First Study Guide
2010-Sep-15, Wednesday 06:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
msmoonI'm fairly sure that I've convinced all my classmates that I'm insane... this is mostly due to the fact that I have typed up the entire study guide and the added to it. In total it's about 17 pages (depending on font type, margins, etc). And here it is, all complete and done as I can get it without my eyes popping out. One day I'll look back on this and chuckle, but at least it's an interesting subject. Now...I've gotta go and defrost my brain a bit -..- I'll write later, sunshines.
Chapter 1
1. What is the subject matter of sociology?
Social behavior & The Analysis of society.
Sociology is the scientific study of societies and human social behavior. The basic premise of sociology is that human behavior is largely determined by the groups to which people belong and by the societies in which they live.
Society - a group of people who are relatively self-sufficient and who share a common territory and culture.
The Sociological perspective emphasizes the powerful role that group membership and social forces play in shaping human behavior. A key element of the sociological perspective is the recognition that beliefs, values, and behaviors can be understood only in the context of the view of reality shared by a particular group or society. Sociology is a science, which means that is is based on objective and systematic knowledge gained through empirical observations. Science, as a source of knowledge, is empirical, systematic, focused on causation, provisional and objective. Other social sciences include anthropology, psychology, economics and political science.
1b. What were the three historical events which contributed to the development of the social sciences?
The enlightenment Movement began in France. Intellectual movement that shifted from religious to secular & Scientific approaches. Enlightened philosophers wanted to end the chaos that religious crusades & the segregation in Europe.
French revolution was a rather bloody change in the focus of philosophy. The merchants stole power from the Aristocrats.
Industrial Revolution. Before ten everything as made by hand. Machines were build to manufacture things. Factories were build to house machines, cities were built around factories and farms & farmers began to dwindle. Families became smaller because people could not support large families. Work hours were 12 hours a day 6 days a week. There were no child labor laws.
Be familiar with the basic ideas represented by the functionalist, conflict theorist and interactionist models.
The Functionalist perspective (founded mostly by Emil Durkheim) grew out of the similarities early sociologist observed between society and biological organisms. According to the functionalist perspective, society is a system made up of a number of interrelated and interdependent elements, each performing a function that contributes to the operation of the whole.
The elements of society include, for example, institutions such as the family, education, and the economy. The family provides for the bearing and rearing of children until they can live on their own. Educational institutions provide training in the various skills needed to fill jobs in society. The economy is responsible for producing food, clothing and other necessitates needed by families to survive as well as providing the books and other supplies needed for education. The family and the schools could not survive without the goods provided by the economy, and the economic organizations need workers who have been socialized by the family and trained by the schools to work industriously.
In a system with all the parts so tightly interdependent, a change in one element of society will probably lead to changes in other parts.
Conflict theorists emphasize the inevitability of coercion, domination, conflict, and change in society. The conflict perspective is based on the idea that society consists of different groups who struggle with one another to attain the scarce societal resources that are considered valuable, be they money, power, prestige, or the authority to impose one's values on society. In the nineteenth century Karl Marx provided the foundation for the conflict perspective when he viewed society as consisting of different social classes. Marx observed the workers and the bosses as two irreconcilable factions constantly struggling against one another. What would benefit one group necessarily works to the disadvantage of the other. Furthermore, if one group can gain an advantage in this struggle, it will dominate and oppress the other group.
Although the functionalist and conflict perspectives offer competing views on social life, the interactionist perspective strikes out in a different direction by showing how the social processes described in those perspectives enter into people's daily lives and shape their behavior. The interactionist perspective focuses on everyday social interaction among individuals rather than on large societal structures such as politics and educations (Hewitt, 2007; Stryker, 1990). For interactionists, society cossets of people interacting with one another; to understand society we must understand social interaction. It is through such interactions that groups, organizations, and society as a whole are created, maintained and changed.
