Sociology Terms PDF

Sociology terms: Social facts: social institutions, values, customs that exist independently of any individual and that affect the ways individuals behave and seem ‘real’ to them. Eg; money and religious belief Social imagination: ability to interpret an individual’s experience in a broader social...

Sociology terms: Social facts: social institutions, values, customs that exist independently of any individual and that affect the ways individuals behave and seem ‘real’ to them. Eg; money and religious belief Social imagination: ability to interpret an individual’s experience in a broader social context and to distinguish individuals from social factors - Eg; how does the economy affect us? Or what obstacles might women face? - The sociologist: C.H Wright Mills = to see one’s situation in context of society as a whole Cultures: values, norms and belief a group shares Institutions: organizational from of groups eg. schools or religion Structures: relationships between people in society eg. professor /student Conflicts: difference between groups Roles: the ‘types’ of person you might be eg. parents or a good student Quantitative evidence: statistics about social groups as a whole eg. the population, means, incomes and unemployment rates you can get it through brad-level surveys Qualitative evidence: cultural beliefs or practices seen in documents, words, actions, rites it is obtained by observation or by interviews can tell us about the individual Empirical: based on induction/observation Theoretical: basic principles and deduction Social theory: empirical evidence, how difference phenomenon are connected Critical theory: the dominant group has power, inequality is a site of social conflict and disorder: we should change social order = benefits one group - Karl Marx = inequality and exploitation within social society - Social problems may be a consequence of too much repression Symbolic interactionism: repeated and regular acts of individuals, inequality os often rooted in belief people hold Structural functionalism: how social structures serve function for whole of society benefiting all - Socialization of children is top-down to ensure society runs smoothly - Criticized by feminists as functionalists assume that women are paid less due as they are socialized to do so — oppressive barriers are ignored Legal equality: law apply to everyone regardless of class, race and gender Political equality: all citizens are treated equally and that everyone has the same vote and no hereditary power Social equality: similar levels of wealth and influence, prestige and opportunity of all - Jean- Jacques Rousseau = legal/political equality masked social equality Descriptive: concerned with what works; what effective and how things are Normative/prescriptive: concerned with what is morally good and how things ought to be Conflict theory: opposed groups explains why they come into conflict and who wins = the groups are struggling for position against one another - Karl Marx Class (Karl marx) = Proletariat = worked in factories and didn’t have livable wages (exploited) Bourgeoisie = are seen as ‘owners’ of production and they were never “free” due to their social obligation Power(Karl Marx) : you get any social resource Class(Karl Marx) : raw wealth and how you are defines in society Status: how you are defined in society like respect/and having access to certain privileges Political power: having control over the political system no matter the opposition Oligarchy (C.Wright Mills) : mills in terms for small and relatively homogenous group that control leveler and restrict who can join the group John Porter (Vertical Mosaic) : social order in canada of ethnic groups (there is no distinct equal groups as previously assumed) = this was wrong: because the british families had most of the control Ascribed status: you are born into a certain level of social rank Achieved status: you can ‘earn’ a certain social rank Marx & Weber: they believed that a person can move social rank Feminist Theory (Ascription) : advantages that men have over women Qualitative evidence: women are portrayed sexually Critical Race Theory: an advantage a certain race has Social action: shared meaning and actions towards other Methodological individualism: why certain actions have consequences = understanding what individuals do - Weber: explains that Protestants are weather in more professional jobs than Catholics - The spirit of capitalism: money is reinvested into the business and its not for fun - They had good ethic and grew up rich Symbolic interactionism: interaction between individuals and looking at symbolic meanings we attach to objects in the world and our actions - Weber’s verstehen explains the origins of the meaning of our actions and how we acquire understanding of them - George Herbert Mead: we learn from the responses of other what is good or acceptable behavior and teach us what is moral and entrench these values within us - Hebert Blumer: meaning of symbolic interactions depend on the interactions of individuals and the symbolic meanings we attach to action Dramaturgical method: Erving Goofman = understanding individuals as ‘actors’ portraying specific roles in interactions - Presentation of self in life everyday: individuality is expressed in terms of certain pre-existing social roles - We’re expected to behave in certain ways depending on our role (professor/student and interviewer/interviewee) Social constructionism: products of numerous regularized interactions of individuals - Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann = repeated actions and interactions overtime create stable images, beliefs and roles  - There are habituated standards: we all share the same expectations about on another’s behavior - How structures are the product of individuals actions Situation: well-defines regular interaction between people with unspoken expectations/rules about how each behaves - We need to be able to predict what people do and how they'll react constant interactions with other generate expectations about their behavior - Our interaction partner observes what we’re doing = he regularizes actions accordingly Collective consciousness: the shares ‘taken-for-granted’ moral beliefs or values that almost all remembers of society agree on without really questioning them - Durkheim= the members of society form a determined system with a life of its own. It can be termed the collective or common consciousness - Crime : is deemed to be a collective conscience collective and we all tend to assume that stealing and murder are wrong and something like cannibalism is particularly bad - Talks about the ways we have to dress and what we should we eat Solidarity: social forces that holds all members of society together keeping us united with one another and distinct from other societies - Emile Durkheim: is the sociologist that theorized this term - Two types of solidarity: mechanical solidarity = by similarities: united by what we have incoming eg. clothing and shared belief - Organic solidarity = differences: united by reliance on other people for what we lack - Durkheim and structural functionalist think think there’s something ‘social’ about us: there’s difference between a crowd of people in a room and a real ‘society’ of people - You may feel you belong to the group even when you leave it eg. you’re always canadian when you move to italy Social facts: social institutions, values, customs that exist independently of any individual and that affect the ways individuals behave and seem ‘real’ to them ex. Money; religious beliefs - Durkheim rejects this: individualized explanations such as insanity don’t explain this difference groups with high levels of mental health issues often had lower suicide rates Positivism: that only observable, measurable and empirically-verifiable facts count as knowledge - Auguste Comte = argues for clearly positivistic study of society - Ignore value judgment about society; don’t try to moralize or claim that one from of society is inherently better - Helps the scientist break down data of society into measurable and comparable parts Function: any social relation or institution (e.g religion) as for maintaining society as a whole and each social institution or form of social organization has a function - Manifest Function (Robert Merton) = an ‘obvious purpose’ what a social institution is explicitly for (education trains us, teaches us important information)  - Latent Function (Robert Merton) = a ‘hidden’ purpose of an institution – a (useful) side-effect of the institution (education socializes us, giving us a chance to learn how to interact in a safe palace) - Emile Durkheim's = organs in animal: heat, lungs,eye serve a function for the whole - Robert Merton = institutions serve multiple purposes and and not all of which are obvious or explicit - Manifest function of education is to prepare you for employment and latent function is to transmit social values to us Structural Functionalism: that analyzes society as a complete system in which every structure served as function that keeps the whole together this is inspired Emile Durkheim - Structural functionalist note that society has developed from simpler and more homogenous to a more complex society - Past society were made up of a lot of very similar, quasi independent parts - Different regions or part of society fulfill different function AGIL SYSTEM A = adaptation: society adapts to its material environment and ensure everyday subsistence for its members I = Integration: does this society successfully integrate all its members into society