| A | B |
|---|
| I | the part of the self that accounts for unlearned |
| me | the part of the self formed through socialization |
| absolute poverty | the absence of enough money to secure life's necessities |
| achieved status | a position you have in society that you earned or chose |
| age stratification | the unequal distribution of scarce resources based on age |
| ageism | a set of beliefs |
| agricultural society | a preindustrial society known for planting crops |
| anomie | a social condition in which norms are weak |
| anticipatory socialization | the voluntary process of preparing to accept new norms |
| ascribed status | a position you have in society that you had no choice about and did not earn |
| assimilation | Acceptance of a minority: the blending or fusing of minority groups into the dominant society (melting pot idea) |
| Auguste Comte | father of sociology; 1st to suggest using scientific data to study society |
| beliefs | ideas about the nature of reality |
| biological determinism | principle that behavioral differences are the result of inherited physical characteristics |
| bourgeoisie | in Karl Marx's theories; class that owns and controls wealth (also called capitalists) |
| bourgeoisie | Marx's theory about class conflict: class that owns the means of production |
| case study | intense study of a single group |
| caste system | a stratification structure that does not allow for social mobility |
| causation | the belief that events occur in predictable ways and that one event leads to another |
| class consciousness | identification with the goals and interests of a social class |
| closed-ended questions | questions a person must answer by choosing from a limited |
| coercion | a social interaction in which individuals or groups are forced to give in to the will of other individuals or groups |
| conflict perspective | one of the 3 theoretical perspectives of sociology: emphasizes the role of conflict |
| conflict | a form of social interaction in which groups work against each other for a larger share of the rewards |
| conformity | behavior that matches group expectations |
| control theory | functionalist theory of deviance stating that conformity to social norms depends on the presence of strong bonds between individuals and society |
| conventional social wisdom | ideas about society that people assume are true (not scientific) |
| cooperation | a form of social interaction in which individuals or groups combine their efforts to reach a goal |
| correlation | a measure of the relationship between two variables |
| counterculture | a subculture deliberately and consciously opposed to certain central beliefs or attitudes of the dominant culture (Ex: gangs |
| crime | an act that violates laws |
| criminal justice system | institutions and processes responsible for enforcing criminal statuses |
| cultural particulars | the ways in which a culture expresses universal traits (Ex: parenting is carried out differently from one culture to another) |
| cultural pluralism | Acceptance of a minority: desire of a group to maintain some sense of identity separate from the dominant group (tossed salad idea) |
| cultural universals | general cultural traits that exist in all cultures |
| culture | knowledge |
| de facto segregation | Rejection of a minority: denial of equal access based on everyday practice |
| de jure segregation | Rejection of a minority: denial of equal access based on the law |
| deduction | devising a hypothesis to test a theory |
| dependent variable | a characteristic that reflects a change |
| desocialization | the process of giving up old norms |
| deterrence | approach to crime control that discourages criminal acts by threatening punishment |
| deviance | behavior that departs from societal or group norms |
| differential association theory | symbolic interactionist theory of deviance stating that people learn deviance in proportion to the number of deviant acts they are exposed to |
| discrimination | BEHAVIOR: treating people differently based on ethnicity |
| dramaturgy | introduced by interactionist Goffman; human interaction is like a play on a stage |
| drive | impulse to reduce discomfort |
| dysfunction | negative consequence of an aspect of society |
| Emile Durkheim | 1st sociologist to use data and statistics to prove theories |
| ethnic minority | group identified by cultural |
| ethnocentrism | judging others in terms of one's own cultural standards (being so strongly committed to your culture that you can't imagine any other way of life) |
| false consciousness | Marx's theory about class conflict: adoption of the ideas of the dominant class by the less powerful class |
| feminization of poverty | a trend in U.S. society in which women and children make up an increasing proportion of the poor |
| field research | research that takes place in a natural (not a laboratory) setting |
| folkways | norms that lack moral significance |
| formal sanctions | rewards or punishments given by people with special authority |
| functionalism | one of the 3 theoretical perspectives of sociology: emphasizes the contributions of each part of society |
| game stage | development of role taking; children anticipate the actions of others based on social rules |
| gemeinschaft | Tönnies' view that preindustrial society was like a community based on intimate relationships |
| gender identity | a sense of being male or female based on learned cultural values |
| gender socialization | the social process of learning how to act as a boy or girl |
| generalized other | integrated conception of the norms |
| genocide | Rejection of a minority: the systematic effort to destroy an entire population |
| gesellschaft | Tönnies' view that industrial society was A "society" based on weak family ties |
| group behavior | people behave differently in groups; difficult to predict |
| Harriet Martineau | translated Comte's work; pioneering feminist (spoke against slavery and oppression of women) |
| hate crime | a criminal act motivated by negative beliefs about someone because of their race |
| Herbert Spencer | society is like a human body; introduced theory of Social Darwinism |
| hidden curriculum | the informal and unofficial aspects of culture that children are taught in school |
| hidden unemployment | unemployment that includes people not counted in the traditional unemployment categories |
| horizontal mobility | a change in occupation within the same social class |
| horticultural society | a preindustrial society known for planting crops |
| hunting and gathering society | a preindustrial society that was nomadic based on cooperation and the sharing of possessions |
