| A | B |
|---|
| ideal type | A description comprised of the essential characteristics of a feature of society. |
| dysfunctional | Containing a negative consequence for the stability of the social system. |
| anthropology | The comparative study of past and present cultures. |
| sociological imagination | The ability to see the connection between the larger world and your personal life. |
| economics | The study of the choices people make in an effort to satisfy their needs and wants. |
| political science | Study of the organization and operation of governments. |
| function | The consequence that an element of society produces for the maintenance of its social system. |
| symbol | Anything that represents something else. |
| latent function | The unintended and unrecognized consequence of an element of society. |
| social phenomena | Observable facts or events that involve human society. |
| social psychology | The study of how the social environment affects an individual’s behavior and personality. |
| functionalist perspective | The view of society as a set of interrelated parts that work together to produce a stable social system. |
| theoretical perspectives | A general set of assumptions about the nature of things. |
| theory | An explanation of the relationships among particular phenomena. |
| history | The study of past events. |
| sociological perspective | A viewing of the behavior of groups in a systematic way. |
| social Darwinism | Perspective that holds that societies evolve toward stability and perfection. |
| psychology | The social science that deals with the behavior and thinking of organisms. |
| manifest function | The intended and recognized consequence of some element of society. |
| Verstehen | Principle that involves an attempt to understand the meanings individuals attach to their actions. |
| language | The organization of written or spoken symbols into a standardized system. |
| values | Shared beliefs about what is good or bad, right or wrong, desirable or undesirable. |
| subculture | A group that shares values, norms, and behaviors that are not shared by the entire population. |
| culture | All the shared products of human groups, including both physical objects and the beliefs, values, and behaviors shared by a group. |
| society | A group of interdependent people who have organized in such a way as to share a common culture and feeling of unity. |
| norms | The shared rules of conduct that tell people how to act in specific situations. |
| folkways | Norms that describe socially acceptable behavior but do not have great moral significance attached to them. |
| mores | Norms that have great moral significance attached to them. |
| cultural universals | Certain features that are developed to ensure the fulfillment of some needs of society and are common to all cultures. |
| cultural relativism | The belief that cultures should be judged by their own standards rather than by applying the standards of another culture. |
| informal sanction | A spontaneuous expression of approval or disapproval given by an individual or a group. |
| social movement | A long-term conscious effort to promote or prevent social change. |
| cultural lag | Situation in which some aspects of the culture change less rapidly, or lag behind, other aspects of the same culture. |
| ideology | A system of beliefs or ideas that justifies the social, moral, religious, political, or economic interests held by a group or by society. |
| internalization | The process by which a norm becomes a part of an individual’s personality, thus conditioning that individual to conform to society’s expectations. |
| Robin M. Williams | A sociologist who identified a set of 15 values that are central to the American way of life. |
| technology | The knowledge and tools that people use to manipulate their environment. |
| positive sanction | An action that rewards a particular kind of behavior. |
| diffusion | The process of spreading culture traits from one society to another. |
| reformulation | The process of adapting borrowed cultural traits. |
| negative sanction | A punishment or the threat of punishment used to enforce conformity. |
| narcissism | Extreme self-centeredness. |
| vested interests | A resistance to any change that threatens a person’s security or standard of living. |
| James M. Henslin | Sociologist that suggested that values such as education might be considered core values. |
| ethnocentrism | The tendency to view one’s own culture or group as superior to others. |
| personality | the sum of total behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, and values that are characteristic of an individual |
| resocializing | a break with past experiences and the learning of new values and norms |
| role-taking | taking or pretending to take the role of others |
| total institution | a setting in which people are isolated from the rest of society for a set period of time and are subject to tight control |
| heredity | the transmission of genetic characteristics from parents to children |
| significant others | people that include parents, siblings, relatives, and others who have a direct influence on our socialization |
| instinct | an unchanging, biologically inherited behavior pattern |
| mass media | instruments of communication that reach large audiences with no personal contact between those sending the information and those receiving it |
| looking-glass self | the interactive process by which we develop an image of ourselves based on how we imagine we appear to others |
| sociobiology | the systematic study of the biological basis of all social behavior |
| Tabula Rasa | idea that each individual is born without a personality |
| aptitude | a capacity to learn a particular skill or acquire a particular body of knowledge |
| agents of socialization | the specific individuals, groups and institutions that enable socialization to take place |
| feral children | wild or untamed children; children with few human characteristics other than appearance |
| I | the unsocialized, spontaneous, self-interested component of personality and self-identity |
| socialization | the interactive process through which people learn the basic skills values, beliefs, and behavior patterns of a society |
| me | the part of ourselves that is aware of the expectations and attitudes of society; the socialized self |
| generalized other | the internalized attitudes, expectations, and viewpoints of society |
| self | the conscious awareness of possessing a distinct identity that separates you and your environment from other members of society |
| peer group | a primary group composed of individuals of roughly equal age and similar social characteristics |
| John B. Watson | used Pavlov's work with dogs and said that humans could be trained to become whatever we want them to become |
| the Ik | group that lived in Northern Uganda that is a powerful example of the effects of cultural environment on personality development |
| Kingsley Davis | reported on the cases of Anna and Isabelle and showed the devastating effects isolation in childhood |
| Rene Spitz | studied the effects of institutionalization on a group of infants living in an orphanage |
| John Locke | developed the theory called "Tabula Rasa" |
| Charles Horton Cooley | developed the theory called "Looking-glass self" |
| George Herbert Mead | developed the theory called "Role-taking" |