Goal- Attainment: is society able to identity goals for the future and figure put how to achieve them Latency: can this society sustain certain patterns pr values over time - Sociologist: Talcott Parsons most complete structural functionalist account describing the basic kids of function any society must meet inorder to continue existing Anomie: sense of lactating social regulation or structures, leaving us adrift in a world without meaning and prevalent in modern world (for Durkheim) - Structural functionalists emphasize social integration as essential for well-being of both society and individual members - We all need the broader context for society to provide meaning to our lives - Anomie and social disintegration as major problem - Society should be at default be unifies and if it isn't it should be resolves - Contrast to conflict theorists who see disunity as a norm and think any unty is just imposed by the dominant group Folkways: informed customs, norms, rules of everyday behavior not punished heavily of you don't follow them, for example, politeness/manners personal hygiene Mores: stronger moral rules and there are prohibitions to certain behavior usually punished if you go punished if you go against them Taboos: things that are forbidden to talk about, do or touch for example excretion in public or sex Rituals and Practices: behavior that follow a certain regular pattern, familiar to most people and often based on folkways and morals, for example religious rituals, canada day and exams Material culture: the particular ways a society interacts with the material world; the everyday objects it uses to do so Non-material culture: the ideals,beliefs, arts of a society; its representation of description of the world - Miner talks about how the ‘Nacirema’ people used both everyday and specific purposes and these objects have specific purposes Cultural Universal: practices,rituals and institution swift symbols value found in every known human culture and every culture has language, idea of time, kin groups, ideas of property, status, proverbs, humor, death rituals - George Murdock: identifies a number of practices institutions found in every society, for example, family - Murdoch himself explained these cultural universe functionally they all serve some role essential to society - A more comprehensible is by Donal Brown in Human Universals - Symbolic interactionists: the beliefs or values around these practices shape our society Social Integration: process by which indiv (groups) are fully incorporated into society by the adaptation of cultural norms etc of the major cultural groups - Culture is a from of social integration by encouraging us to behave in similar ways, it protected social order = too much HETEROGENEITY may threaten society - Talcoot parsons AGIL system, every society needs an institution to perfume this function of integration - mass media, education system, family Semiotics: meaning within culture, examining signs and symbols Signs: an object or image that represents something other than itself - Gorilla represents the animals - McD’s Golden Arches and Tim Hortosn signature are signs for thee restaurants Symbols: an additional meaning or value associate with the thing represented on the object/image - It signifies great strength Mcdonalds symbolize ‘America’ and Tim Hortons symbolize ‘Canada’ Values: the things a culture (or person) holds to be most important; sociologically useful if they can help explain how people act and is seen as a symbolic value - Eagle = freedom - How these values affect the way we behave Protestant Ethic: Weber’s term for a set of values and ways of acting that he thought typical of protestant christians in europe in the 16th century - Value of hard work or frugality - Elective affinity with capitalism : suited rise if market society: gave protestant advantage - Max Weber: interpret cultural values of religions to explain why European Protestants were generally wealthier than catholics Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: our thought are limited by the words our language proved for them and implies we are only able to use ideas that our society and language has words for; thus people sharing language think similarly - Edward Sapir/Benjamin Whorf = develop ideas of linguistic determinism if our language doesn’t have a word for something we don’t think it  - Even our deepest thoughts are shapes by society were using shared concept =s even when we express individuality Ideal Culture: the values and ideal a group of people claims to adhere to their mental image of their society and is different from reality which is usually much messier - Society often cling on to image of former society by paying lip-service to the values of the past Multiculturalism: recognition of (and gov. support for) multiple different cultures in one society Ethnocentrism: judging other cultures by the standard of you own culture; assuming you culture is normal or natural one whilst others have strange customs Androcentric Language: use of male worlds to refers to any person e.g ‘rights of man’ excludes women from the way we think about certain social rules Deviance: any behavior that goes against the commonly-held values of a society, especially of held to be a threat Conformity: Adherence to the main rules and norms of a society; conventional behavior - Emile Durkheim = talked about how societies enforce a model of identity and behavior to generate solidari by making everyone similar - Howard Becker (symbolic interactionist) = argues deviance maybe be defined by people trying to assert power Counterculture = against mainstream society and are usually formed by people who are excluded from society - There is explicit rejection of mainstream norms and adaptation of new values Subculture = distinct part within society and membership often drawn from high status members of dominant group and shares many norms with main group but with points of differentiation Power = any ability to get your way including violence or economic coercion, even if other oppose you or are unwilling to obey - Doesn’t require any willing consent by those who obey - Guns and great wealth Dominant/authority = one particular kind of power: other’s accept commands as valid they go along with the command rather than trying to resist it - Those who obey do so because they recognize it’s right to do so - Obedience to priests and following politicians - Max weber: we must study forms of dominant or authority where people obey willingly because they believe that an individual has a right’ to be obeyed - Weber’s methodological focus: on beliefs values conscious motives to explain indiv. action Rational (legal authority) = authority derives from a legal process such as voting or meritocratic system of exam to choose best candidate Traditional authority = tradition makes this person the authority (eg. monarch) they can also designate officials whose authority this stems from tradition eg.king, religions leader Charismatic authority = this person has the ‘gift of grace’ personal magnetism of the leader inspires you to obey by force of their vision or personality eg. celebrities, inspirational politicians - Max Weber: represents specific kinds of reasons we might have for obeying  - He says that charismatic authority is based on the individual not their social role: you are inspire personally Symbolic Universe: internally-consistent set of beliefs, myths values, philosophies held in given society and explains justifies social order; how individuals understand why society is the way it is - Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann = refer to the ‘symbolic universe” of a society: shared beliefs and values that protect existing social order - Eg. professors are wise and experiences people, who I should always listen to and be guided by - This ensures you compliance with my commands - Maintaining their symbolic universe or reassert the importance of such beliefs in some way and we develop institutions based on that share beliefs eg. law, specific roles Dominant ideology: system of values, beliefs and practices that justify and support existing social system and defend the authority of those with power within it - Karl Marx traces cultural symbols and values back to mode of production and the cultural importance of property, profit, money instead of say religious piety or military valor Ideological Hegemony: the intellectual and ideological control of society by the dominant class such as everyone adopts their worldview - Antonio Gramsci: suggest ruling class maintains dominance through control of intellectuals and they maintain control over institutions of education, law and religion which people look for leadership - These intellectuals express the dominant class’s ideals - Subaltern classes (lower class) won’t have any intellectual to express own worldview: are fed beliefs and values of dominant class, theirnaction will inadvertently help those of rulers even when they don’t want to and they wrongly see themselves in terms given by ruling class Encoding: hiding messages about normal model of society within cultural items Decoding: How we understand messages – depends on own situation; might not be effective - Stuart Hall (British) describes now these messages are encoded and decoded and he argued hat we do not simply take on these messages uncritically; we sometimes decode them in ways that undermine the messages they’re trying to convey Dominant culture: the values, norms and belief and ways of behaving of the ruling groups in society - Others are expected to conform to this; it’s the ‘default’ what is