| hypothesis of linguistic relativity | theory stating that our idea of reality depends largely upon language |
| hypothesis | testable statement of relationships among variables |
| ideal culture | cultural guidelines that group members claim to accept (but may not reflect the actual behavior of the group) |
| imitation stage | Mead's first stage in the development of role taking; children begin to imitate behaviors without understanding why |
| incarceration | approach to crime control in which the main goal is to protect society by keeping criminals in prison |
| income | amount of money received by an individual or group over a specific time period (what you earn) |
| independent variable | a characteristic that causes something to occur |
| induction | devising a theory to account for observed patterns |
| Industrial Revolution | historical time period when sociology got its start |
| industrial society | a society dependent on science and technology to produce goods and services |
| informal sanctions | rewards or punishments that can be applied by most members of a group (not necessarily by those in authority) |
| innovation | strain theory: person who accepts the goal but not the means of achieving it |
| instincts | innate (unlearned) patterns of behavior |
| institutionalized discrimination | unfair practices that grow out of common behaviors and attitudes and that are a part of the structure of a society |
| inter-generational mobility | a change in status or class from one generation to the next |
| interest group | a group organized to influence political decision making |
| intervening variable | a variable that changes the relationship between an independent and a dependent variable |
| interview | a survey method in which a trained researcher asks questions and records the answers |
| Jane Addams | Co-founded Hull House and worked with poor; won Nobel Peace Prize; discriminated against because she was a woman and didn't teach in a university |
| Karl Marx | social scientists should try to help not just study society; class conflict; father of communism |
| labeling theory | symbolic interactionist theory of deviance stating that society creates deviance by identifying particular members as deviant |
| latent functions | unintended and unrecognized consequences of an aspect of society |
| law | a norm that is formally defined and enforced by officials |
| looking-glass self | an image of yourself based on what you believe others think of you |
| lower-upper class | very wealthy upper class; gained wealth through achievement or effort |
| manifest functions | intended and recognized consequences of an aspect of society |
| mass media | means of communication designed to reach the general population |
| master status | a position you hold in society that affects most other aspects of your life |
| material culture | the concrete |
| Max Weber | Verstehen: put yourself in someone's shoes to understand behavior; rationalization: use reason and data to study society |
| mean | add the numbers up and then divide the sum by the number of numbers you were dealing with (like finding the average) |
| mechanical solidarity | Durkheim's idea of a type of social unity achieved by people doing the same type of work and holding the same values (religion |
| mechanization | the process of changing from human and animal power to machine power |
| median | the "middle" number in the set of numbers that you are dealing with (half are bigger and half are smaller) |
| middle-middle class | owners of small businesses and farms; small-town doctors and lawyers; clergy |
| minority | a group of people with physical or cultural traits different from those of the dominant group in the society |
| mode | the number in a set that appears most frequently |
| mores | norms of great moral significance that are vital to the well-being of a society |
| multiple causation | the belief that an event occurs as a result of several factors working in combination |
| negative deviance | behavior that underconforms to accepted norms |
| nonmaterial culture | ideas |
| norms | rules defining appropriate and inappropriate behavior |
| obligation | behavior we are expected to perform for other people due to our status |
| occupational sex segregation | the concentration of women in lower-status positions |
| open-class system | a system in which social class is based on merit and individual effort; movement is allowed between classes |
| open-ended questions | questions a person is to answer in his or her own words |
| organic solidarity | Durkheim's idea of a type of social unity achieved through the interdependence of its members' specialized roles and functions |
| participant observation | a case study where the researcher becomes a member of the group being studied |
| pastoral society | a preindustrial society known for the domestication of animals and long-term settlements |
| peer group | set of individuals of roughly the same age and interests |
| perspective | a point of view |
| play stage | Mead's second stage in the development of role taking; children act in ways they imagine other people would |
| population | a group of people with certain specified characteristics |
| positive deviance | behavior that overconforms to social expectations |
| positivism | using scientific methods to obtain data that one can be sure of |
| postindustrial society | a society in which the economic emphasis is on providing services and information instead of goods |
| power | the ability to control the behavior of others |
| power | the ability to control the behavior of others |
| prejudice | ATTITUDE: widely held negative attitudes toward a group (minority or majority) and its individual members |
| prestige | recognition |
| primary deviance | when people break norms occasionally (not part of their regular lifestyle) |
| proletariat | in Karl Marx's theories; working class who need to revolt in order to bring about the classless society |
| proletariat | Marx's theory about class conflict: class that labors without owning the means of production |
| qualitative research | research based on written or spoken narratives |
| qualitative variable | a characteristic that is defined by its presence or absence in a category |
| quantitative research | research based on numbers and mathematical calculations |
| quantitative variable | a characteristic that can be measured numerically |
| questionnaire | a written set of questions to be answered by a research participant |
| race | inherited physical characteristics that are considered important within a society |
