The Real World: Final Review Flashcards

C. Wright Mills described a process by which biography (individual lives) and history (larger social forces) are related. He argues that this process works in two ways: individual lives influence society while society also influences individuals

We cannot necessarily see society as a whole; we have to look at its component parts.

There is only one correct theoretical explanation for any particular social phenomenon

Social theory is Eurocentric and privileges Western thought

Emile Durkheim believed that even the most individuals actions had social origins

Conflict theory uses a dynamic model of historical change that presents change as constant, ongoing and inevitable.

According to Erving Goffman, a person's sense of self is constant and stable over time

Sociologists try to follow steps of the scientific method or approach to gather new empirical data that can change and deepen our understanding of human social life

Ethnographic research projects can be designed so that there is a minimum of outside interference.

Sociologists try to conduct interviews that are both more systematic and more scientific than those conducted by journalists

A university decides to conduct a survey to learn if students like the lasagna and garlic bread in the cafeteria. It distributes questionnaires in three English classes and two sociology classes. This will produce a simple random sample of the student body.

As long as correct sampling techniques are used, researchers can make generalizations about a large population from a much smaller sample.

No harm can come to subjects as a result of completing a questionnaire.

Polls and surveys do not just reflect popular opinion; they can also be used to shape and change attitudes and beliefs.

When sociologist study culture, they need to emphasize the exceptional and unusual and avoid studying the mundane or everyday.

When we try to understand a culture on its own terms, we are practicing cultural relativism

Gestures, language, values, norms, sanctions, folkways, and mores are all examples of symbolic culture.

"Culture wars" is a term used to refer to the extreme clashes in values that occur when there are efforts to change core values in society.

What was once mainstream may later be defined as deviant.

According to sociologists, an individual's genetic makeup will always determine what kind of personality and character traits he develops in life.

Sociology has developed a single comprehensive theory about how the self develops

According to the symbolic interactionist George Herbert Mead, all children are essentially born with a developed sense of self.

The term "total institution" refers to organizations that strip members of their previous identities in order to resocialize them.

According to Charles Cooley, there can be no sense of self without society

Television is both a powerful and a surreptitious agent of socialization

In the past half century or so, sociology has begun to focus, not only the interactions of individuals in society, but on the inequality that comes from those interactions

In the film "In the White Man's Image", the elimination of Native American Culture was believed to be necessary to help the Indian evolve and assimilate.

Functionalism argues that only dysfunction can create social change

When we try to understand a culture on its own terms, we are practicing cultural relativism.

Gestures, language, values, norms, sanctions, folkways, and mores are all examples of symbolic culture.

Negative sanctions can only be imposed by an authoritative body or formal institution.

According to class lecture, Richard Pratt presented the most influential social theory of the late 19th century

The writings of Emile Durkheim, Karl Mark, and Max Weber were deeply influenced by their life experiences.

The term "total institution" regers to organizations that strip members of their previous identities in order to re-socialize them.

There is only one correct theoretical explanation for any particular social phenomenon

John is a judge. He dispenses justice in his community. In this scenario John's status is "judge" and his role is to "dispense justice".

According to class lecture, the film "In The White Man's Image", was an example of "cultural genocide"

Humans are essentially social beings

The "beginner's mind", a concept borrowed from the Zen Buddhist tradition, is the opposite of the sociological perspective.

"Culture wars" is a term used to refer to the extreme clashes in values that occur when there are efforts to change core values in society.

The most widely accepted definitions of sociology as a discipline are those that are narrow and focused.

Max Weber was responsible for establishing "Symbolic Interaction Theory".

Taking the sociological perspective means thinking sociologically about the problem

Culture is a fixed set of feature existing in all societies

Culture is the total way of life of a group of people

Herbert Spencer was a French Sociologist who studied under Karl Marx

The film "In The White Man's Image" was about assimilation of the Indian into American culture.

According to class lecture, the dominant group defines the acceptable norms and values of the society?

When people move from one place, job, or life situation to another, they often have to undergo re-socialization.