Symbols are anything that stands for something else. As we learn the symbols in our culture, we create a social reality. Sociologists call them folkways which is just to say the way we've trained ourselves to act in public.
Both Functionalism & Conflict theory had a hidden agenda. Durkheim was a conservative moral man who wanted society to exist morally together. Marxs was a revolutionary, and wanted the working class to rise up.
Max Weber maintained that sociology ran a risk because our opinions color our views of society. He believed the science of sociology should be value free. Meaning the subject had to be objective and not represent any one viewpoint. We have to be willing to see our ideas proven wrong.
Be familiar with the steps in the scientific method.
Scientific Method - How sociologist go about gathering data to verify their theories.
The Three goals Scientists plan to achieve.
Accurate Description - Gathering data on social phenomena
Exploration - Once data is collected, sociologists feel the need to elaborate on the motives behind the occurrences.
Prediction - Once you understand the motivating factors behind social phenomena, you will want to predict how and when it may happen again.
Science is a method of obtaining objective and systematic knowledge through observation.
First, science is empirical, which means that it is based on observation.
Second, science is systematic; it follows methodical and generally accepted procedures. Consequently, scientific research is always open to critical review and assessment by other scientists in order to determine whether errors or biases have influenced the conclusions.
Third, science focuses on causation. Scientists assume that all events are caused, or determined, by something else.
Fourth, science is provisional. The results of scientific investigations are considered tentative, and they are always open to question and possible repudiation.
Finally, science is objective. Scientists strive to prevent their personal values from affecting their investigations.
Be able to define the terms
Theory - is a set statement(s) that explains the relationship among phenomena. Theory - A tentative explanation for something. One sociological theory, for example, explains the relationship between family life and juvenile delinquency (Agnew, 1991; Hirschi, 1969). Referred to as control theory, this explanation maintains that juvenile delinquency increases when the attachment of young people to their families decreases. Attachment refers to such things as maintaining open channels of communication with parents, along with love, respect, and affection for them. According to control theory, communication reduces delinquency because it affords youth the chance to express their problems to parents before these difficulties explode into delinquency.
Hunch - an educated guess OR a hypothesis. Hypothesis - tentative statements that can be tested regarding relationships between two or more variables.
The following hypothesis, for example, could be derived from control theory: Children who engage in delinquent acts such as vandalism will be less likely than non-delinquents to feel that they can confide in their parents. This is a statement who's accuracy can be assessed through observation. In cases such as this, a hypothesis is deduced from an existing theory; if the hypothesis is confirmed through research, it provides further support for that theory.
Variable - is a property or characteristic of something that can take on different values. Age for example is an important sociological variable, and its value ranges over all of those ages that people can possible be. Ethnicity is another sociological variable, with its values being the various ethnicities people can have, such as Hispanic, Jewish, Italian, and Polish.
In the investigation of casual relationships, theories contain two different types of variables.
Independent variables are those that bring about changes in other variables.
Dependent variables are those that are changes.
In the control theory, family attachment is the independent variable that brings about the changes in delinquency, which is often the dependent variable in this case. Of course, a dependent variable in one situation may serve as an independent variable in another, or vice versa. In a different setting, for example, juvenile delinquency could be the independent variable that affects how well a person does in school or the likelihood of a person's becoming an adult criminal. The important point here is that independent and dependent variables both play unique roles in the casual process.
Be able to recognize examples of observational studies, surveys and experiments.
Sociologists have developed a number of methods for gathering data.
Field Study - Go out (into the field) and observe people in their natural surroundings.
Non Participant Observation - Study people without interacting with them (for fear of influencing your subjects).
Participant Observation - Studying people while interacting with them.
Research - Once hypotheses have been constructed, sociologists develop a detailed plan that specifies how observations will be made in order to test the hypotheses. Such plans are called research methods.
Observational techniques refer to the direct observation of behavior by sociologists, either by seeing or hearing what people do.