| racism | an extreme form of prejudice that assumes superiority of one group over others |
| real culture | actual behavior patterns of members of a group (may conflict with accepted cultural guidelines) |
| rebellion | strain theory: person who rejects the goal and the means for a new goal |
| recidivism | a repetition of or return to criminal behavior |
| reference group | group whose norms and values are used to guide behavior; group with whom you identify |
| reflex | automatic reaction to physical stimulus |
| rehabilitation | approach to crime control in which the main goal is to change or reform a criminal through socialization |
| relative poverty | a measure of poverty based on the economic disparity between those at the bottom of a society and the rest of the society |
| representative sample | a sample that accurately reflects the characteristics of the population as a whole |
| research ethics | The application of moral rules and professional codes of conduct to the collection |
| resocialization | the process of adopting new norms |
| retreatism | strain theory: person who doesn't accept the goal or the means and who withdraws from society |
| retribution | approach to crime control in which punishment is intended to make criminals pay compensation for their acts |
| right | behavior we expect to get from other people due to our status |
| ritualism | strain theory: person who doesn't accept the goal but just keeps performing the routines |
| role conflict | when the roles of the different statuses you occupy clash with one another |
| role performance | the act of carrying out of your role(s) in society |
| role strain | when you have trouble coping with all the different roles of one status |
| role taking | assuming the viewpoint of another person and using that viewpoint to shape the self-concept |
| role | an expected behavior associated with a particular status |
| sample | a group of people that represents a larger population |
| sanctions | rewards and punishments used to encourage people to follow norms |
| scientific method | the recognition and formulation of a problem |
| secondary analysis | using precollected information for data collection and research purposes |
| secondary deviance | when a person's life and identity are organized around breaking norms |
| self-concept | an image of yourself as having an identity separate from other people |
| self-fulfilling prophecy | an expectation that leads to behavior that causes the expectation to become reality |
| sex | classification of people as male or female based on biological characteristics |
| sexism | a set of beliefs |
| significant others | those people whose reactions are most important to your self-concept |
| social categories | groups that share a social characteristic such as age |
| social class | segment of society whose members hold similar amounts of resources and share values |
| social control | ways society has to encourage conformity to society's norms |
| social exchange | a form of social interaction in which a voluntary action performed in the expectation of getting a reward in return |
| social interaction | the process of influencing or reacting to other people in groups |
| social mobility | the movement of individuals or groups between social classes |
| social sanctions | rewards or punishments that encourage conformity to social norms |
| social solidarity | the degree to which a society is unified (what is the glue that holds it together) |
| social stratification | ranking of people or groups according to their unequal access to scarce resources |
| social structure | the patterned interaction of people in social relationships |
| social structure | the underlying pattern of social relationships |
| socialization | the cultural process of learning to participate in group life |
| society | a group of people living within defined territorial borders and who share a common culture |
| sociological imagination | ability to see the relationship between events and one's personal life |
| sociological perspective | point of view for sociologists: group not individual |
| sociology | the scientific study of social structure |
| spurious correlation | a relationship between two variables that is actually caused by a third factor |
| status set | all the positions you hold in a society at a particular time |
| status | a position you have in society |
| stereotype | a distorted |
| stigma | an undesirable trait or label that is used to characterize someone |
| strain theory | functionalist theory of deviance stating that deviance is more likely to occur when a gap exists between cultural goals and the ability to achieve these goals by legitimate means |
| subculture | a group that is part of the dominant culture but that differs from it in some important respects (Ex: youth |
| subjugation | Rejection of a minority: process by which a minority group is denied equal access to the benefits of a society |
| survey | research method in which people are asked and respond to questions |
| symbol | anything that stands for something else and has an agreed-upon meaning attached to it |
| symbolic interactionism | one of the 3 theoretical perspectives of sociology: focuses on the interactions among people based on mutually understood symbols |
| taboo | a norm so strong that its violation demands punishment by the group |
| theoretical perspective | a set of assumptions about an area of study |
| total institutions | places in which people are separated from the rest of society and controlled by officials in charge |
| underclass | people typically unemployed who came from families that have been poor for generations |
| upper-middle class | those who have been successful in business |
| upper-upper class | the "aristocracy" of the U.S.; old money families |
| urbanization | the shift in a population from the country to the city |
| values | broad ideas about what most people in a society consider to be desirable |
| variable | a characteristic that is subject to change |
| vertical mobility | a change upward or downward in occupational status or social class |
| victim discounting | the process of reducing the seriousness of the crimes that injure people of lower status |
| W.E.B. Dubois | African American who worked to prove that blacks were not mentally inferior to whites |
| wealth | total economic resources held by a person or group (what you own) |
| white-collar crime | any crime committed by respectable and high-status people through their jobs |
| working class | roofers |
| working poor | people employed in low-skill jobs with the lowest pay who do not earn enough to rise out of poverty |