Charles Darwin coing the term "survival of the fittest"

Unlike George Herbert Mean, Charles Cooley did not believe that the self was created largely through social interaction

Emile Durkheim's pioneering work, Suicide, used data gleaned from government records to help look for correlations between demographic variables and suicide. This made his work compatible with Auguste Comte's ideas about how society should be studied.

Cases of children rasied in social isolation demonstrate that all people are born with the instincts necessary to fully develop into a functioning human being.

According to the symbolic interactionist George Herbert Mead, all children are essentially born with a developed sense of self

The first "Indian School" was in Nebraska

Our social network consist of just our closest friends and family

Honor killing is usually used to protect the honor of a woman who has been assaulted or otherwise treated dishonorably.

A triad is slightly more stable than a dyad

Strong identification with and loyalty to the in-group often results in discrimination against member of the out-gorup

According to sociologist, most normal people have never engaged in any acts of deviance

Sociologist can say that deviance is relative because whether a behavior is considered deviant depends upon the historical, cultural, and/or situational context in which it occurs.

When sociologist use the term "deviant," they are making both a social and a moral judgement.

According to structural functionalist theory, the function of deviance is to help clarify moral boundaries and affirm social norms.

Basically, no one chooses to be called a deviant

Sociological research has consistently shown that, as punishments become more severe, the crime rate declines.

America is a profoundly hierarchical society

Belonging to a particular social class has a profound effect on almost every aspect of a person's life

The average age at which people marry and start families is not related to social class.

The educational system in the United States serves all students equally regardless of class

Most poor people in the United States are unemployed

When the poor organize politically, their successes are often not well publicized

Whites and blacks in the United States tend to have similar opinions about the sate of race relations today

Seventy-Five percent of African Americans have white relatives

According to some sociologists, race is not irrefutably identifiable even in face-to-face interactions

Most Americans realize that not everyone has equal access to education

Members of which of the following think of themselves as belonging together while also interacting with each other?

A. aggregrate

B. group

C. category

D. queue

E. all of the above

Which of the following is NOT a true statement about primary groups?

A. Primary groups involve intimate, face-to-face interaction

B. primary groups are essential to an individual's well being

C. Primary groups never try to sanction members or otherwise affect their behavior

D. Primary groups are usually small and long lasting.

E. Primary groups' values become fused into one's identity

A high school decides that its band needs to wear uniforms. In order to be more efficient, the school only buys uniforms in three sizes and forces students to pick the size that comes closest to fitting . What process described in Chapter 5 is this an example of?

A. commodification

B. rationalization

C. virtual communities

D. group dynamics

E. network theory

The definition of what constitutes a group is being transformed as a result of new technology an the Information Revolution. Which of the following is evidence of this?

A. electronic communities

B. chat rooms

C. online interaction

D. "virtual" relationships

E. all of the above

Although individuals always feel loyalty toward their in-group, under what circumstance would this loyalty be particularly strong?

A. when the in-group is particularly large

B. when the individual has belonged to the in-group for a long time

C. when the out-group is less powerful or wealthy than the in-group

D. when the out-group has a great deal of interaction with in the in-group

E. when the differences between the in-group and the out-group are sharply defined

Groups that we use as standards to evaluate ourselves ( either positively, in-terms of the positions we aspire to achieve, or negatively, in terms of the positions we wish to avoid) are called:

A. secondary groups

B. reference groups

C. out-groups

D. in-groups

E. networks

When individuals are members of groups, they are influenced by other members. What do sociologist call this?

A. internalization

B. groupthink

C. peer pressure

D. rationalization

E. social loafing

What sort of conformity is demonstrated by an individual who dresses modestly in accordance with religious values, but does so to avoid punishment rather than because she believes it truly matters?

A. identification

B. internalization

C. proscription

D. rational-legal authority

E. compliance

Graduate students almost never attend graduate school at the institution where they were undergraduates, which means that a new graduate student is almost always living in a new and unfamiliar town. It's logical that many new grad students form social bonds and share activities. One popular activity is to gather after class for beer and pizza. If a new grad student doesn't like beer or pizza, but accompanies the group anyway because he wants to make friends, this is an example of:

A. internalization

B. compliance

C. out-groups

D. shared values

E. identification

When someone joins the Green Part and then starts recycling old plastic bags because she believes that it can help save the environment, this is an example of what type of conformity.

