a set of impersonal principles
- legitimacy
- ability of a society to engender & maintain belief that existing political institutions are most appropriate for that society
- life chances
- opportunities an individual will have/be denied Eout life as a result of his/her social-class position
- life course
- pathway along an age-differentiated, socially created sequence of transitions
- life expectancy
- average no. of years a member of a given pop can expect to live
- lifetime negative experiences
- experiences that cause long-term stress, ie death of child/spouse
- linguistic-relativity hypothesis
- belief that language determines possibilities for thought & action in any given culture
- lobbying
- process whereby interest groups seek to persuade legislators to vote in their favor on particular bills
- long-distance upward mobility
- form of upward mobility in which a person rises during his/her own lifetime E low family status to membership in a professional/managerial elite
- macro-level sociology
- approach to study of society focusing on major structures & institutions of society
- market
- economic institution regulating exchange behavior E est. of different values for particular goods & services
- mass
- large no. of ppl who are all oriented twd a set of shared symbols/social objects
- mass public
- large pop of potential spectators/participants who engage in collective behavior
- master status
- status taking precedence over all of an individual's other statuses
- material culture
- patterns of possessing & using products of culture
- megalopolis
- complex of cities distributed along a major axis of traffic and communication, w/ total pop exceeding 25mil
- mercantilism
- economic philosophy based on belief tat wealth of a nation c/b measured by its holdings of gold/other precious metals & the state should control trade
- metropolitan area
- central city surrounded by no. of smaller cities & suburbs closely related to it socially & economically
- micro-level sociology
- approach to study of socity focusing on patterns of scoial interaction at individual level
- middle-level sociology
- approach to study of society focusing on relationships b/w social structures & individual
- minority group
- pop that, b/c of members' physical/cultural characteristics, is singled out E others in society for differential & unequal tx
- modernization
- changes experienced by societies & individuals as a result of industrialization, urbanization, & development of nation-states
- monotheistic
- term used to describe a theistic belief system centered on belief in single all-powerful God
- mores
- strongly sanctioned norms
- multinational corporation
- economic enterprise w/ headquarters in one country & conducting business in one/more other countries
- nationalism
- belief of ppl that they have the right & duty to consitute themselves as a nation-state
- nation-state
- largest territory w/in which a society's political institutions can operate S facing challenges to their sovereignty
- natural selection
- relative success of organisms w/ specific genetic mutations in reproducing new generations w/ new trait
- normative order
- array of norms permitting a society to achieve relatively peaceful social control
- norms
- specific rules of behavior
- nuclear family
- 2/more ppl related by blood, marriage,/adoption who share a household
- objective class
- social class w/ visible, specific relationship to means of production
- occupational prestige
- honor/prestige attributed to specific occupations by adults in a society
- oligarchy
- rule by a few ppl who stay in office indefinitely rather than for limited terms
- open question
- question not requeiring respondent to choose from predetermined answers. Respondent may answer in his/her own words
- open society
- society in which social mobility is possible for everyone
- open stratification system
- stratification system in which boundaries b/w social strata are easily crossed
- opinion leader
- individual who consistently influences attitudes & behavior of others
- out-group
- any social group to which an individual does not have a feeling of allegiance; m/b in competition/conflict w/ in-group
- paradigm
- model comprising existing thries & methods; general way of seeing world that dictates what kind of scientific work s/b done & what kinds of thry are acceptable
- participant observation
- form of observation in which researcher participates to some degree in lives of ppl being observed
- pastoral society
- society whose primary means of subsistence is herding animals & moving w/ them over wide expanse of grazing land
- patriarchy
- dominance of men over women
- patronage
- jobs & economic benefits that party leaders can exchange for votes & political influence
- percent analysis
- mathematical operation transforming absolute no. into proportion as part of 100
- peripheral area
- region supplying basic resources & labor power to more advanced states
- plea bargaining
- process in which a person charged w/ a crime agrees to plead guilty to a lesser charge