Observations are sometimes made in the artificial setting of a laboratory, where people are observed through a one-way window or their behavior is videotaped. However, observation in such artificial settings is less common for sociologists than is observation done in natural settings. This observational technique is called participant observations, in which the investigators take part in the activities of the people being studied.
Surveys involve the collection of data by asking people questions about their behavior or attitudes. Surveys can take the form of interviews or questionnaires. In interviews, the investigator or an assistant asks question and records the answers. A questionnaire is a survey based on printed questions that people answer directly on a prepared form without the aid of an interviewer.
An experiment is a controlled method of observation in which independent variables are manipulated in order to assess their effects on a dependent variable. In a common type of experiment, an experimental group is exposed to some factor, the independent variable, while a control group, which is like the experimental group in all other respects, is not exposed to the factor. If a change occurs in the dependent variable within the experimental group but not the control group, then the change can be attributed to the independent variable. The key to an experiment is to make sure that the experimental and control groups are as similar as possible (in terms, for example of age, gender, education, or social class background) so that the variations in these factors can be ruled out as causes of differences between two groups on the deponent variable.
Deception is a problem during these studies because people will behave differently when they know they are being watched.
What ethical issue was raised by Humphrey's Tea Room Trade study? What is a sample?
Some of those other members of the department objected that Humphreys' research had unethically invaded the privacy and threatened the social standing of the subjects. Humphries tearoom study raised many problems because many thought it invaded and violated privacy.
Auguste Comte - Coined the term Sociology, though he did very little of the data collection. "The nineteenth-century French philosopher Auguste Comte is considered the father of sociology because he was the first to use the term sociology. He argued strongly that society should be studied according to the same scientific methods that were used to understand the natural whorl.
Basic Sociology refers to sociological research whose purpose is to advance our knowledge about human social behavior with little concern for any immediate practical benefits that might result. Basic socially is an attempt to develop theories that explain how societies work and why people behave the way they do; the goal of basic sociology is to subject theories to the process of hypothesis testing and theory verification described earlier.
Early sociologist disagreed often due to their science being so very new. Human Nature was a big issue that most sociologist disagreed on. Freud believed that human s were essential bad (bestial and sexual). Durkheim believed the human nature was neutral.
The sociological perspective emphases the powerful role that group members and social forces play in shaping behavior
A key insight of the sociological perspective is that beliefs, values and behaviors are relative to particular groups or societies and can be understood only in the context of those affiliations. The members of a group or society share a view of reality that determines what they believe to be right and wrong, proper or reprehensible. This means that tremendous diversity exists in human behavior from one society to another….. No social practice can be completely understood unless it is viewed in the context of the shared view of reality found in a particular culture.
Globalization refers to trend toward increasing interconnectedness between different people around the world and the growing unification of social and cultural life.
C. Wright Mills (1959) coined the term sociological imagination in referring to the ability to understand the relationship between what is happening in people's personal lives and the social forces that surround them.
The Social Sciences
Anthropology, the social science most similar to sociology, is the study of the cultures, customs, origins, evolution, and physical characteristics of human beings. Sociology places more emphasis on group structure, processes within cultures, and the impact of face-to-face social interaction than does anthropology.
Psychology focuses on the mental processes of individuals, dealing with phenomena such as memory, perceptions, motivation, and emotions. Although sociologists are also interested in explaining the behavior of individuals, they do so by studying the social environment that surrounds people. Sociology and psychology overlap in the sub-discipline of social psychology, which is the study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by their interactions with others.
Steps in Conducting Research. The first tepee is problem formulation: clearly identifying exactly what the issue or problem will be researched. The second step is to develop a research design, a detailed plan outlining how observations will be made. The third step in research is data collection, which might be based on direct observation, surveys, experiments or some other less commonly used research method. The fourth step in research, data analysis, is what unlocks the information hidden in the raw data and transforms it into something useful and meaningful. The fifth step in conducting social research is to draw conclusions from the data analysis. The sixth step is public dissemination of findings by publishing them in a book or professional journal or presenting them to a professional organization is a crucial stage of social research.