assumed to be ‘natural’ - The privileges of the dominant group’s way of life and treats it as ‘normal’ = what ‘everyone’ would want to do - Freud’s ‘penis envy’ women allegedly wish to be men - Subaltern groups are often presented as merely secondary or as ‘defective’ version of the dominant group The eternal feminine: the mysterious ‘essence’ of women, often referred to by poets, artists and novelists and the characteristic that allegedly entrances men  - Females (real and functional) often treated as if they’re entirely explained by this ‘essence’ - Simone de Beauvoir = sees such cultural representations of femininity as typical of how women are seen as secondary - Men are represented as self-controlling agents: with their own lives - Women appear in literature as a muse: inspire men and are not the hero of their story - Woman's own inner life is ignored; they’re just there to represent femininity for the male hero Orientalism: the way white europeans saw rest of the world as ‘mysterious’ or ‘primitive’ and the europeans are privileges as ‘normal’ – the way humans should be – and rest of the world has somehow failed to reach same pinnacle - Edward said: europeans and north americans are seen as ‘norm’ Alterity: how one dominant group depicts another as somehow ‘different from norm’ or less than human - Dominant group sees itself in contrast to this ‘other’ - De beauvoir and said identify in gender and ethnicity is the way in which culture often reduce minorities, dominated groups or outsiders to crude stereotypes - Emmanuel Levinas = this alterity is often central to the way a dominant culture defines itself - One(self) and Other - Stigmatize the other, describing it as in some way less than human and other defines itself in opposition to the other (projects all the characteristics it doesn’t like about itself on to this other) Collective consciousness: the whole collection of values, beliefs and ideas that the vast majority of people in a society assume to be extremely ‘wrong’ - Durkheim and the structural functionalists see such institutions of control as much more benign and positive for society - Core set of beliefs and values we assume to be obvious like stealing or murder are obviously wrong - Cannibalism is appalling it feels like the society is being attacked Culture (in soc) : the universe of symbols, value, beliefs and practices shared by a society - Culture as the entire symbolic universe Culture (general sense) : the arts, entertainment, literature - Art because it often gives good representation of our ‘ideal culture’ High (elite) culture: arts is enjoyed by high-status groups in society (opera,wine) - Implies you have a sophisticated to appreciate such refined things Pop (mass) culture: less-exclusive entertainment often seen as simplistic and enjoyed by lower-status people - Treated as mere entertainment without artistic merit Conspicuous consumption: the practice of buying expensive, showy products in order to demonstrate your status and power to others - Thorstrib Veblen = the theory of leisure rive the emergence of a wealthy class at the top of society who asserts status the the way they spend their free time - They consume goods in a conspicuous ways they consume to raise their status  - It’s called Veblen goods Capital: a resource you invest in order to get more of it back - Economic: money or raw materials invested for profit (ownership of a factory) - Social: status; connections you can draw on your social network (your friendship with the premier) - Cultural: awarded of high culture, art and having an education (university degree and knowing how to drink wine) - Symbolic: items or ranks with specific meaning within cultural group (the crown and the pope) - Pierre bourdieu combines Marx & Weber to create the forms of capital Habitus: deeply ingrained habits, customs, ways of behaving or carrying self, learnt as child - Upper classes acquire correct habitus i.e. they know instinctively how to behave - Bourdieu suggests that most of our cultural capital comes from early years, when it’s absorbed or embodied unconsciously - Equally, our knowledge of how to behave in high society (which fork to use) - Higher-status families pass the knowledge on to their children, whilst lower class families don’t – for example, by sending children to music lessons, to learn violin - Habitus becomes ingrained and seems natural to us Production of culture perspective: examination of cultural or artistic objects through the socioeconomic they were produced in - Looks at the particular social circumstances that lead to specific ways of creating art - The material or economic conditions they were produced in Cultural Industry: for the modern entertainment industry, which produces ‘art’ on a production line (e.g. Hollywood) the goal is to maximize profit – not create art - Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer products of this ‘cultural industry’ directly echo the capitalist work process Situationism: theory that our actions are mostly taken in response to specified external situation - Internal 'character’ less important than situation - Personality isn’t fixed; people will behave very differently in a variety of different external situation Role: the socially-defined character that you perform in everyday situation - Role Taking: the act of adopting specific roles in a situation eg. ‘being a good friend’ - Role Making: our ability to intercept a role in way that changes or adapts it Social Script: the set of rules and expectation that specify how people in two different roles should interact - These scripts are acquired as grow up: we know instinctively what’s expected of us - Specific social situations: people default to scripts when they’re unsure, ensuring outcomes - People may be unsettled and angry if scripts aren’t followed Daumatagical method: social interaction as though people are acting out specific roles - Staging: defines different ‘stages’ or ‘settings’ for our roles and we can analyze how people prepare ‘backstage’ for their role  - Impression management: how we try to affect other views of us by acting in certain way - Erving goffman proposes that we use dramaturgical methods to interpret the way we act out out roles - We behave differently indifferent settings or stages - We perform our roles with a view to making a specific impression on others - Analyze what happens ‘behind the scenes’ how do people prepare themselves for their role Identity: our overall picture of the way all out roles fit together Role Set: the collection of roles that any indiv. plays: we all juggle a number roles in our daily lives and try to build something coherent out of them - Role Strain: difficulties in fulfilling the demands if a single, intense role e.g. felling you’re a bad parent - Role Conflict: Juggling the contradictory demands of multiple roles e.g. combing job with parenthood Master Status: single most important role to identity; given priority over rest Compartmentalization: separate roles completely, so they can’t come into conflict Role Distance: showing disdain for role you have to play Role Exit: often-painful process when we’re obliged to given up a role Status: the rank or prestige of your role relative to others in society - Ascribed status: your status is because of things you can’t change e.g. gender, ethnicity given certain social value - Achieved status: it’s possible (in theory) to change your social rank by your own actions e.g. job wealth Looking glass self: describes the way we view selves as other see us: we see ourselves in the mirror of their opinion - Your self worth and aspirations come from how others treat you - Charles Horton Cooley: describes the way we derive our self-esteem from others: you gain your picture of who you are from the way others treat you and respond to you - If they treat you badly you have no reason to believe you deserve anything other than being treated badly Panopticon: a building or (more generally) society in which it’s constantly possible for those in charge to see what we’re all doing - Prisons, hospitals, school all measure you constantly: total surveillance - Micheal Focult: social theorists of recent time examines the power is built in general sense of being constantly observed - Jeremy Bentham’s: suggested panopticon he talks about how there's surveillance in the modern world and how individuals constantly monitor us Governmentality: general social control over every single aspect of our lives, down to tiny movements of the body and we are formed as indiv. Because power forces us to behave in certain ways - Constantly feared being watched, monitored, measure we try to meet the standards of these observers Social relation: the formalized fixed set of rules that dictate the way people in diff. Roles interact - Structured social relations allow people to predict how others will respond to them - Interactions between its members are governed by certain rules that make these relations stable and predictable Social Group: set of people bonded regular; sustained interaction - Primary Group: the closest to you: you interact on personal basis and smaller close interaction for long time - Secondary Group: people may interact with regularly, but not intimately and usually larger and less enduring - Collectivity: loose gathering of people, linked e.g. some common interest and usually temporary; easy to join or leave, for example, crowd at concert; people in same lecture - (Social) Category: large mass of people with some common characteristics and not necessarily interacting, for example, class/gender, race Sociometry: mapping networks and