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SOC-101

What is Sociology?

What is Sociology?

Systematic study of social behavior and human groups interacting

The key element is interaction Every kind of group 2 2 billion

The influence of social relationships upon peoples attitudes/behaviors

and how societies are established and change.

To identify recurring patterns of social behavior and then identify their

influences

Sociological perspective

An awareness of the relationship between the individual and the wider

society

Ex: Alcoholic driving Crashes in to you Kills you

The alcoholic is the individual and you/your death issociety and its impact is your death

Ex: Alcoholic Affects the law (Cops, roadblocks, courts, etc)

Expense ($)

Ex: Alcoholic Affects the families Loss of inhibitions +

Expense ($)

Ex: Alcoholic Affects medicine Waiting for liver Expense

($)

Why alcoholism?

Problem solving

Childhood (Parents drank) Depression

Genetics (?) (Unproven)

Peers (!)

Media (!!) (Song from Cheers)(Commercials)

Perception = Reality?

Guy leaving a bar at 8 am

Perception: Alcoholic

Reality: Works nights, having his dinner now, before sleep

Blondes

Perception: Dumb Reality: Not true

Some Basics

Sociological Thinkers

Auguste Comte (-1857)

Father of sociology

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Developed sociology as a science

Most writings devoted to making a more rational society

More rational interaction between people

French Revolution Executions by Guillotine Wait a minute, we

need to be rational

Harriet Martineau English, came post-Comte. Did a lot of work with translating Comtes

views.

Wrote on all aspects of society at the time, especially within England

Politics, womens rights, employment, how to improve society

etc.

Prolific writer + sociologist

Herbert Spencer (1820 1903)

Social Darwinism

Survival of fittest In society the people who were smart

enough to survive in business, and youre too dumb to succeed,you deserve to lose.

Not quite fittest, but smartest.

Friend of business and business interests (tycoons, oil

companies, etc)

You dont have to apologize to anyone for being

successful, you made your money, you deserve it.

E. Durkheim (1858 1917)

Brought the scientific method in to the field of sociology

Known for his study of religion & society

Known for his extremely extensive study on suicide (Elderly males killthemselves most often)

Typically:

65+ no friends, no family left.

Generally speaking the older you get beyond 65 the higher the

suicide rate goes.

Do not belong to any social organizations, not joiners.

Not Catholic

Due to absolution of confession + comradery of Mass

In summary, they live alone

Anomie (purposelessness) Max Weber

Religion main force in social change (humanistic)

Verstehen = Insight

Cannot look at society purely objectively, must be some

subjective measure involved in understanding why people act a

certain way.

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Karl Marx (philosopher more than sociologist)

Wrote the Communist Manifesto (1848)

Took what Heigl had thought (Invented Communism)

Predicates everything as being based on a class struggle

(Rich vs. Poor)

This would lead to a revolution, and once the poor took

over, Communism would take over.

Conflict in society

Charles Couley

Microsociologist (small groups are very important in terms of sociology)

Looked at families, relationships, etc

Jane Adams

One of our first social workers

Hull House

Settlement house where you could go to get help settling in the

community

Job information, healthcare information, etc

R. Merton

Believed in combining micro- and macro- in to one sociology

Known for group studies, laboratory studies of individuals, group

conformity, and studies of urbanization

W. E.B. DuBois

First black sociologist

Essay kind of reporting (mostly gone from sociology now)

Worked with minority groups

Types of Sociology

Microsociologists: Look at the world as being based on how small groups

react and interact

Macrosociologists Look at the world as being based on how large groups

react and interact

Most Important Aspect of Sociology

FCI: Functionist, Conflict, Interactionist

Three main sociological perspectives (or theories)

Functionist perspective

Oldest

Totally macro-

T. Parsons was a chief

Believe society is composed of interconnected parts, for

society to maintain stability, all parts are necessary, no

parts should be removed from the chain.

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Think everyone serves a function

If the part is not useful it will dissipate over time, of

its own accord.

Society is a chain link fence, one link of the

fence is crime, functionists argue we cant

get rid of it, all we can do is lock thecriminals up.

Three Types of Function

Manifest function

Intended function of society

Conscious function

Ex: Attend college

Latent function

Unintended function that occurs

Ex: While in college you meet your future

wife Dysfunction (some controversy over whether this is

a real function)

Occur in society when society is disrupted

Ex: $350 Billion to banks in US, no one

accountable as to where money has gone.

Now were giving $350 billion more to

replace the unaccounted for money. Tax

rates in 5 years ^.

Conflict Perspective Is a macro- concept

Marx

Society is in a constant struggle (conflict) between

groups

White v. Black, Black v. Hispanic, Boss v. Workers

Everything that occurs is in conflict. Religions,

governments, economic systems, etc.

Interactionist (Symbolic)

Only micro-

Look at human aspect of society

Concerned not with objective macro- but subjective micro- Looking at, basically, how people interact with each other.

Do not look at large groups, but small group relationships

Frequently this interaction causes people to become

actors in society and as actors they use symbols to

meet their goals.

Guy giving you the finger = symbolic interactionist

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Indicating hes not happy with what you did,

no other way to interpret it.

Some argue that you dont even need to interpret via

voice what someone is saying to you, youll be able to tell

just via facial features and expressions what you feel

Email to Aprils42282@yahoo.com

Sociological Research

Research Design (Research Model)

1. Select a topic

a. Make sure its narrow enough

2. Define the problem

3. Review the literature

4. Formulate a hypothesis

5. Choose a research method

a. Survey

i. Questionnaire

1. If you use these in your study, you need to

understand you will not get back as many as

you send out.

