Sociology: Key Terms - Chapter 1

• Sociology entails the systematic study of human groups and their interactions.
• Sociological perspective involves seeing the world in a unique way.
• It allows sociologists to dissect relationships between individuals and their social networks.
• Sociological research challenges common sense knowledge and reveals how many things deemed natural are socially constructed and organized.
• Social construction is something brought into existence by groups of people and is accepted as true by that group.
• To sociologists, everything is a social construction.
• Peter Berger lived from 1929-2019

Key Terms - Chapter 1

• Feminism is the advocacy of equal rights for men and women.
• Feminist theory focuses on inequality and conflict between men and women, also known as the gender-conflict approach.
• Global perspective involves studying the larger world and our society's place in it.
• High-income countries are nations with the highest overall standards of living.
• Latent functions are the unrecognized and unintended consequences of any social pattern.
• Low-income countries are nations with the lowest overall standards of living, in which most people are poor.
• Macro-level orientation involves a broad view of the social structures that shape a society as a whole.
• Manifest functions are the recognized and intended consequences of any social pattern.
• Middle-income countries are nations with a standard of living about the average of the world as a whole.
• Positivism is a way of understanding based on science.
• Postmodernism is an approach critical of modernism, with a mistrust of grand theories and ideologies, and can have either a micro or macro orientation.
• Race-conflict approach focuses on inequality and conflict between people of different racial and ethical categories.
• The social-conflict approach, also known as conflict theory, is a framework for building theory that sees society as an arena of inequality generating conflict and change.
• Social dysfunction refers to any social pattern that may disrupt the operation of society.
• Social functions are the consequences of any social pattern for the operation of society as a whole.
• Social structure is any relatively stable pattern of social behavior.
• Sociological perspective is the unique way sociologists view the world to dissect relationships between individuals and the larger social network.
• Sociology involves the systematic study of human groups and their interactions.
• Structural-functional approach is a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability.
• Symbolic-interaction approach is a framework for building theory that sees society as the product of the everyday interactions of people.
• Theoretical approach A basic image of society that guides thinking and research
• Theory is a statement of how and why specific facts are related.
• Quantitative sociology is measurable and positivist in nature (e.g., crime rates over time). Qualitative sociology is non-measurable and anti-positive in nature (e.g., living in poverty).
• Economy involves a system of production and exchange that provides material goods and services to people in a group.

Chapter 2

• Cause and effect describes a relationship where a change in one variable causes change in another variable (the dependent variable).
• Concept is a mental construct representing part of the world in a simplified form
• Control involves holding constant all variables except one to clearly see its effect.
• Correlation is a relationship in which two or more variables change together.
• Critical sociology studies society by focusing on the need for social change.
• Deductive logical thought is reasoning that transforms general theory into a specific hypothesis that is suitable for testing.
• Dependent variable is the variable that changes.
• Empirical evidence is information that can be verified with our senses.
• Experiment is a research method used for investigating cause and effect under highly controlled conditions.
• Hawthorne effect is a change in a subject's behavior caused simply by the awareness of being studied.
• Hypothesis is a statement of a possible relationship between two or more variables.
• Independent variable is the variable that causes the change.
• Inductive logical thought is reasoning that transforms specific observations into general theory.
• Interpretive sociology studies society by focusing on the meanings people attach to their social world.
• Interview involves a series of questions a researcher asks respondents in person.
• Measurement describes a procedure for determining the value of a variable in a specific case.
• Objectivity is personal neutrality in conducting research.
• Operationalize a variable involves specifying exactly what is to be measured before assigning a value to a variable.
• Participant observation is a research method where investigators systematically observe people while joining them in their routine activities.
• Population refers to the people who are the focus of the research.
• Questionnaire consists of a series of written questions a researcher presents to participants.
• Reliability is consistency in measurement.
• Replication is the repetition of research by other investigators.
• Research method is a systematic plan for doing research.
• Sample is a part of the population that represents the whole.
• Science is a logical system that bases knowledge on direct, systematic observation.
• Scientific sociology is the study of society based on systematic observation of social behavior.
• Spurious correlation is an apparent but false relationship between two or more variables that is caused by some other variable.
• Survey is a research method in which participants respond to a series of statements in a questionnaire or an interview.
• Validity means actually measuring exactly what you intend to measure.
• Variable is a concept whose values change from case to case.

Chapter 3

• Beliefs are specific statements that people believe to be true.
• Counterculture is a cultural pattern that strongly opposes the widely accepted elements within a society.
• Cultural appropriation occurs when a member of a dominant group adopts some element from a marginalized group's culture.
• Cultural integration is the close relationship among various elements of a cultural system.
• Cultural lag occurs when cultural elements change at different rates, causing various degrees of disruption in cultural systems.
• Cultural relativism is judging a culture by its own standards.
• Cultural transmission is the process by which one generation passes culture to the next.
• Cultural universals are traits present in every known culture.
• Culture encompasses the ways of thinking, the ways of acting, and the material objects that together form a people's way of life.
• Culture shock is personal disorientation when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life.
• Diaspora refers to the migration of a group of people who maintain their national and ethnic identity in new countries.
• Ethnocentrism involves judging another culture by the standards of one's own culture.
• Eurocentrism is the dominance of European cultural patterns.
• Folkways are norms for routine or casual interaction.
• High culture encompasses cultural patterns that distinguish a society's elite.
• Ideal culture represents the social patterns mandated by cultural values and norms.
• Language involves a system of symbols allowing people to communicate with each other.
• Material culture comprises the physical things created by members of a society.
• Mores are norms that are more widely observed and have greater moral significance.
• Multiculturalism is a social policy designed to encourage ethnic or cultural heterogeneity.
• Non-material culture includes the ideas created by members of a society.
• Norms are the rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members.
• Popular culture includes cultural patterns that are widespread throughout society.
• Real culture is the actual social patterns that only approximate cultural expectations.
• Sapir-Whorf hypothesis proposes that people perceive the world through the cultural lens of language.
• Social control involves attempts by others to regulate people's thoughts and behavior.
• Sociobiology is a theoretical approach exploring how human biology affects how we create culture.
• Subculture encompasses cultural patterns that set a part some segment of a society's population.
• Symbol is anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by people who share a culture.
• Technology is the knowledge that people use to make a way of life in their surroundings.
• Transnationalism refers to people moving back and forth between countries and maintaining strong ties to both countries.
• Values are culturally defined standards by which people determine what is desirable, good, and beautiful, serving as broad guidelines for social living.