Understanding the Self
This term refers to how we define ourselves as individuals — our personal traits, likes, and experiences.
Personal Identity
The shared beliefs, behaviors, and material objects that define a group of people.
Culture
a standardized set of social norms and beliefs organized to meet fundamental societal needs. They are enduring patterns of behavior that structure our lives.
Social Institutions
the lifelong process of learning the culture (norms, values, beliefs) and social skills necessary to function within your society.
Socialization
the systematic study of society and human social behavior — how people interact, how groups are organized, and how social structures, institutions, and cultures shape our lives.
Sociology
This refers to how others see us based on group membership — like gender, class, or ethnicity.
Social Identity
These are shared rules that guide how people should behave in specific situations.
Norms
The relatively stable pattern of social relationships among individuals and groups in a society. It is the framework that organizes our social world and interactions.
Social Structure
This perspective views society as a system whose parts work together to promote stability and order.
Functionalism
Unearned advantages or benefits that some people have because of their social position or group membership.
Priviledge
This concept describes the image we have of ourselves, shaped by social interactions and feedback from others.
Self Image
These represent deeply held beliefs about what is good, desirable, or proper in a society.
Values
These societies see the first accumulation of surplus — resources beyond immediate needs. That surplus enables social differentiation (specialization), leadership, and inequality.
Pastoral & Horticultural Societies
This theory focuses on inequality, power struggles, and competition for scarce resources.
Conflict Theory
the process by which societies change over time as they adopt new technologies
Sociocultural evolution
When a person faces tension between the expectations of one single role, it’s called this.
Role Strain
Objects, gestures, or words that carry particular meaning recognized by members of a culture.
Symbols
Characterized by a shift from manufacturing to information, services, and technology-based economies. The tech, finance, and service sectors dominate; manufacturing declines in relative importance.
Technological advancement tends to exacerbate inequality—both within societies and among societies.
Post-Industrial Societies
his theory examines how people use symbols and everyday interactions to create meaning.
Symbolic Interactionalism
The status that dominates all others and shapes a person's entire life and social identity (e.g., being a President, a person with a severe disability, or a professional athlete).
Master Status
When someone struggles to meet the expectations of two or more roles at the same time, this occurs.
Role Conflict
A group that rejects and actively opposes the dominant culture’s values and norms.
Counter Culture
What are the 5 traditional social institutions
This sociologist categorized human societies by the level of their technological development, especially how they produced food.
Gerhard Lenski
According to Gerhard Lenski, societies develop and change as they gain new forms of this.
Technology