A. social networks

B. internalization

C. compliance

D. social atomism

E. identification

What are leaders called whose personal style makes them more task-or goal oriented and less concerned with people's feelings?

A. expressive leaders

B. charismatic leaders

C. traditional leaders

D. bureaucratic leaders

E. instrumental leaders

What kind of power is a football coach wielding when he threatens to kick a player of the team unless they player works harder?

A. influential power

B. coercive power

C. bureaucratic power

D. charismatic authority

E. reference power

A nightclub has several types of employees, each with a specialized task. Bartenders make drinks, bouncers check identification, bussers clear away old glasses, and so on. A shift supervisor is in charge, and a manager is in charge of the shift supervisor. At work the employees check the bulletin board, where their boss posts memos explaining changes in the rules. The bouncers are the most popular employees because they usually let their friends in for free, even if their friends don't have ID. In many ways, the club is a bureaucracy, but there is at least one significant element of bureaucratic organization missing. What is it?

A. specialization

B. hierarchy

C. formal written communication

D. technical competence

E. impersonality

What was imprisonment such a rare type of punishment before the nineteenth century?

A. Earlier societies did not have sufficient resources to operate prisons

B. Earlier societies believed that physical punishments like branding were more likely to deter future crime.

C. Earlier societies were crueler and therefore more accepting of harsh physical punishment

D. Earlier societies believed that punishments like shunning and banishment were more humane.

E. Earlier societies had much less crime and so did not require any particular system of punishment.

Many people especially young women, worry about maintaining a tan. Sometimes, if they don't have the time to tan naturally, they go to a tanning salon or use chemicals to simulate a tan. In some cultures, this might seem bizarre, which can help us to realize that:

A. the line between beauty and deviance is fluid and changes across time and place.

B. American are very, very deviant

C. there are some type of body modification that are never tolerated anywhere

D. the rest of the world is not yet as normal as the United States and keeps backward practices and superstitions.

e. people who get fake tans are deviant

When a politician is caught cheating on his spouse, there are usually serious consequences, and sometimes the politician is forced to resign from his office when his constituents loudly express their unhappiness with such behavior. According to Emile Durkheim, what function does this reaction serve?

A. It helps to deter politicians from cheating in the future

B. It helps to clarify moral boundaries, reinforcing the idea that martial infidelity is wrong.

C. The anger and public outcry helps to rehabilitate the offender, so that he won' give in to the temptation to cheat in the future.

D. Being forced out of office prevents him from ever cheating again

E. It helps to protect the family of the politician, who need scrutiny and media coerage in order to move on.

According to the structural strain theory of deviance as articulated by Robert Merton, what is one of the principal reasons that people turn to deviant behavior in the United States

A. There are a lot of people with inborn antisocial tendencies

B. American society is very lax in enforcing laws.

C. Deviant behavior has become so widespread that many people think of it as normal.

D. Deviant behavior has become so widespread that many people think of it as normal

E. The goal of success is shared by a majority of people, but not everyone has equal mean to achieve that goal

If you decide that you could never get into a good school an so could never get a good job, you might decide to sell crack cocaine instead as a way to make a living. According to Robert Merton, what sort of deviant would you be?

A. a conformist

B. a ritualist

C. an innovator

D. a rebel

E. an extremist

When a parent argues that her child has simply fallen in with a bad crowd, what theory of deviance is she expressing?

A. structural strain theory

B. labeling theory

C. deviance avowal

D. structural functionalism

E. differential association theory

Which group of people within the hospital were able to tell that the pseudopatients in David Rosenhan's "One Being Sane in Insane Places" were not actually mentally ill?

A. the doctor's

B. only the older, more experienced doctors

C. the other patients

D. the nursing staff

E. the orderlies

What aspects of stigma are symbolic interactionists interested in?

