Midterm Flashcards
(367 cards)
1
Q
Difference between Enlightenment and sociology?
A
E very normative/philosophical; sociology is attempt to make it more empirical
2
Q
Micro vs. macro
A
Micro (football team, coffee shop, face to face)
Macro (state, social movements)
3
Q
What would a sociologist say shapes action?
A
Social forces (politics, economics, culture) shape action
4
Q
What does sociology think about people’s common sense about how the world works
A
It’s often wrong and we need proper investigations
5
Q
Sociology definition
A
“Study of social groups, organization, social systems, culture, interaction”
6
Q
How do people behave in an elevator and why?
A
People recognize the social situation, adjust their norms, strong norm of civil inattention
7
Q
Why are men of color shot b y police?
A
Racial biases inside people’s heads, overpolicing of certain neighborhoods increasing odds of encounter, police more concerned with visible crime than white color crime
8
Q
Why are so few women CEOs?
A
Social beliefs about women, need to show you are devoted to a company to get promoted, men socialize outside of workplace with each other
9
Q
Why do oppressive regimes suddenly fold?
A
People living in fear so little support; as soon as another option emerges
10
Q
Why did China not dominate the world for centuries?
A
Technology doesn’t determine outcome
Arrogant, not interested in conquering the world
had technology but not culture/values
11
Q
Why does society organize work from 9-5
A
maybe mealtimes
better coordination between institutions and bureaucracies
12
Q
Where do individual views of world come from?
A
Society, group, and shared culture; shape what is perceived
13
Q
Examples of moral relativism
A
sex with young as people young as 12 was normal in medieval English; ancient Greek philosophers having sex with young students
14
Q
What does society give us?
A
Legimitate interpretations/explanations of what is going on, resources to generate accounts that make sense to other people
15
Q
Socialization
A
learning to be a competent member of a society; do this for children, but also continues throughout life (ways of behaving for older people, become socialized into institutions like Yale/become jaded)
16
Q
3 mechanisms proving that society strong, individual weak
A
Socialization
authority/dominant institutions shape what we think is right/wrong
Peer pressure/desire to conform
17
Q
Solomon Asch Group Conformity Experiments
A
ask people which line is longer; other people were confederates and lied about which one; the last experimental subject finds it very hard to break the trend even if it’s wrong (1/3 of subjects agreed and did not push back) – people want to fit in instead of speaking the truth, people started to question their own judgement
18
Q
Stanley Milgram Obedience to Authority Experiment
A
white-coated scientist instructs you to turn up the voltage for people on the other side; so normal, nice people prepared to give electric shocks to people when instructed to do so by scientific figure – ordinary people cruel to other people if in a context where that is acceptable (explains crowd behavior)
19
Q
- Philip Zimbardo Stanford Prison “Experiment”:
A
”: people randomly assigned roles as guards and prisoners, and the guards became really cruel and liked humiliating the prisoners; Show fitting in, conform, obey experts, power, role of situation; in all of these normal people do things that seem ‘crazy’ due to social pressure/context
20
Q
Problems with Asch conformity
A
: found that if there was one other person that agreed with you, much more likely to stick by your truth
21
Q
Problems with zimbardo prison
A
the people weren’t quite randomly assigned to roles; he told them you are in the role of a guard, which might make it seem like they should act; so not clear if they were playing along with it just to please professor, or if they were actually becoming more evil
22
Q
Problems with Milgram obedience
A
maybe it’s more of deference to the norms of science, instead of obedience to authority
23
Q
What are cults good examples of
A
extreme cases of power of society, social construction of reality
24
Q
Jonestown (Guyana 1970s)
A
– Jim Jones was preacher who promised to form race-free world of social justice; went to jungle compound. Mass suicide in which people took poisoned coolade.
25
Heaven’s Gate (California 1990s)
thought that UFO would come and rescue them; 38 people committed suicide, heavily influenced by Star Trek
26
How to cults work? (5 things)
1. Cut people off from other sources of info/only give oe set of truths
2. Humiliate an individual, then build them back up
3. Demand loyalty (maybe loyalty tets)
4. Relentless indoctrination
5. Utopian element
27
Give 3 good examples of deep culture, categories, and what is real/can exist
1. “Childhood” (Philippe Aries) – no such thing as childhood until 1800; claims children were thought of as little adults, concept emerged in Victorian England; Artful Dodger described as little man. Maybe teenager is invention of 1950s marketers
2. Marriage, romance, and love: maybe love emerged in the Middle Ages, no real concept before King Arthur; love latched itself onto arousal and desire. Idea we should marry someone we love is new, in history was mostly to make babies or form alliances
3. Witchcraft cosmologies. Supernatural cosmologies – most of human history people thought they exitsed. Salem.
28
Azande tribe in Africa studied by Evans-Pritchard
they believe people unconsciously cause bad luck for other people, witchcraft, elaborate mechanism to find who the witch was
29
Melvin Pollner on mundane reason in the West
at no point do people appeal to that there are two realities when witnesses saw different things (green light or red light), but always appeal to bad eyesight or other things; the explanations we use bounded to social construction we live in
30
Cultural/anthropological relativism
1. But maybe we need to understand beliefs/values in their own terms before critiquing them – understand from within
2. Question of what is the mechanism/causes/consequences, not if good/bad
31
Example that can be applied with cultural relativsm
Techniques Obama used were same as Hitler (slogans, orchestrated mass gatherings, etc.) – compare something unpalatable and something we like, but the mechanism is similar
32
Cultural relativism direct definition
cultural relativism is understanding that our own judgements are not Archimedean points from which to evaluate truth and falseness
33
Compared to most of human history our society is “WEIRD
Western, educated, industrialized, rich, developed nations
34
Danger of ‘evolutionary’ thinking.
