Cultural & Social Norms
These are the established standards of behavior maintained by a society.
What are norms?
George Ritzer used this term to describe the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of society.
What is McDonaldization?
Charles Horton Cooley coined this phrase to emphasize that our self-concept is a product of our social interactions with other people.
What is the looking-glass self?
This is the single most important agent of socialization for an individual, especially during infancy and childhood.
What is the family?
This is a social position assigned to a person by society without regard for the person's unique talents or characteristics, often given at birth.
What is an ascribed status?
This term describes a common practice or belief found in every culture
What is a cultural universal?
This is the process by which a cultural item spreads from group to group or society to society.
What is diffusion?
According to George Herbert Mead, this is the process of mentally assuming the perspective of another and responding from that imagined viewpoint.
What is role-taking?
This term refers to processes of socialization in which a person rehearses for future positions, occupations, and social relationships.
What is anticipatory socialization?
This term refers to a status that dominates others and thereby determines a person's general position in society.
These norms are generally written down and specify strict punishments for violators.
What are formal norms (or laws)?
This is a subculture that deliberately and consciously opposes certain central aspects of the broader, dominant culture.
What is a counterculture?
In Mead's stages of the self, children in THIS stage merely imitate the people around them without understanding the underlying social relationships.
What is the preparatory stage?
This process involves discarding former behavior patterns and accepting new ones as part of a transition in one's life.
What is resocialization?
This term is defined as "a community, often large and impersonal, with little commitment to the group or consensus on values"
What is Gesellschaft?
This is the practice of viewing people's behavior from the perspective of their own culture rather than judging it by one's own cultural standards.
What is cultural relativism?
This term describes the process of making known or sharing the existence of an aspect of reality
What is discovery?
This is Mead's term for the attitudes, viewpoints, and expectations of society as a whole that a child takes into account in their behavior.
What is the generalized other?
This phrase is used to describe rituals that mark a symbolic transition from one social position to another
What are rites of passage?
This phrase is used to describe the long-term social trends resulting from the interplay of continuity, innovation, and selection
What is sociocultural evolution?
This terms describes the efforts people make to maintain the proper image and avoid public embarassment
What is face-work?
When physical culture changes faster than nonmaterial culture (like values and laws) can keep up, society experiences this phenomenon
What is cultural lag?
Erving Goffman coined this term to describe an institution that regulates all aspects of a person's life under a single authority, such as a prison or military boot camp.
What is a total institution?
This term refers to a stressful period of self-evaluation that commonly occurs during a person's 40s or 50s when they realize they have not achieved certain life goals.
What is a midlife crisis?
This term describes the difficulty that arises when the same social postion imposes conflicting demands and expectations
What is role strain?