The term reactivity refers to the fact that people react to being studied and may behave differently from the way they do when they don't think they are being studied.
Basic sociology refers to sociological research whose purpose is to advance our knowledge about human social behavior with little concern for any immediate practical benefits that might result.
Applied sociology consists of research and other activities designed to focus sociological knowledge or research tools on a particular problem identified by some client with some practical outcome in mind.
Be able to define the world culture.
Culture refers to the total lifestyle of a people, including all of the ideas, values, knowledge behaviors and material objects that they share (Geertz 1973; Kroeber & Kluckhohn, 1952).
This meaning seems to be what the anthropologist Sir E. B. Tylor had in mind more than a century ago when he defined culture as "That complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society."
Ideal Culture refers to the beliefs, values, and norms that people claim to follow.
Real Culture refers to their actual behavior in relation to these professed beliefs, values and norms.
In the United States, for example, people place value on such ideals as equality, honesty, and obeying the law. Despite the ideal of equality, however, there has always been considerable discrimination, particularly against minority groups and women.
Sociologists define society as a group of people are are relatively self-sufficient and who share a common territory and culture.
A society teaches its members the types of behavior that are expected through sanctions, which are rewards or punishments for conforming to or violating norms.
Also be able to recognize definitions of the terms subculture and ethnocentrism.
A subculture is a group within a culture that shares some of the beliefs, values, and norms of the larger culture but also has some that are distinctly its own.
Ethnocentrism is the tendency to view one's own culture as the best and to judge other cultures in comparison to it.
Cultural Relativity which holds that the lifestyles of various peoples should be viewed in terms of their own culture rather than that of the observer.
What are the characteristics of culture?
In many cases culture is an adaptation to the environment. You eat whatever is available, you build your homes with whatever building materials are available, depending on the climate will determine how you dress.
Beliefs, values, norms, and language are components that are common to all cultures. Beliefs are people's conceptions about what is true in the world. Values are very general guidelines for behavior. Whereas mainstream values can be found in all cultures, there is also a diversity of values, and values change over time as social conditions change. Norms are more specific guidelines for behavior. Some norms are internalized, while others are codified into laws. Language not only makes possible communication but also shapes our view of reality and reinforces social practices.
Norms are rules of conduct that guide people's behavior in particular situations.
Be able to identify the four types of nonmaterial cutter.
Material culture consists of all the physical objects or artifacts, made or used by people, such as coons, stone clubs, jet airplanes and skyscrapers. Material culture - sociologist and anthropologists use this term for tools and the products of technology, called artifacts.
Nonmaterial culture consists of those things that have no physical existence such as language, ideas, knowledge and behaviors. Nonmaterial culture - things that are nonmaterial: Beliefs, Values, Norms, Mores, Folkways.
Folkways are norms that are customary, popular, and widely performed, but not required.
Mores are norms that are associated with strong feelings of right and wrong, the violation of which usually results in sanctions.
For now, groups may be defined as collections of people who interact with one another on the basis of interrelated statuses and roles and who feel some awareness that they share something in common.
Social Institutions are relatively stable clusters of status, roles, and groups that work together to fulfill some need that all societies must satisfy.
They are social rules that deal with such things as murder, incest, theft, and public nudity, and they are taken very seriously. People who violate folkways are usually tolerated, but people who violate mores are usually punished. The sanctions applied tend to be strong, formal, and negative. Violators may be ostracized, banished, flogged, put in prison, or put to death. These strong reactions are one reason people adhere to mores. More important, however, is the fact that people are taught to adhere to their cultural mores almost from the time they are born. As a rustle, people incorporate the mores into their own personal codes of conduct.
This process, called >internalization, causes people to view the violation of most mores with antipathy such that they would not even consider committing such a violation. As a result, they control their own behavior. Most people, for example, are so horrified at the thought of incest theta they would never even consider it.