A. how people manage their stigmatized identities on an everyday basis

B. how stigma is related to larger issues of social structure

C. which stigmas are fair and which are unjustly applied

D. how stigma can make a positive contribution to someone's life

E. all of the above

According to Erving Goffman, stigmatized individuals who don't believe that they should have to change or conceal their identities to make "normal" people more comfortable have:

A. deviance plus

B. in-group orientation

C. self-esteem

D. desistance

E. out-group orientation

What do we call norm violations that are codified into law?

A. crimes

B. taboos

C. violent crimes

D. mores

E. statues

What do sociologists call the tendency for individuals to age out of criminal activity?

A. deviance avoidance

B. differential association

C. deviance strain

D. desistance

E. incapacitation

How do sociologists define positive deviance?

A. deviance that relates to criminal record

B. deviance that actively harms someone physically

C. instances where a rule violation is, or seems to be, an admirable act that should be supported

D. deviance that is active and is openly embraced

E. the form of acts that come with secondary deviance

Which of the following is NOT one of the basic principals of social stratification?

A. Low-level groups often have access to all the rewards and privileges of higher level groups

B. It persists over time

C. Different societies base their stratifications on different criteria

D. It is maintained through beliefs that are widely shared in a society

E. It is a general trend but, within a society, can have exceptions.

Which of the following is true of the upper class in the United States today?

A. They are largely self-sustaining group and rarely add new members

B. They are compromised mainly of skilled workers in technical field.

C. They make up about 30 percent of the population

D. They are not usually very well educated

E. They usually work in executive, managerial, and professional jobs.

What sort of jobs are usually available to members of the lower middle class?

A. technical or professional jobs

B. executive or managerial positions

C. blue-collar jobs, or manual labor

D. lower-management jobs

E. The tend to be underemployed and often receive public assistance

If an individual takes adult education classes, attends lectures an concerts, or travels to Europe, what might he be trying to gain more of?

A. cultural capital

B. souvenirs

C. life experience

D. credentials

E. wealth

In House of Yes, a play by Wendy MacLeod, the character Marty brings his fiancée, Lesly, to meet his family. she comes from a different class, which leads to exchanges like this one between Lesly, Marty, and Marty's two siblings, Anthony and Jackie:

Anthony: Would you like a glass of Liebfraumilch?

Lesly: No thank you. I'll just have a glass of wine

Marty: That's the name of the wine.

Lesly: oh! [laughs] I don't speak French

According to Pierre Boudieu Marty's siblings are unhappy with Lesly because she doesn't have enough:

A. wealth

B. hubris

C. cultural capital

D. social capital

E. integrity

When young people go away to college, it's often the first time that they make friends with people of substantially different class statuses. Sometimes this leads to tension when the wealthier member of a friendship is oblivious to his friend's class status and suggests activities that are beyond the friend's means. This tension results from a lack of:

A. historical materialism

B. status inconsistency

C. prestige or power.

D. class consciousness

E. false consciousness

What does Paul Fussell's living room scale attempt to measure?

A. judgment

B. the pace of interaction

C. social class

D. the extent to which people are aware of others' class statuses

E. all of the above

What general predictions can be made about a person's life chances if all that is known is her social class?

A. what sort of education she will receive

B. what sort of job she will work in

C. what sort of person she will marry

D. how long she will live

E. all of the above

The tendency to choose romantic partners based on similarities in background and group membership is called:

A. homogamy

B. background knowledge

C. broken window

D. reflexivity

E. heteronormativity

Which of the following variables have the greatest impact on crime rates?

A. poverty

B. race

C. funding for law enforcement

D. the availability of drugs

E. population density and anomie

A society where social mobility is highly restricted through formal and informal rules, like those of a caste system, is called:

A. structural mobility

B. intergenerational mobility

C. relative deprivation

D. horizontal social mobility

E. vertical social mobility

Although the United States lost many jobs in the recession of the late 2000s, many people are optimistic that the lost jobs will be replaced with others. However, even if the optimists are right, this shift in the economy may permanently alter the class status of many, as jobs being lost are largely in manufacturing, and new jobs are often in information technology, suggesting that the newly unemployed will have trouble competing for newly created jobs. If this is the case, what is it called?