connections between indiv. connecting up different nodes (people) and identifying people who serve as major ‘stars’ in the network - Node: each person in a network is a node, connected to other in various ways - Sociometric star: the node or person with most connections to others for particular criterion (most connections to other people, serving to link people in a whole network) - In group = albertans understand one another - outgroup = nova scotians look strange or dangerous people - Coalitions: different groups with shared interests work together temporarily for common goal - Network: of friends who are outside m immediate group don’t share a group identity - Weak ties: other members of out network, we’re connected to their friends Gemeinschaft: small community characterized by tight social bonds b/w people who know and care about one another GeSELLschaft: large, impersonal society of modern world, where relations are cold and businesslike - Ferdinand Tonnies: distinguished different strengths of group bond: people in modern society are less tightly bound together, and don’t know each other as well - Closer connections in old societies: everyone knew everyone else; more willing to help out - No real connection, just businesslike relationships Social Structure: a configuration of institutions, social relations and shared binding factors that hold society together at a fundamental level - Karl Marx uses relations of production: societies organize economy and ownership and indiv. are organized into classes by their role in this mode of production - Gerhard Lenski make six types of society and social structure is based on tech. used to generate subsistence he suggests process of sociocultural evolution Group dynamics: the observable ways in which groups operate as a whole to preserve their unity and more than can be explained just by the motives indiv. members - Social groups thus often have their own set of predictable rules  - How to integrate indiv. members and how they treat outsiders - Structural functionalists and Robert Bales show how groups almost always assign certain roles Social Forms: regular, objectively-observable types of groups of whose interactions follow certain rules - These happen regardless of whether the people in the interaction are aware of it - George Simmel and noticed certain consistencies in types of group behavior depending on a set of definite connections between members of the group - The stranger = the foreigner is seen as the confidant of the group - The secret and secret = societies organized around keeping secret knowledge will tend to be especially suspicious of out-group and to control lives of members extensively Dyad: groups of only two people or units - fall in to an irresponsible conflict in which neither can win Triad: group of three people or units, the third person of the group is the ‘arbitrator’ or of two of them ‘ganging up’ to overrule the third Structuralism: all elements of society and culture are defined as part of the total structure that defines and determines them. - Mostly french: not same as structural functionalism - Claude Levi-Strauss = society is governed by logic of cultural kinship structures not just once of biological descent - Rules generate system of relations between wife, ‘wife-giver’ - uncle - nephew and brother - sister were coded the same, if the first two are different then the second two are different Social institution: organized set of beliefs, behavior, roles and ries that meet a function for rest of society - Usually contains its own subset of roles and positions - Society contains institutions concentrated, self-contained sets of roles and rules which refer people to one another within them: family consists if a number of roles (parents,children) that interact internally in a set way - Family helps reproduce society, education helps prepare children for full membership of society - Social forms + interactions → social institutions overtime to ensure continuity - Fulfills a broader social purpose Rationalization hypothesis: that social relations have been made progressively more formal, abstract, and law-governed instead of traditional and personal - Society become more complex, they need complex official bodies and bureaucratic procedures become an ‘iron cage’ Social Identity: your awareness of being part of a larger group: the extent to which characteristic shared with others form part of our sense of who you are - Members feel sense of collectivity and they reject those who are ‘different’ and display symbols of theri unity - Social identity often constructed against another group: outsiders (foreign) or deviants from within society Normal: a general set of characteristics that society treats as the ‘default’ or as things we are all presumably aspiring to be - Stigmas = Goffman explores what happens to those who can’t meet social expectations - Societies privileges certain ways of behaving types of appearance, group of people: it treats them as ‘normal’ Stigma: social disapproval of features that deviates from the ‘norm’ - Passing: trying to hide stigma completely so others see you as ‘normal’ - Covering: minimizing (without denying) stigma so as to reduce its shock value for others - Selective Association: only interacting with others who share the same stigma - Goffman says that those who are stigmatized tacitly accept the standard of stigma - they present themselves through socially-defined symbols - the more they try to conform, the stronger such symbols are Labeling theory: dominant groups create arbitrary rules and restrictions and label breaches as deviant in order to enforce control - Deviance thus created by mainstream, not by the ‘deviants’ - Howard Becker: describes the way dominant groups identify deviates as labeling in his book outsiders - Once labeled ‘deviants’ people will often embrace their new status and increasingly identity with subculture Stereotype threat: internalization of socially-prevalent negative stereotypes about one’s ethnic/racial/gender group producing anxiety and self-doubt at the fear of ‘confirming’ those stereotypes - Claude Steele and Jason Aronson: discovered concrete evidence of effects of collective symbols by looking at the performance of negative-stereotypes of standardized groups (when african americans were told that they were reminded of their ethnicity before taking the SAT) Sociobiology: attempt to explain indiv. personality and structures of society by reference to genetic inheritance - Compares humans to other animals - Social structures should be explained by certain genetic features - Finding people attractive because of their genetic features but there’s the matter of nature vs. nurture - Interactions are not so important Psychology: personality built of internal mental/emotional structure and past experience Sociology : personality forms in processes of socialization as infant becomes member of society (based on situational aspects) – interactions determines the roles we fill Deferred gratification: you put it off getting what you want till later b/c that gets you more in the long run - Ability to distinguish yourself from what you happen to want at any particular moment - It’s a source of obstacles that we must learn to overcome Libido: inner store of desires and energy (not just sexual); source of all our drives and impulses and source of all our drives and impulses - Sigmund Freud: drives can only be dispelled by gratifying them and may come into conflict with one another Pleasure principle: the basic principle of seeking gratification and avoiding pain that guides our drives and libido and unconscious drives are shaped by the pleasure principle Reality principle: the principle of adaptations to the demands of reality including denying ourselves of pleasure for now and conscious mind limits our drives in recognition of brute necessity Id(the it) = unconscious store of our deepest desires, charged by libidinal energies = seeks only fulfillment of desires Ego (the I) = largely-conscious way of the indiv. operates, helping find way in real world and governs the boundary between Id and real world - Infants don’t distinguish themselves from their desires and the simply act on what they want right away Sublimation: redirection of surplus libidinal energy from the dangerous desires towards safer objects e.g. re-focusing your energy on work or making art - Frued explains society as a whole as a product of our drives by joining together with other people we can be more certain that our drives will be satisfied - We turn our libidinal energies into something else Superego: term for ‘conscience’ the introjected image of authority turned against our own drives - Children hate their parents, who stop them having pleasure so they want to kill their parents Repression: denial of deep libidinal instincts due to over-strict socialization and when libidinal energies are repressed they don’t disappear they are bottled up causing pressure - Repression often causes neuroses = from unsatisfied desires: our pressed energies find these unusual outlets - Repression of a desire may lead to projection; accusing other people of the desire that you have been forced to repress Authoritarian Personality: tendency to admire ‘strong leaders’ value discipline and obedience and to feel threatened by ‘difference’ - Product of excessively-strict socialization - Theodor Adorno: used freud to explain the rise of fascism in the authoritarian personality and that strict parents forces as youth to appear strong to avoid debate to control libidinal impulses (they had too much stored-up aggression and no way to let