Laws are norms that have been formally edified by political authority. Many laws are based on mores, for people usually stiff to give legal status to norms they believe in strongly.
Gemeinschaft, which translates roughly as "community", refers to social life that is governed by personal, informal considerations, with tradition and custom prevailing.
Gesellschaft, meaning ”society” or "association" refers to social relations characterized by specialization, individualism and rationality.
What is Cultural Lag?
The term cultural lag refers to the notion that culture takes time to catch up with technological innovations, and that social problems and conflicts are caused by this lag. Subsequently, cultural lag does not apply to this idea only, but also relates to theory and explanation. Culture changes over time which leads to a phenomenon called cultural lag, which is when a society changes, particularly if it changes rapidly, and the older generation cannot catch up. Sometimes culture lag can undermine an entire society. Cultural change can come from various things; discovers, inventions, crises, and diffusion. Diffusion is where ideas, technology or beliefs spread from one society to another.
How does the Yir Yoront study illustrate cultural lag?
The Yir Yoront were more of a stone age tribe. They had a common tool, a stone axe. Stone axes were not common, and those who possessed them were considered to be elevated in social status. Oddly enough, those who possessed the axes were older men who did not use these axes. The axes were used by women and young men. The stone to make the axe were in quarries miles away, and the elder men would meet with the tribes near the quarry to barter for the stone to make the axe. They had an elaborate mythology about the stone axe, so the stone axe bore religious significance, making it a totem of sorts. As fate would have it, one year in the 30’s, missionaries built a mission near the Yir Yoront tribe’s land. They attempted to convert them, but the elder men thought it was beneath them to visit with these missionaries. So younger men and women were the only visitors to the missionaries. The missionaries would give gifts to the people in order to buy favor with them. The missionaries received a lot of steal hatchets, and they began handing out these axes anyone who asked for it. So, the lower status was now one with the power, because they did not need to ask for the stone axes from the elder men. And since they didn’t need the stone axes anymore, they didn’t feel the need to contact the other tribes for stone to make the stone axe. This upended the Yir Yoront culture.
What does Harris' study of the sacred cow illustrate about culture?
Culture as adaptation - Marvin Harris: India’s Sacred Cow.
A lot of westerns find the Hindu practice of identifying cows as sacred very strange. The Hindu belief in reincarnation may influence this - the belief in Karma and Dharma. If you follow the dictates of your class then you build up good Karma. If you are a criminal in your behavior, you devolve and are reborn into unfortunate circumstances. Harris took a look at the history of India, and found something interesting. At one time the Hindu people did slaughter cattle and eat meat. And at one particular period the cow became sacred, when the upper-class or Brahmins (Priests) designed that it was sacred. Harris tried to figure out what was going on in India when the cow was designated as sacred. What he found was that the vast majority of Indian people were farmers. THey lived in an area called the Ganges river valley, and the population grew rather rapidly. Whenever you have population growth, you have low resources. Harris maintained there was certain times when they had droughts and could not grow crops, which made them fall back on their domesticated animals for food. The cow was at the center of their domesticated animals. They used their milk, they bred them for oxen, they used their dung for heat, fertilizer, building materials. So from a practical point of view, the cow was necessary. You could slaughter your cattle to feed your family, but that meant you lost the tools to fueled your farm. So slaughtering cattle became a cultural taboo. To make sure that this taboo carried weight, the Brahmins established it was a holy animal.
Be familiar with Durkheim's study of suicide.
Durkheim - suicide rates. Durkheim was interested in suicide rates. He wanted to know what the factor(s) for increased suicide rates. He felt that since race fluctuates, there must have been a social factor involved. He believed that a degree of integration was involved in this. He figured the higher the rate of integration the less freedom you had. With a higher level of responsibility you have less of the freedom to do what you want to do with your life. He hypothesized that people with low rates of integration with lower connections to their society are more likely to commit suicide. He pointed out that if you look at males and compare them to females, in his day men had more freedom.