2. Inexpensive

ii.Interviews

1. Like Gallup. If you use a good method, youll get

good results.

2. More expensive than a questionnaire, must train

the people doing the interviewb. Documents

i. Birth certificates, death certificates, divorce decrees,

etc.

ii.Also not expensive

c. Experiments

i. Dont do a lot in sociology. Dealing with human beings,

dont want to manipulate them.

d. Participant Observation

i. Watching peoples behavior, observing behavior.

e. Secondary analysis

i. Inexpensive, going back and looking at other studies.

Meta-analysis.

f. Unobtrusive measures

i. Watching someone but they are unaware they are

being observed

ii.Example is NYC, wanting to find out why people were

not throwing their garbage in the trash cans. Hired a

mailto:Aprils42282@yahoo.commailto:Aprils42282@yahoo.commailto:Aprils42282@yahoo.commailto:Aprils42282@yahoo.com

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company. That company was paid $1m, guy hired 10

people to stand at 10 busiest intersections from 8am

7pm and watched people throwing stuff out. What did

he see? Cans didnt have large enough openings.

People essentially missed.

6. Collect the data7. Analyze the results

a. Peer review

i. Other people, not involved in the study, review it for

accuracy.

b. Put it all together. Statistically valid?

8. Share the results

a. Publish your research in a journal

9. This stimulates more ideas for research

10.Which generate hypothesis

11.Begin at 1

Experiment

Human Subjects Random Assignment Experimental Group,Control Group

The more people in your sample, the more validity to your study.

The longer your study, the more validity to your study.

Validity: The degree to which a measure accurately reflects the subjectunder study

Reliability: Consistent results over a number of studies on the same topic

Ethics in Research

Ethics:Truth, guidelines

Unethical

Alter data : Dont like the way it turned out, change some things.

Confidentiality: Not protecting the confidentiality of the people in the

study

Funding: Unethical sources Company Involvement:

How people manipulate studies

More Doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette ad from 1950s

Camels are easier on your throat than any other cigarette

Paying a doctor to find no correlation between smoking and lung

cancer

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Measures of Central Tendency

Definition: How we look at an average.

Averages

Mode: The most frequent score in a series

Median: Scores placed least to most, median score is middle score.(MOST FREQUENTLY USED IN STUDIES)

Mean: Place scores in order and add them up, then divide by the

number of scores. (Classic average)

Culture

Definition: Learned ways of behaving and believing that characterize a particular

society

Culture = Things | Society = People

Ideas, values, customs, pas and present within society Material

TV, house, car, etc

Non-material

Not identifiable, generally, not something written down necessarily

Customs, inanimate concepts, values, ideas, things symbolic

Cultural Universals

Language

Most important, only way to communicate. Without this, the

others are meaningless.

Families Housing

Laws

Religions

Government

Cultural Diffusion: Transmit items from one culture to another

Example: McDonalds, Starbucks From USA Other places in the

world

Jeans, media, etc.

Other Cultures Food here

Cultural Norms: Standards of behavior maintained by a society. Encourage positive behavior and discourage negative behavior

Types :

Formal norms: All societies have formal norms. All

societies have some form of a law against murder.

Generally written in to law

Some societies dont have laws written out

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Mores: MOOR-AY: necessary for society

Informal norms:

Usually not laws

Everyday patterns of behavior

Folkways: The ways folks behave

Norm Conflict: In obeying one set of norms break another

Ex: Underage drinking

Values

Values: What is considered desirable good in a culture

2008 : $, House

Rarely correlates to the value of trust

Cultural Variations

Definition: Variations within a culture

Subcultures: A part of the culture that shares a pattern of norms that differ

from the larger society

Participate in the culture and the subculture

Within a subculture there is an argot

Argot: Language specific to that subculture

Example of subculture: Amish

Go to Philadelphia, Reading Terminal, loaded with foods from all

over you will see several booths with people from the Amish

community selling their products in our society. Thus, they

function in both their subculture and the regular society. Subculture: Dress, speech, religion, even government

Us: Sales of products

Army

Subculture: uniform, laws, governing body, etc

Culture: Take your uniform off, in our society again

Counter Cultures: Culture that rejects the culture and wants to change it

Example: Hippies. We dont vote, or work, we travel, have fun and

enjoy ourselves

Like Utopian societies

Culture Shock: When one is in an unfamiliar culture, many times you willexperience a disorientation (fear). When you leave your society, this is very

common.

Example:The gangs of kids that rob people in Brazil. If we saw that,

wed suffer from culture shock.

Responses to Cultural Variation

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Ethnocentrism:The assumption that your culture is superior to all others

Cultural Relativism: A different way of looking at another society. It is

reviewing their culture from their own perspective.

Xenocentrism: When you feel that your culture is inferior to other cultures.

Your society isnt as good as other societies. Etc.

Dominant Ideology

Dominant Ideology: There are a set of social, political, and economic

interests that cultural beliefs help maintain.

Who is responsible for setting this?

We break it down according to the 3 sociological perspectives in our

society:

Functionalist: (Laissez faire)

Conflict: By Political Parties : Small Groups : Rich and Powerful

Interactionalist: Small group action, they say the small groups in

society are important, the face to face conversations. Bottomup.