it out) I & Me: “I” is my internal perspective: my desires, my spon. Creative, inner self; how I see the world. - “Me” is my picture of how others are viewed; affect how I behave - George Herbert Mead: there are 3 stages Prep stage: children imitate family members around them without understanding what they’re doing Play Stage: children play certain roles e.g nurse: teaches us how to think of perspective of other people Game stage: children take part in complicated games governed by a set of rules and becomes aware of the social system as a whole Generalized other: imaginary ‘average’ observer of our actions, embodying standard belief and values of society  - As we mature, we act so as to impress this fictional viewer and thus learn social norms - Importance of the opinion of society at large - Mead says there’s not a specific other person and game stage teaches us about universal standard that should guide our behavior Cognitive development: process by which infants learn to control bodies and manipulates objects in world and learning occurs through a process called experimentation - Jean Piaget: observed how children develop from babies who try to assimilate the world by sucking it to adults capable of manipulating 0-2: Sensorimotor stage: manipulates objects: distinguishes self from world, control of body 2-7: Preoperational stage: uses symbols and languages but with limited logic are still egocentric unable to see other’s perspective 7-11: concrete operational stage: thinks logically with physical aids and uses symbols and capable of inductive logic 11-16: Formal operational stage: full development of abstract thought deductive logic; aware of perspective of others Constructivism: theoretical approach to cognitive development and argues that we construct picture of world ourselves and through interaction/experiment (we’re not imprinted with whatever parents say) - Structural functionalists: believe that socialization of children is top-down: we force children to believe certain things in order to ensure the smooth functioning of society - Child constructs its own world view out of interactions with world and other people Psychosocial development: development of the indiv. ego and sense of autonomy as an indiv. throughout life, based sprung existential questions at each stage - Erik Erikson suggests that we continue through eight stage across our entire life span and each challenge may take form of existential questions - 0-2: struggling the fear of abandonment - 13-19: Teen may ask ‘who am i?’ ‘What should I be’ - 20-39: people struggle with romantic relationships and ask what it means to love Moral reasoning: the ability to use reason to justify and explain one’s moral decisions ( and to understand the authority of the parents who punish you) - Lawrence Kohlberg: investigates the way children mature through and implied universal standard of morality and as we mature we all inevitable develop same beliefs, regardless of society - Carol Gilligan: she identified flaw in Kholdberg methods - She argues that his focus on rational justice ignored other moral values such as caring Socialization: various life long processes of learning undergone by individuals that develop them in to adults capable of participation in social environment and particularly important for helping us fit in to our own society by teaching norms, values - Table manners and other habits are defined differently in different societies: they don’t represent universal rules - If excessive strictness, can result in authoritarian personality and repression Integration: the function of ensuring harmony and homogeneity of values, norms and practices across society and preserves social stability by ensuring smooth relations among part of society  - Talcott Parsons and structural functionalist: socialization processes serve the function of integration ensuring everyone shares cultural values and ways of behaving - Society functions better when people are fully integrated and behave in uniform manner - Symbolic interactionist criticizes Parsons failure to explore child’s own interaction in learning (Piaget, Mead) Primary Socialization: the first elements of socialization that the child undergoes, teaching basic habits that become unconsciously ingrained and usually takes place in home - Habit training: babies subject to certain schedules or regular rituals that become unconscious and built into them - It prepares us for basic entry into society and teaching us elementary skills needed to survive Secondary socialization: socialization that takes place later in life, helping us adjust to new environments such as new jobs - It’s more about adaptation to situations than forming personality Rites of passage: ceremonies to mark and celebrate joining a new social group like citizenship first legal alcoholic drink and first communion Resocialization: humiliation designed to break down old habits of socialization and indiv. be reprogrammed to new roles and basic training in the military and strip searching for new inmates. - Rites of passage is the new level of maturity of elevation to membership Anticipatory socialization: the indiv. Own preparation for joining a new group or taking on new social role and consciously take on the norms of the group they seek to join and adopting its roles, values and behavior - For example, gender reveal party or enlisting for the army Agents of socialization: social institutions that contribute to socializing indiv. in different ways - May be used to reinforce exist power structures by socializing people into accepting unequal status - They provide models of how to behave or transmit the rules necessary for integration into society Identification: process of internalizing values and models of someone else, usually parent, and taking on their values and way of acting as your own - Partial Secondary identification: entails identifying with one feature of another person e.g. strength - Narcissistic Secondary identification: comes as we deliberately try to imitate another e.g. by putting on their clothes - Children often identify with a tory/doll Significant other: people in social circle whose expectations we most try to meet, and whose opinion is most important to us and also provide models for our behavior - Our identities are formed in response to others and we have direct relationships with sig. other and seek approval/reward from them - Significant others provide model of proper behavior Reference group: people whose model of behavior you seek to emulate and who you measure yourself against - May not be part of your own group; you may aspire to become part of that group  - Robert Merton: we may imitate our reference group b/c we want to join that group and they identify with reference group, taking on their norms and values, seeking to be like them Peer group: an agent of socialization from a similar background, age, outlook, status to you who you hang out with and source of many models of behavior:members of peer group are often significant other - Peer group can provide ‘training’ for adulthood: small, safe venue to practice adult interactions - Peer pressure children to conform: bullies often popular, so others imitate their behavior or face stigma and exclusion - May teach you good or bad behavior Total institution: institutions such as prisons, in which every moment of indiv. time is spent under control of institutions, cut off from wider society; e.g prison military training - Erving Goffman (nad later michel foucault) identify total institutions as agents of resocialization and people feel like their identity removed (prisoners identified by a number) Gender Socialization: how we are taught specific gender roles or what men and women ‘ought’ to do - Perpetuates certain roles and stereotypes - Simone de Beauvoir: how male children are told to be strong be independent, stand up themselves, whilst females are kept at home in soft, caring roles - Can be traces since childhood Racial socialization: inculcation of social standards about race or ethnic group, teaching prejudice to children through examples or toys - Racial groups may see negative stereotypes about themselves or lack positive role models - Clark doll experiment: children preferred the white doll over the black doll Class Socialization:process by which members of different classes learn what they’re expected to achieve (e.g.jobs) often contributing to different levels of achievement later - Different economic backgrounds are presented with different possible careers by parents and teachers - Children of wealthier families expect to become lawyers/doctors - Children of lower class families are encouraged to do manual labor Habitus: an instinctive knowledge of the ‘rules of the game’ or how to behave on social contexts - May include etiquette, crucial culture knowledge - Acquired unconsciously: high-status families transmit it to their children in infancy - Pierre Bourdieu: explains the advantage upper-class people have in many circumstances by the sort of knowledge they acquire in early childhood - Children of wealthy families acquire this knowledge very early: they instinctively know how to behave Civilizing process: Gradual social process, whereby behavior/actions previously considered acceptable or neutral gradually becomes unacceptable - Correct behavior gradually comes to be seen as ‘civilized’ or making status  - Norbet Elias: describes the emergence of modern manners and rise of of manners help stabilize society as a whole List of sociologists Sociologist What did they theorize? Critical theory: the dominant group has Karl Marx power, inequality