Chapter 1: Sociology
The scientific study of human social relationships, groups, and societies
Sociology
Types of data that expresses qualities and does not have numerical values
Qualitative data
The beliefs, norms, behaviors, languages, and products common to the members of a particular group that bring meaning to their social worlds
Culture
The process by which people learn the culture of their society
Socialization
The ability to mobilize resources and achieve a goal despite the resistance of others
Power
An concept created by sociologist C. Wright Mills that examines the intersection between history and biography through agents and structures
The sociological imagination
Broad theories about the social world but breaks them down into more specific and testable hypothesis
Deductive reasoning
A symbolic system composed of verbal, nonverbal, and written representations that are vehicles for conveying meaning
Language
Small groups characterized by intense emotional ties, face-to-face interaction, intimacy, and a strong, enduring sense of commitment
Primary groups
A process by which members of a group ignore ways of thinking and plans of action that go against the group consensus
Groupthink
A state of normlessness that occurs when people lose touch with the shared rules and values that give order and meaning to their lives
Anomie
Two variables : both increase or decrease in tandem
Positive Relationship
Wealth in the form of knowledge, ideas, verbal skills, and ways of thinking and behaving
Cultural capital
These are the groups or institutions that socialize us, like family, school, sports, religion, sports, peers, and mass media
Agents of socialization
Money and material that can be used to access valued goods and services
Economic capital
An approach to research that is based on scientific evidence
The theory of positivism
Are my results consistent with the findings of different studies of the same thing or with the findings of the same study over time?
Reliability
Particular ideas that people accept as true
Beliefs
The self-image that results from our interpretation of other people’s views of us
Cooley's "Looking Glass Self"
This German sociologist was the first to call attention to the importance and influence of group size on people’s behaviors. He argued that the smaller the group, the more intimate the relationship is, but it is also less stable
Georg Simmel
A type of social solidarity that states that people are connected through necessity; people from different backgrounds work together to contribute to society
Organic solidarity
2 or more variables look connected because of something else that is not being measured
Spurious relationship
Strongly held norms, the violation of which seriously offends the standards of acceptable conduct of most people within a particular culture
Mores
How a person acts when they aren’t putting on a presentation of themself
Backstage self
There is an inevitable tendency for a large-scale bureaucratic organization to become ruled undemocratically by a handful of people
The Iron law of oligarchy