How do egotistic and altruistic suicide differ?
Egoisitic suicide resulted from too little social integration. Those individuals who were not sufficiently bound to social groups (and therefore well-defined values, traditions, norms, and goals) were left with little social support or guidance, and therefore tended to commit suicide on an increased basis. An example Durkheim discovered was that of unmarried people, particularly males, who, with less to bind and connect them to stable social norms and goals, committed suicide at higher rates than unmarried people.
The second type, Altruistic suicide, was a result of too much integration. It occurred at the opposite end of the integration scale as egoistic suicide. Self sacrifice was the defining trait, where individuals were so integrated into social groups that they lost sight of their individuality and became willing to sacrifice themselves to the group's interests, even if that sacrifice was their own life. The most common cases of altruistic suicide occurred among members of the military.
Durkheim was interested in suicide rates. He wanted to know what the factor(s) for increased suicide rates. He felt that since race fluctuates, there must have been a social factor involved. He believed that a degree of integration was involved in this. He figured the higher the rate of integration the less freedom you had. With a higher level of responsibility you have less of the freedom to do what you want to do with your life. He hypothesized that people with low rates of integration with lower connections to their society are more likely to commit suicide. He pointed out that if you look at males and compare them to females, in his day men had more freedom.
He came up with a term “Egoistic Suicide” to describe this. People who have little commitment and attachments to their society, greater freedom and are perhaps even better off. Having little attachments and involvement make people want to commit suicide. “When society is strongly integrated, it holds individuals under its control. People who are well integrated into a group are cushioned to a significant extent from the impact of frustrations and tragedies that afflict the human lot; hence, they are less likely to resort to extreme behavior such as suicide.”
He also came up with a term for those with high integrations who commit suicide called “Altruistic Suicide”. Which was coined for a more deliberate and self sacrificing suicide. He maintained that this was a reason that people put themselves into dangerous situations in combat.
He came up with a third theory. He was a conservative man, resistant to social change. He came up with the term Anomie (the best translation to this would be a state of disorganization or flux). He said that when suicide rates when up they were anomic. He said that culture dominated the lives of human beings. When a culture begins to plummet suicide rates will go up, but when a culture thrives the suicide rates will go down.
What is the linguistic relativity hypothesis?
Simply stated , this hypothesis proposes that the language we speak shapes how we think about and perceive the world. Far from being a passive means of communication, linage actually influences what the world is like for each of us. Using language is like looking at the world through tinted glasses - we see what the filter presents to us.
One way that language filters reality is through the categories that it provides. Inuit (Eskimos), for example, have more than twenty different words for snow. Obviously, Inuit culture has developed and passed on this elaborate category system because making fine distinctions between types of snow is important to survival in the environment in which Inuit Live.
Sapir and Whorf's point is, though, that when Inuit children learn their language, they also learn to perceive and identify aspects of snow that would be imperceptible to speakers of a langue such as English.
What is argot?
Argot is the specialized language of a subculture.
What function does it perform?
Probably the most important function is that it separates group members from nonmembers. A group's argot may function in much the same way as a password. Those who know it are the "ins"; those who do not are the "outs". In a way, argot serves this purpose even better than a password - you could bribe someone to tell you a password, but an argot can be learned only intimate association with the group that uses it. It’s a way for people in a certain subculture to communicate effectively without anyone from outside the subculture knowing what is being said.
Be able to identify definitions of social structure, status, role, ascribed and achieved statuses, master status, role conflict, etc.
Social structure refers to the organized patterns of social interaction and social relationships that exist in a group or society. All the relationships within a particular group (Husband, wife, daughter, son, etc).
2 Elements -
Status will refer to a designated position in a group or society.
Roles are, in a sense, clusters of norms; they are the behaviors expected of a person who occupies a certain status. Lately, roles have shifted so that the Father is not associated as the breadwinner.
