1 Foundations
The systematic study of society and social interaction.
Sociology
An established scholarly research method that involves asking a question, researching existing sources, forming a hypothesis, designing and conducting a study, and drawing conclusions
Scientific Method
The shared beliefs, practices, and material objects of a group of people
Culture
The influence of our genetic makeup on self-development
Nature
A violation of contextual, cultural, or social norms
Deviance
A system of ranking individuals and groups within societies
Social Stratification
shared culture, which may include heritage, language, religion, and more
Ethnicity
The ability to understand how your own past relates to that of other people, as well as to history in general and societal structures in particular.
Sociological Imagination
A scholarly research step that entails identifying and studying all existing studies on a topic to create a basis for new research
Literature Review
A culture’s standard for discerning what is good and just in society
Values
A person’s distinct sense of identity as developed through social interaction
Self
The means of enforcing rules
Sanctions
is the state of unequal distribution of valued goods and opportunities
Social Inequality
a theory that suggests that the dominant group will displace its unfocused aggression onto a subordinate group
Scapegoat Theory
Issues that lie beyond one’s personal control and the range of one’s inner life, rooted in society instead of at the individual level
Public Issues
A variable changed by other variables
Dependent Variable
The standards a society would like to embrace and live up to
Ideal Culture
The process wherein people come to understand societal norms and expectations, accept society’s beliefs, and become aware of societal values
Socialization
A label that describes the chief characteristic of an individual
Master Status
a system in which people are born into a social standing that they will retain their entire lives
Caste System
the use by law enforcement by looking at race alone when determining whether to stop and detain
Racial Profiling
A wide-scale view of the role of social structures within a society
Macro-Level Theories
Describes the tendency of people to change their behavior because they know they are being watched as part of a study
Hawthorne Effect
the visible and invisible rules of conduct through which societies are structured
Norms
an idea that becomes true when acted upon; the way that a person’s beliefs can affect their behavior
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
the idea that the ascribing of a deviant behavior to another person by members of society affects how a person self-identifies and behaves; related to self-fulfilling prophecy
Labeling Theory
an ideal system in which demonstrated personal effort and ability—or merit—determines social standing
Meritocracy
the process by which a minority individual or group takes on the characteristics of the dominant culture
Assimiliation
Philosophical and theoretical frameworks used within a discipline to formulate theories, generalizations, and the experiments performed in support of them
Paradigms
Specific explanations of abstract concepts that a researcher plans to study
Operational Definitions
patterns or traits that are globally common to all societies
cultural universals
A situation when one or more of an individual’s roles clash
Role Conflict
Activities against the law, but that do not result in injury to any individual other than the person who engages in them
Victimless Crime
a societal change that enables a whole group of people to move up or down the class ladder
Structural Mobility
the ideal of the United States as a “salad bowl:” a mixture of different cultures where each culture retains its own identity and yet adds to the “flavor” of the whole (compare with “melting pot”)
Pluralism