- pluralist model
- thry stating no single group controls political decisions; plurality of interest groups influence those decisions E process of coalition building & bargaining
- pluralistic society
- society in which different ethnic & racial groups are able to maintain their own cultures & lifestyles while gaining equality in the institutions of the larger society
- political institution
- set of norms & statuses pertaining to exercise of power & authority
- political party
- organization of ppl who join together to gain legitimate control of state authority
- political revolution
- set of changes in political structures & leadership of a society
- polytheistic
- theistic belief system incl numerous gods
- power
- ability to control behavior of others, even against their will
- power-elite model
- thry stating that political decisions are controlled by an elite of rich & powerful individuals even in societies w/ democratic political institutions
- prejudice
- attitude that pejudges a person based on real/imagined characteristic of a group to which that person belongs
- primary deviance
- act resulting in labeling of the offender as deviant
- primary group
- small group characterized by intimate, face-to-face associations
- privacy
- right of a respondent to define when & on what terms his/her actions m/b revealed to general public
- profane
- phenomena not considered sacred
- profession
- occupation w/ body of knowledge & developed intellectual technique transmitted by formal educational process & testing procedures
- projection
- psychological process whereby we atribute to other ppl behaviors & attitudes that we are unwilling to accept in ourselves
- psychosocial risk behaviors
- behaviors that are detrimental to health
- public opinion
- values & attitudes held by mass publics
- race
- inbreeding pop devloping distinctive physical characteristics that are hereditary
- racism
- ideology based on belief that an observable, supposedly inherited trat is a mark of inferiority that justifies discriminatory tx of ppl w/ that trait
- rate of reproductive change
- difference b/w crude birthrate & crude death rate for given pop
- recidivist
- criminal who is returned to prison after having served at least 1 term there
- reference group
- group that an individual uses as a frame of reference for self-evaluation & attitude formation
- relative deprivation
- deprivation as determined by comparison w/ others rather than by some objective measure
- religion
- set of coherent answers to dilemmas of human existence making the world meaningful; system of beliefs & ritual serving to bind ppl together into a social group
- religiosity
- depth of a person's religious feelings
- resocialization
- intense, deliberate socialization designed to change major beliefs & behaviors
- rite of passage
- ceremony marking transition to a new stage of a culturally defined life course
- ritual
- formal pattern of activity that expresses symbolically a set of shared meanings
- role
- way a society defines how an individual is to behave in a particular status
- role conflict
- conflict occurring when in order to perform 1 role well a person must violate the expectations associated w/ another role
- role strain
- conflict occurring when the expectations associated w/ a single role are contradictory
- role taking
- trying to look at social situations E standpoint of another person E whome 1 seeks a response
- sacred
- term used to describe phenomena regarded as extraordinary, transcendent, & outside everyday course of events
- sample
- set of respondents selected E specific pop
- sample survey
- survey administered to selection of respondents drawn E specific pop
- sanctions
- rewards & punishments for abiding by/violating norms
- scapegoat
- convenient target for hostility
- science
- knowledge obtained as a result of process of developing & testing hypotheses
- scientific method
- process by which thries & explanations are contructed E repeated observation & careful description
- secondary deviance
- behavior engaged in as a reaction to experience of being labeled as a deviant
- secondary group
- social group whose members have shared goal/purpose but are not bound together by strong emotional ties
- sect
- religious organization rejecting beliefs & practices of existing churches; us. formed when a group leaves the church to form a rival organization
- secularization
- process where dominance of religion over other institutions is reduced
- segregation
- ecological & institutional separation of races/ethnic groups
- semiperipheral area
- state/region in which industry & financial institutions are developed to some extent but that remains dependent on capital & technology provided by other states
- sexism
- ideology justifying prejudice & discrimination based on sex
- sexuality
- manner in which a person engages in the intimate behaviors connected w/ genital stimulation, orgasm, & procreation
- significant other
- any person who is imp. to an individual