Ascribed Statuses are assigned to people and represent social positions over which people have little say about occupying. Things like gender, age and race are examples of ascribed statuses.
Achieved Statuses, by contrast, are based on people's accomplishments or activities and reflect social positions people gain through their own efforts.
Master Status occurs when a particular status becomes central to the way people view themselves or are viewed by others. A master status is something that dominates your life, such as being an ex-con, a priest or nun, a politician or CEO.
Role Conflict occurs when two or more roles a person must place are incompatible or inconsistent. Role conflict more or less refers to having two roles that cause a conflict, like being a wife and bother as well as a full time student or worker.
Role Strain develops when people have difficulty performing a role. This is more of a role that you are uncomfortable with (having a marriage that turns sour or a job you hate).
Role Ambiguity - When there is confusion on the role someone is meant to fulfill.
Roll Set - All the roles associated with a particular status.
Impression Management is an individual’s effort to control the meanings that others attach to his or her performance.
Role-Taking is a process sociologists define as predicting how others will behave, or how they think and feel.
What is unique about Erving Goffman's approach to the study
of social behavior?
Goffman specialized in the study of roles, role analysis and how they effected everyday life. Goffman took Shakespeare’s line of “All the world’s a stage” literally, developing the Dramaturgical approach. It starts off by saying that each one of us have a number of roles that we play, and each one of us is an actor, that we give performances and our success in life is determined by how well we preform as actors. He maintains that as we interact with each other we have one major goal that we want to achieve, and that’s called Impression Management. He means that as you interact in a group, you attempt to create and maintain how they view you. He argues that there are a number of ways we create that image. The expression given is formal content given to those who ask about you. The expression given off is very informal and distracted. A really affective social actor is not only aware of what they are saying, but also their body language and how they are behaving. He maintained that there are High Self Monitors and Low Self Monitors; a High self monitor is vey aware of the impression they are making, whereas a low self monitor isn’t. Low self monitor does not vary in their behavior from one situation to another. A High self monitor is extraordinarily adaptable, and can seem like a different person in different social settings. He divides us all into Front Region and Back Region or Back Stage actors, Front region being those who interact with strangers often and back region being those who do not interact with strangers often or only interact with those who know you very well. A authentic performance is one that reflects how you actually feel, but a cynical performance is one that you perform even though it isn’t an accurate representation of your feelings.
Civil Inattention - A way of behaving in which we politely ignore others around us when we don’t want to interact.
Distinguish between the traits of preindustrial and post-industrial society.
Ferdinand Tönnies formatted the Gemeinshaft/Gesellshaft outlook on Preindustrial and Post-Industrial societies. Preindustrial - Village or Small Community (Gemeinshaft). Industrial - Metropolis (Gesellshaft).
| Gesellshaft (Post-Industrial) Metropolis | |
|---|---|
| Primary Relationships. | Secondary relationships. |
| Informal communication. | Formal communications. |
| Self-sufficient. | Very independent. |
| Extended Families. | Nuclear family. |
| Informal social control. | Formal social control. |
| Very religious. | Increasingly secular. |
| Simple division of labor. | Very complex division of labor. |
| Simple, folk entertainment. | Entertainment as a business. |
The Amish are a good representation of a PreIndustrial group. New York City is a good representation of a Post-Industrial group.
SELECT AND ANSWER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING:
1. What are the basic assumptions of the functionalist perspective regarding the nature and operation of society? The Functionalist perspective grew out of the similarities early sociologist observed between society and biological organisms. According to the functionalist perspective, society is a system made up of a number of interrelated and interdependent elements, each performing a function that contributes to the operation of the whole.