A. structural mobility

B. intergenerational mobility

C. intragenerational mobility

D. absolute deprivation

E. a caste system

What kind of poverty is being measured in this figure

A. absolute deprivation

B. social welfare

C. invisible poverty

D. homelessness

E. relative deprivation

Oscar Lewis was the first to suggest that, because they are excluded from mainstream social life, the poor develop a way of life with fundamentally different values and goals, which make it much less likely that they will ever join the middle class. This way of life is usually called

A. the culture of poverty

B. the invisibility of poverty

C. the social contract

D. residential segregation

E. oppression norms

The sociologist Susan Mayer, in What Money Can't Buy, studied poverty and welfare and concluded that raising parental income had little effect on the future life chances of children born in poverty. Instead she concluded that character traits in parents like "diligence, honesty, good health, and reliability" lead to increased achievement in children. Which theory do her conclusions support.

A. conflict theory

B. structural functionalism

C. symbolic interactionism

D. Paul Fussell's living room scale

E. the culture of poverty

What are the positive consequences of racial and ethnic categories?

A. They help create hierarchy

B. They allow for split labor markets

C. They create a sense of identity and lead to feelings of solidarity

D. They help create conditions of inequality

E. They create a larger pool of people who can be forced to work in less desirable jobs.

The Brazilian census has traditionally only had four racial categories: preto, branco, amarelo and pardo. However, in everyday life, Brazilians have many other racial categories, including morgeno, mulateo, neguinho, and pretinho. Most of these terms don't have an equivalent in the United States. What does this tell you?

A. Race is a social construct

B. Brazil places more importance on symbolic ethnicity

C. The United States is less diverse than Brazil

D. Brazil has never used science to classify its population

E. Race doesn't matter in Brazil as much as it does in the United States

In the United States, Which of the following groups usually do not have a choice about displaying their race or ethnicity?

A. Asian

B. Hispanic

C. black

D. none of the above

E. all of the above

Despite demographic shifts, how can you tell that whites are still the dominant group in California?

A. They discriminate against other racial and ethnic groups

B. They remain dominant in terms of power, resources, and representation in social institutions

C. They are overrepresented in prisons

D. They are overrepresented as victims of violent crimes

E. Affirmative action policies are still in place

Plantation owners in America often argues that the Africans they imported were better off as slaves because they didn't have the mental capacity to run their own lives. Today this seems both racist and crazy, as clearly slaves had been fine when they lived in Africa. How could such racist beliefs flourish?

A. People are, by nature, hostile and look to blame their problems on others.

B. Such beliefs justify social arrangements between dominant and minority groups that benefit those who accept them.

C. People knew much less about world history then, so it seemed more plausible

D. Nineteenth-century science wasn't very well developed, so no authority figures could debunk racist beliefs

E. There were very few slaves in America, so not many people had first-hand experience with the issue

Which of the following is NOT an example of discrimination?

A. refusing to sell someone a house in a particular neighborhood because of their race

B. grading students unfairly because of race or gender

C. believing that African Americans are better dancers than white people

D. pulling over motorists based solely on their race

E. scrutinizing shoppers because of their race or ethnicity

How is institutional discrimination different from individual discrimination?

A. institutional discrimination involves attitudes or opinions

B. institutional discrimination can be either positive or negative

C. institutional discrimination is more systematic and widespread

D. institutional discrimination is less harmful

E. institutional discrimination almost never happens today, while individual discrimination is still very common

In 1993 six African American Secret Service agents filed a complaint with the Justice Department against Denny's for refusal of service because the restaurant took much longer to serve them than other customers. After they filed the complaint, thousands of other African Americans came forward with similar allegations. What are thse allegations evidence of?

A. situational ethnicity

B. assimilation

C. institutional discrimination

D. individual discrimination

E. internal colonialism

According to conflict theory, what is the real source of racism?

A. the need for social solidarity and group cohesion

B. the people who attempt to live a if they were members of a different racial group

C. the struggle for power and control

D. the desire for assimilation

E. the ways that people use cost-benefit analysis to decide if they want to display their ethnicity.

What is it called when someone lives as if they were a member of a different racial category than the one they were born into?