is a site of social conflict and disorder: we should change social order = benefits one group - Karl Marx = inequality and exploitation within social society Conflict theory: opposed groups explains why they come into conflict and who wins = the groups are struggling for position against one another - Karl Marx Class (Karl marx) = Proletariat = worked in factories and didn’t have livable wages (exploited) Bourgeoisie = are seen as ‘owners’ of production and they were never “free” due to their social obligation Power(Karl Marx) : you get any social resource Class(Karl Marx) : raw wealth and how you are defines in society Status: how you are defined in society like respect/and having access to certain privileges Political power: having control over the political system no matter the opposition Dominant ideology: system of values, beliefs and practices that justify and support existing social system and defend the authority of those with power within it - Karl Marx traces cultural symbols and values back to mode of production and the cultural importance of property, profit, money instead of say religious piety or military valor  Dominant ideology: system of values, beliefs and practices that justify and support existing social system and defend the authority of those with power within it - Karl Marx traces cultural symbols and values back to mode of production and the cultural importance of property, profit, money instead of say religious piety or military valor Social Structure: a configuration of institutions, social relations and shared binding factors that hold society together at a fundamental level - Karl Marx uses relations of production: societies organize economy and ownership and indiv. are organized into classes by their role in this mode of production - Gerhard Lenski make six types of society and social structure is based on tech. used to generate subsistence he suggests process of sociocultural evolution Civilizing process: Gradual social process, Norbert Elias whereby behavior/actions previously considered acceptable or neutral gradually becomes unacceptable - Correct behavior gradually comes to be seen as ‘civilized’ or making status - Norbet Elias: describes the emergence of modern manners and rise of of manners help stabilize society as a whole Oligarchy (C.Wright Mills) : mills in terms C. Wright Mills for small and relatively homogenous group that control leveler and restrict who can join the group  John Porter (Vertical Mosaic) : social order John Porter in canada of ethnic groups (there is no distinct equal groups as previously assumed) = this was wrong: because the british families had most of the control Methodological individualism: why certain Max Weber actions have consequences = understanding what individuals do - Weber: explains that Protestants are weather in more professional jobs than Catholics - The spirit of capitalism: money is reinvested into the business and its not for fun - They had good ethic and grew up rich Symbolic interactionism: interaction between individuals and looking at symbolic meanings we attach to objects in the world and our actions - Weber’s verstehen explains the origins of the meaning of our actions and how we acquire understanding of them - Hebert Blumer: meaning of symbolic interactions depend on the interactions of individuals and the symbolic meanings we attach to action Protestant Ethic: Weber’s term for a set of values and ways of acting that he thought typical of protestant christians in europe in the 16th century - Value of hard work or frugality - Elective affinity with capitalism : suited rise if market society: gave protestant advantage - Max Weber: interpret cultural values of religions to explain why European Protestants were generally wealthier than catholics  Dominant/authority = one particular kind of power: other’s accept commands as valid they go along with the command rather than trying to resist it - Those who obey do so because they recognize it’s right to do so - Obedience to priests and following politicians - Max weber: we must study forms of dominant or authority where people obey willingly because they believe that an individual has a right’ to be obeyed - Weber’s methodological focus: on beliefs values conscious motives to explain indiv. action Charismatic authority = this person has the ‘gift of grace’ personal magnetism of the leader inspires you to obey by force of their vision or personality eg. celebrities, inspirational politicians - Max Weber: represents specific kinds of reasons we might have for obeying - He says that charismatic authority is based on the individual not their social role: you are inspire personally Rationalization hypothesis = social relations has progressively become more rationalized instead of being personal - Puts individuals at the risk of “iron cage” – society will lack autonomy Symbolic Interactionism George Herbert Mead - George Herbert Mead: we learn from the responses of other what is good or acceptable behavior and teach us what is moral and entrench these values within us I & Me: “I” is my internal perspective: my desires, my spontaneous creative, inner self; how I see the world. - “Me” is my picture of how others are viewed; affect how I behave  - George Herbert Mead: there are 3 stages Prep stage: children imitate family members around them without understanding what they’re doing Play Stage: children play certain roles e.g nurse: teaches us how to think of perspective of other people Game stage: children take part in complicated games governed by a set of rules and becomes aware of the social system as a whole – teaches an individual about the universal standards that should guide our behaviours Generalized other: imaginary ‘average’ observer of our actions, embodying standard belief and values of society - As we mature, we act so as to impress this fictional viewer and thus learn social norms - Importance of the opinion of society at large - Mead says there’s not a specific other person and game stage teaches us about universal standard that should guide our behavior Symbolic interactionism Herbert Blumer - Hebert Blumer: meaning of symbolic interactions depend on the interactions of individuals and the symbolic meanings we attach to action Dramaturgical method: Erving Goofman = Erving Goffman understanding individuals as ‘actors’ portraying specific roles in interactions - Presentation of self in life everyday: individuality is expressed in terms of certain pre-existing social roles - We’re expected to behave in certain ways depending on our role  (professor/student and interviewer/interviewee) Daumatagical method: social interaction as though people are acting out specific roles - Staging: defines different ‘stages’ or ‘settings’ for our roles and we can analyze how people prepare ‘backstage’ for their role - Impression management: how we try to affect other views of us by acting in certain way - Erving goffman proposes that we use dramaturgical methods to interpret the way we act out out roles - We behave differently indifferent settings or stages - We perform our roles with a view to making a specific impression on others - Analyze what happens ‘behind the scenes’ how do people prepare themselves for their role Normal: a general set of characteristics that society treats as the ‘default’ or as things we are all presumably aspiring to be - Stigmas = Goffman explores what happens to those who can’t meet social expectations - Societies privileges certain ways of behaving types of appearance, group of people: it treats them as ‘normal’ Total institution: institutions such as prisons, in which every moment of indiv. time is spent under control of institutions, cut off from wider society; e.g prison military training - Erving Goffman (nad later michel foucault) identify total institutions as agents of resocialization and people feel like their identity removed (prisoners identified by a number)  Social constructionism: products of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman numerous regularized interactions of individuals - Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann = repeated actions and interactions overtime create stable images, beliefs and roles - There are habituated standards: we all share the same expectations about on another’s behavior - How structures are the product of individuals actions Collective consciousness: the shares Emile Durkheim ‘taken-for-granted’ moral beliefs or values that almost all remembers of society agree on without really questioning them - Durkheim= the members of society form a determined system with a life of its own. It can be termed the collective or common consciousness - Crime : is deemed to be a collective conscience collective and we all tend to assume that stealing and murder are wrong and something like cannibalism is particularly bad - Talks about the ways we have to dress and what we should we eat Solidarity: social forces that holds all members of society together keeping us united with one another and distinct from other societies - Emile Durkheim: is the sociologist that theorized this term - Two types of solidarity: mechanical solidarity = by similarities: united by what we have incoming eg. clothing and shared belief - Organic solidarity = differences: united by reliance on other people for what we lack  - Durkheim and structural functionalist think think there’s something ‘social’ about us: there’s difference between a crowd of people in a room and a real ‘society’ of people - You may feel you belong to the group even when you leave it eg. you’re always canadian when you move to italy Social facts: social