2. Describe the conflict and interactionist theories in sociology and show how they differ.
Although the functionalist and conflict perspectives offer competing views on social life, the interactionist perspective strikes out in a different direction by showing how the social processes described in those perspectives enter into people's daily lives and shape their behavior. For interactionists, society cossets of people interaction with one another; to understand society we must understand social interaction. It is through such interactions that groups, organizations, and society as a whole are created, maintain and changed.
3. Define two of the three research methods described in the chapter and give an example. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each?
According to the functionalist perspective, society is a system made up of a number of interrelated and interdependent elements, each performing a function that contributes to the operation of the whole.
The conflict perspective is based on the idea that society consists of different groups who struggle with one another to attain the scarce societal resources that are considered valuable, be they money, power, prestige, or the authority to impose one's values on society.
In conflict perspective, what would benefit one group necessarily works to the disadvantage of the other. Furthermore, if one group can gain an advantage this struggle, it will dominate and oppress the other group. In the functionalist perspective, considering that it is a system with all the parts so tightly interdependent, a change in one element of society will probably lead to changes in other parts.
4. Define the four components of culture. Give two examples of each: one from the U.S. and one from another culture.
Material culture - sociologist and anthropologists use this term for tools and the products of technology, called artifacts.
Nonmaterial culture - things that are nonmaterial: Beliefs, Values, Norms, Mores, Folkways.
5. Compare and contrast mainstream cultural values in the U.S. with those in .
Japan has always been much more group oriented than the US. In fact, in Japan you find your identity by serving the group.
6. What is the linguistic-relativity hypothesis? What is the evidence for and against it?
Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis - Language shapes perception. This draws from the fact that certain languages have several different words to describe one thing or only one or two words to describe various things. The Hopi have one word to describe every vehicle that has an engine. The Inuit have many words to describe snow, and each word is used for a specific type of snow.
Scientists believe that the only thing that separates humans from other animals is their language. Every society has some sort of symbolic language or sounds that come to represent certain things or certain actions. Edward Sapir & Benjamin Whorf did language studies and concluded that languages are very different from each other in very dramatic ways.
Marvin Harris said that there are 3 trends that have taken place since 1945 −
1) major change in the nature of work or what people do for a living. Prior to world war 2, we were a culture who was based on 2 things, farming and manufacturing. A shift has been made from farming and manufacturing to service sector jobs, jobs that focus on selling your talents (Teaching, Sales, Law). 80% of the work force in the US are in service sector jobs. Since most service sector jobs require some sort of education beyond college, community colleges are experiencing a lot of influx.
2) Change in the make-up of a work force, mostly the influx of women into the work force. Marvin Harris called jobs that were common to women pink-collar jobs, but during world war II, women started to take up the slack in the world force due to their men being over-seas fighting. Harris says that this change has changed basic things like home life, sexuality, and even divorce rates. He also said that the attitude of sexuality has shifted from procreation to recreation.
3) The increasing growth in two areas in society: big business and big government. Large corporations have made it difficult for family owned stores and companies to profit. The bigger the government gets, the farther our politicians seem from their base supporters.
Oneida community
John Humphrey Noyes founded the Oneida community.
Focused heavily on Primary Group Interact. Women were given more rights but they were still expected to do housework, rear children and cook. The group actually managed to gather a lot of skilled workers. Mutual Criticism refers to the practice of a member who was being reprimanded to be taken in front of either a committee or sometimes the whole community to be criticized. There was no private property, the entire community shared all land and belongings. Complex marriage was a concept that received much criticism - every man and every woman were considered husband and wife. There was an older woman who served as a go-between if women did not want to spend time with a man. Ascending Fellowship was the practice of mingling the older members of the community with the younger. It was not well received within the community, and many young people resisted this. They also used selective breeding, only allowing certain members who were considered prime breeders as those who could have children.
This group was always criticized by the outside world, but the main reason that it did not last was because of it’s internal problems. Noyes was often sought for convictions of statutory rape, and thus he always fled the country. His lack in leadership left a vacuum. However the main problem was the selective breeding as well as the ascending fellowship.