A. assimilation

B. cultural imperialism

C. racial self-hatred

D. racial passing

E. racial stereotyping

What major U.S. racial group has the lowest high school drop-out rate?

A. African Americans

B. Hispanics

C. Caucasians

D. Native Americans

E. Asian Americans

Which racial group has the highest median income?

A. Caucasians

B. African Americans

C. Hispanics

D. Native Americans

E. Asian Americans

What is it called when a minority group is absorbed into the dominant group?

A. segregation

B. population transfer

C. assimilation

D. internal colonialism

E. multiculturalism

According to Karl Marx, what is the most important factor in a person's social life?

A. strength of social bonds

B. religious beliefs

C. race and ethnicity

D. level of education

E. relationship to the means of production

Which of the following affect the methods used by sociological researchers

A. the methods they are trained in and feel comfortable with

B. the resources and fund available

C. what they want to accomplish

D. the time available to complete their projects

E. all of the above

Which social theorist is associated with communism as a political system

A. Auguste Comte

B. Talcott Parsons

C. Emile Durkeim

D. Max WEber

E. Karl Marx

One of Karl Marx's most important achievements was developing a theory of praxis. What does this mean that he thought intellectuals should do?

A. evaluate ideas based upon their usefulness in everyday life

B. constantly practice and develop the craft of social analysis

C. analyze and give meaning to every action

D. no just theorize about the world, but change it.

E. develop statistical models of economic processes

In the film "In The White Man's Image" who was the major proponent of the assimilation of Native Americans?

A. Comte

B. Spencer

C. Custer

D. Pratt

Regardless of which methodology they use, what are all sociologist trying to do

A. explain why poverty and inequality still exist

B. illuminate the connection between the individual and society

C. explain why social change happens

D. understand how our society is different from other cultures and other times

E. compare the present with the past

The social sciences are all those disciplines that study

A. human, or social, world.

B. the natural world

C. the relationship of people to places

D. the physical universe

E. communication

Sociologist observe society:

A. by studying society as if it were a concrete object, in the same way that a geologist studies rocks.

B. through the use of special scientific tools that allow unmediated access to the very heart of society.

C. by studying the various parts of society and the ways they interact and influence each other.

D. by studying the shape and boundaries of society as a whole

E. by utilizing the preconceptions, assumptions, and beliefs that come from living in a society

According to Karl Marx how could a belief in heaven as a regard for earthly suffering serve the interests of the ruling class

A. by making people meek

B. by using the church as a means to extract economic resources from the poor

C. by keeping the lower classes busy with religious actives so that they wouldn't have time to organize

D. by keeping the lower classes with gaudy spectacle

E. by keeping the lower class from demanding better treatment in this life

Which social theory was developed mostly in the United States?

A. symbolic interactionism

B. conflict theory

C. positivism

D. structural functionalism

E. Marxism

During the American occupation of Japan following World War II, the Japanese observed soldiers paying baseball and later adopted it as one of their favorite pastimes. This is an example of:

A. cultural invention

B. cultural reformulation

C. cultural adaptation

D. cultural lag

E. cultural diffusion

According to class lecture, what caused the first significant shift toward inequality for human society/groups?

A. the invention of the wheel

B. the scientific age

C. the industrial revolution

D. agriculture

A traffic cop has pulled over a speeder, only to discover that he has stopped a close friend. The police officer is torn, because his professional obligations demand that he punish the speeder, but his personal obligations suggest tat he should give a friend a break. What is this called?

A. an expression of behavior

B. role conflict

C. ego strain

D. role strain

E. dramaturgy

The subsistence strategy, for most human existence was

From a sociological perspective, what constitutes a minority?

Sociology can be defined as the systematic and scientific study of human society and social behavior. Given this definition, what level of social structure might sociologist examine?

Which of the following is a latent function of the educational system in the United States

John has studied for two decades. He has focused on the significant structures in society and has concluded that society always finds a balance. John has used a (blank) perspective from a (blank) perspective

which of the following statements best describes the approach taken by macrosociologists?