institutions, values, customs that exist independently of any individual and that affect the ways individuals behave and seem ‘real’ to them ex. Money; religious beliefs - Durkheim rejects this: individualized explanations such as insanity don’t explain this difference groups with high levels of mental health issues often had lower suicide rates Structural Functionalism: that analyzes society as a complete system in which every structure served as function that keeps the whole together this is inspired Emile Durkheim - Structural functionalist note that society has developed from simpler and more homogenous to a more complex society - Past society were made up of a lot of very similar, quasi independent parts - Different regions or part of society fulfill different function Anomie: sense of lactating social regulation or structures, leaving us adrift in a world without meaning and prevalent in modern world (for Durkheim) - Structural functionalists emphasize social integration as essential for well-being of both society and individual members  - We all need the broader context for society to provide meaning to our lives - Anomie and social disintegration as major problem - Society should be at default be unifies and if it isn't it should be resolves - Contrast to conflict theorists who see disunity as a norm and think any unty is just imposed by the dominant group Deviance: any behavior that goes against the commonly-held values of a society, especially of held to be a threat Conformity: Adherence to the main rules and norms of a society; conventional behavior - Emile Durkheim = talked about how societies enforce a model of identity and behavior to generate solidari by making everyone similar - Howard Becker (symbolic interactionist) = argues deviance maybe be defined by people trying to assert power Collective consciousness: the whole collection of values, beliefs and ideas that the vast majority of people in a society assume to be extremely ‘wrong’ - Durkheim and the structural functionalists see such institutions of control as much more benign and positive for society - Core set of beliefs and values we assume to be obvious like stealing or murder are obviously wrong - Cannibalism is appalling it feels like the society is being attacked  Positivism: that only observable, Aguste Comte measurable and empirically-verifiable facts count as knowledge - Auguste Comte = argues for clearly positivistic study of society - Ignore value judgment about society; don’t try to moralize or claim that one from of society is inherently better - Helps the scientist break down data of society into measurable and comparable parts Function: any social relation or institution Robert Merton (e.g religion) as for maintaining society as a whole and each social institution or form of social organization has a function - Manifest Function (Robert Merton) = an ‘obvious purpose’ what a social institution is explicitly for (education trains us, teaches us important information) - Latent Function (Robert Merton) = a ‘hidden’ purpose of an institution – a (useful) side-effect of the institution (education socializes us, giving us a chance to learn how to interact in a safe palace) - Robert Merton = institutions serve multiple purposes and and not all of which are obvious or explicit - Manifest function of education is to prepare you for employment and latent function is to transmit social values to us Analogy of function: - Emile Durkheim's = organs in animal: heat, lungs,eye serve a function for the whole Reference group: people whose model of behavior you seek to emulate and who you measure yourself against  - May not be part of your own group; you may aspire to become part of that group - Robert Merton: we may imitate our reference group b/c we want to join that group and they identify with reference group, taking on their norms and values, seeking to be like them AGIL SYSTEM Talcott Parsons A = adaptation: society adapts to its material environment and ensure everyday subsistence for its members I = Integration: does this society successfully integrate all its members into society Goal- Attainment: is society able to identity goals for the future and figure put how to achieve them Latency: can this society sustain certain patterns pr values over time - Sociologist: Talcott Parsons most complete structural functionalist account describing the basic kids of function any society must meet inorder to continue existing Integration: the function of ensuring harmony and homogeneity of values, norms and practices across society and preserves social stability by ensuring smooth relations among part of society - Talcott Parsons and structural functionalist: socialization processes serve the function of integration ensuring everyone shares cultural values and ways of behaving - Society functions better when people are fully integrated and behave in uniform manner - Symbolic interactionist criticizes Parsons failure to explore child’s own interaction in learning (Piaget, Mead)  Cultural Universal: practices,rituals and George Murdoch institution swift symbols value found in every known human culture and every culture has language, idea of time, kin groups, ideas of property, status, proverbs, humor, death rituals - George Murdock: identifies a number of practices institutions found in every society, for example, family - Murdoch himself explained these cultural universe functionally they all serve some role essential to society - A more comprehensible is by Donal Brown in Human Universals - Symbolic interactionists: the beliefs or values around these practices shape our society Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: our thought are Edward sapir and Benjamin Whorf limited by the words our language proved for them and implies we are only able to use ideas that our society and language has words for; thus people sharing language think similarly - Edward Sapir/Benjamin Whorf = develop ideas of linguistic determinism if our language doesn’t have a word for something we don’t think it - Even our deepest thoughts are shapes by society were using shared concept =s even when we express individuality Deviance: any behavior that goes against the Howard Becker commonly-held values of a society, especially of held to be a threat Conformity: Adherence to the main rules and norms of a society; conventional behavior - Emile Durkheim = talked about how societies enforce a model of identity  and behavior to generate solidari by making everyone similar - Howard Becker (symbolic interactionist) = argues deviance maybe be defined by people trying to assert power Labeling theory: dominant groups create arbitrary rules and restrictions and label breaches as deviant in order to enforce control - Deviance thus created by mainstream, not by the ‘deviants’ - Howard Becker: describes the way dominant groups identify deviates as labeling in his book outsiders - Once labeled ‘deviants’ people will often embrace their new status and increasingly identity with subculture Symbolic Universe: internally-consistent set Peter Berger and Thomas of beliefs, myths values, philosophies held in given society and explains justifies social Luckmann order; how individuals understand why society is the way it is - Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann = refer to the ‘symbolic universe” of a society: shared beliefs and values that protect existing social order - Eg. professors are wise and experiences people, who I should always listen to and be guided by - This ensures you compliance with my commands - Maintaining their symbolic universe or reassert the importance of such beliefs in some way and we develop institutions based on that share beliefs eg. law, specific roles  Ideological Hegemony: the intellectual and Antonio Gramsci ideological control of society by the dominant class such as everyone adopts their worldview - Antonio Gramsci: suggest ruling class maintains dominance through control of intellectuals and they maintain control over institutions of education, law and religion which people look for leadership - These intellectuals express the dominant class’s ideals - Subaltern classes (lower class) won’t have any intellectual to express own worldview: are fed beliefs and values of dominant class, theirnaction will inadvertently help those of rulers even when they don’t want to and they wrongly see themselves in terms given by ruling class Encoding: hiding messages about normal Stuart Hall model of society within cultural items Decoding: How we understand messages – depends on own situation; might not be effective - Stuart Hall (British) describes now these messages are encoded and decoded and he argued hat we do not simply take on these messages uncritically; we sometimes decode them in ways that undermine the messages they’re trying to convey Dominant culture: the values, norms and Sigmund Freud belief and ways of behaving of the ruling groups in society - Others are expected to conform to this; it’s the ‘default’ what is assumed to be ‘natural’  - The privileges of the dominant group’s way of life and treats it as ‘normal’ = what ‘everyone’ would want to do - Freud’s ‘penis envy’ women allegedly wish to be men - Subaltern groups are often presented as merely secondary or as ‘defective’ version of the dominant group Libido: inner store of desires and energy (not just sexual); source of all our drives and impulses and source of all our drives and impulses - Sigmund Freud: drives can only be dispelled by gratifying them and may come into conflict with one another - People consist of multiple drives Pleasure principle: the basic principle of seeking gratification and avoiding pain that guides our drives and libido and unconscious drives are shaped by the pleasure principle Reality principle: the principle of adaptations to the demands of reality including denying ourselves of pleasure for now and conscious mind limits our drives in recognition of brute necessity Id(the it) = unconscious store of our deepest desires, charged by libidinal energies = seeks only fulfillment of desires Ego (the I) = largely-conscious way of the indiv. operates, helping find way in real world and governs the boundary between Id and real world - Infants don’t distinguish themselves from their desires and the simply act on what they want right away Superego: term for ‘conscience’ the introjected image of authority turned against our own drives - Children hate their parents, who stop them having pleasure so they want to kill their parents  - Redirects our libidinal energy to enforce our own Id/Ego Sublimation - Civilization is a product of sublimated desires according to freud The eternal feminine: the mysterious Simone de Beauvoir ‘essence’ of women, often referred to by poets, artists and novelists and the characteristic that allegedly entrances men - Females (real and functional) often treated as if they’re entirely explained by this ‘essence’ - Simone de Beauvoir = sees such cultural representations of femininity as typical of how women are seen as secondary - Men are represented as self-controlling agents: with their own lives - Women appear in literature as a muse: inspire men and are not the hero of their story - Woman's own inner life is ignored; they’re just there to represent femininity for the male hero Gender Socialization: how we are taught specific gender roles or what men and women ‘ought’ to do - Perpetuates certain roles and stereotypes - Simone de Beauvoir: how male children are told to be strong be independent, stand up themselves, whilst females are kept at home in soft, caring roles - Can be traces since childhood Orientalism: the way white europeans saw Edward Said rest of the world as ‘mysterious’ or ‘primitive’ and the europeans are privileges as ‘normal’ – the way humans should be – and rest of the  world has somehow failed to reach same pinnacle - Edward said: europeans and north americans are seen as ‘norm’ Alterity: how one dominant group depicts Emmanuel Levinas another as somehow ‘different from norm’ or less than human - Dominant group sees itself in contrast to this ‘other’ - De beauvoir and said identify in gender and ethnicity is the way in which culture often reduce minorities, dominated groups or outsiders to crude stereotypes - Emmanuel Levinas = this alterity is often central to the way a dominant culture defines itself - One(self) and Other - Stigmatize the other, describing it as in some way less than human and other defines itself in opposition to the other (projects all the characteristics it doesn’t like about itself on to this other) Conspicuous consumption: the practice of Thorstein Veblen buying expensive, showy products in order to demonstrate your status and power to others - Thorstein Veblen = the theory of leisure rive the emergence of a wealthy class at the top of society who asserts status the the way they spend their free time - They consume goods in a conspicuous ways they consume to raise their status - It’s called Veblen goods  Capital: a resource you invest in order to get Pierre Bourdieu more of it back - Economic: money or raw materials invested for profit (ownership of a factory) - Social: status; connections you can draw on your social network (your friendship with the premier) - Cultural: awarded of high culture, art and having an education (university degree and knowing how to drink wine) - Symbolic: items or ranks with specific meaning within cultural group (the crown and the pope) - Pierre Bourdieu combines Marx & Weber to create the forms of capital Habitus: deeply ingrained habits, customs, ways of behaving or carrying self, learnt as child - Upper classes acquire correct habitus i.e. they know instinctively how to behave - Bourdieu suggests that most of our cultural capital comes from early years, when it’s absorbed or embodied unconsciously - Equally, our knowledge of how to behave in high society (which fork to use) - Higher-status families pass the knowledge on to their children, whilst lower class families don’t – for example, by sending children to music lessons, to learn violin - Habitus becomes ingrained and seems natural to us Habitus: an instinctive knowledge of the ‘rules of the game’ or how to behave on social contexts - May include etiquette, crucial culture knowledge  - Acquired unconsciously: high-status families transmit it to their children in infancy - Pierre Bourdieu: explains the advantage upper-class people have in many circumstances by the sort of knowledge they acquire in early childhood - Children of wealthy families acquire this knowledge very early: they instinctively know how to behave Cultural Industry: for the modern Theodor Adorno and Max entertainment industry, which produces ‘art’ on a production line (e.g. Hollywood) the goal Horkheimer is to maximize profit – not create art - Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer products of this ‘cultural industry’ directly echo the capitalist work process Authoritarian Personality: tendency to admire ‘strong leaders’ value discipline and obedience and to feel threatened by ‘difference’ - Product of excessively-strict socialization - Theodor Adorno: used freud to explain the rise of fascism in the authoritarian personality and that strict parents forces as youth to appear strong to avoid debate to control libidinal impulses (they had too much stored-up aggression and no way to let it out) While those from free homes were used to these debates, thus less likely to display aggression Looking glass self: describes the way we Charles Horton Cooley view selves as other see us: we see ourselves in the mirror of their opinion - Your self worth and aspirations come from how others treat you - Charles Horton Cooley: describes the way we derive our self-esteem  from others: you gain your picture of who you are from the way others treat you and respond to you - If they treat you badly you have no reason to believe you deserve anything other than being treated badly Panopticon: a building or (more generally) Micheal Focult and Jeremy society in which it’s constantly possible for those in charge to see what we’re all doing Bentham’s for Panopticon - Prisons, hospitals, school all measure you constantly: total surveillance - Micheal Focult: social theorists of recent time examines the power is built in general sense of being constantly observed - Jeremy Bentham’s: suggested panopticon he talks about how there's surveillance in the modern world and how individuals constantly monitor us Gemeinschaft: small community Ferdinand Tonnies characterized by tight social bonds b/w people who know and care about one another GeSELLschaft: large, impersonal society of modern world, where relations are cold and businesslike - Ferdinand Tonnies: distinguished different strengths of group bond: people in modern society are less tightly bound together, and don’t know each other as well - Closer connections in old societies: everyone knew everyone else; more willing to help out - No real connection, just businesslike relationships  Social Structure: a configuration of Gerhard Lenski institutions, social relations and shared binding factors that hold society together at a fundamental level - Karl Marx uses relations of production: societies organize economy and ownership and indiv. are organized into classes by their role in this mode of production - Gerhard Lenski make six types of society and social structure is based on tech. used to generate subsistence he suggests process of sociocultural evolution Group dynamics: the observable ways in Robert Bales which groups operate as a whole to preserve their unity and more than can be explained just by the motives indiv. members - Social groups thus often have their own set of predictable rules - How to integrate indiv. members and how they treat outsiders - Structural functionalists and Robert Bales show how groups almost always assign certain roles Social Forms: regular, George Simmel objectively-observable types of groups of whose interactions follow certain rules - These happen regardless of whether the people in the interaction are aware of it - George Simmel and noticed certain consistencies in types of group behavior depending on a set of definite connections between members of the group - The stranger = the foreigner is seen as the confidant of the group  Structuralism: all elements of society and Claude Levi-Strauss culture are defined as part of the total structure that defines and determines them. - Mostly french: not same as structural functionalism - Claude Levi-Strauss = society is governed by logic of cultural kinship structures not just once of biological descent - Rules generate system of relations between wife, ‘wife-giver’ - uncle - nephew and brother - sister were coded the same, if the first two are different then the second two are different Stereotype threat: internalization of Claude Steele and Jason Aronson socially-prevalent negative stereotypes about one’s ethnic/racial/gender group producing anxiety and self-doubt at the fear of ‘confirming’ those stereotypes - Claude Steele and Jason Aronson: discovered concrete evidence of effects of collective symbols by looking at the performance of negative-stereotypes of standardized groups (when african americans were told that they were reminde