Evolutionary thinking says society keeps get better and better, human society keeps getting better and better, But in reality not “better,” “superior,” etc. – not inevitable that society will reach these stages
35
Type of society first 3 million years
Hunting/gathering, band society
36
Organization first 3 million years band societies (4 things)
1. Small groups
2. Kinship
3. Low hierarchy (decisions by elders only b/c more experienced)
4. Low division of labor
37
Some aspects of culture first 3 million years (6)
1. Little material culture (burden to carry around)
2. Kinship relations and bonds
3. Spiritual (sacred canopy, gap between secular and spiritual not that great)
4. Cyclical time
5. Low violence
6. Value leisure time/telling stories
38
When was Neolithic Revolution?
About 10,000 years ago
39
Agricultural surplus:
: planting things and tending animals; if you are planting crops, you are invested in staying in one place. As a consequence, start developing technologies since don’t have to lug everything around; social complexity in divison of labor and hierarchy (agriculture much more efficient than hunting/calorie; leads to more calories, which can feed people not directly involved in agriculture) hierarchal society, since now harder to run away since would leave behind chance of survival
40
Classical civilizations all evolved to be amazingly similar...what are some examples
1. Bureaucracy
2. Ascriptive social norms
3. Specialized roles/division of labor
4. Mass slavery to provide work
5. Religions as ideologies
41
Ascriptive social norms meaning
(job determined by who parents are/what they did – don’t get free choice
42
Why was it hard, until 1500, for cities to pass 1 million
Problems with productivity and transport
43
Name 5 factors accounting for/features of Europe's breakout of agricultural ceiling/industrial modernity in 1500
1. Religion (something dynamic about Protestantism that made them question authority and seek to improve economic lot, instead of chilling) – don’t have to stay in place assigned to you, could become achiever
2. Rise of the middle class (in W. Europe, led to boost in education, spreading wealth across society, investment in ideas about democracy and freedom
3. Enlightenment, ideology of progress and reason, science more openminded as well
4. Law, property rights (people start to invest – encouraged people to have more confidence it won’t be taken away from then) – law and property rights are super important for wealth
5. Economics: Industrial revolution, iron, steel, coal, steam, factories – fuels productivity, leading to more innovation, more education and middle class people, virtuous circle
44
List a few things by 1850
1. Simultaneity and connectivity (information travels much faster
2. Global integration of the economy
3. Mass media (encourages people to read)
45
Postmodernity
"postindustrial society," "knowledge economy," apparently after 1970
46
Features of postmodernity
1. Financial services, services, ideas/information and control of that that gives you money, consumption as a driving force (rather than production),
2. Decline of nation state as “power capsule” – people, ideas, money flows; although idea challenged due to resurgent nationalism; in high modernity, was easier to put a lock on people, but now easier to travel or store your money elsewhere
3. o Self-concept/identity is flexible and reflexive (eg. Sex and gender)
4. loss of grand narratives
5. Simulation
47
"loss of grand narratives"
” – a shared blief in something (progress, science, democracy) – some people think it’s an area of cynicism (feature of postmodernity)
48
Simulation
– ideas and images shape “reality” – real economy follows fantasy economy of images – an example is tourism, since they’ve consumed an image of these places (feature of postmodernity)
49
Quantitative (3 things)
1. try to convert information to numbers/try to find patterns in the numbers. 2. Might lend itself more to determinism (laws/causal factors that determine our behavior, social facts that determine outcomes),
3. might engage in hypothesis testing
50
Qualitative
more focused on meanings and motivations (either within the individual, like why did you want to get higher education, or the aggregate, like racism
51
Deductive meaning
start with a theory, then look at world, test data to test/modify that hypothesis.(often goes with quantitative)
52
Deductive example
Lab biologists who set up narrowly defined approach experiment with rats in a lab
53
Inductive
look at the world and seeing what comes to you, what’s going on., often goes with qualitative
54
Inductive example
Field biologists who look at chimpanzees in the wild (
55
Example of complication between correlation and causation
o People try to figure out relationship between education, income, and health
o These three factors all positively correlate, but which one is doing the lifting? All of the arrows can go both ways
56
Independent variable
the thing that causes something else; sociology tries to figure out how much causing they actually doD
57
Dependent variable
the thing that gest kicked around/gets caused
58
* Concomitant variation
when two things co-vary; if x goes up, so does y;
59
* Generalizability:
: how widely can this contained study apply to other cases; sociology vulnerable to this because the social world changes, situations and places are very differences; extent to which your findings can be applied elsewhere to other cases
60
* Sampling:
: can’t survey everyone in America, so take smaller number of cases and hope they can apply to larger groups; the larger the sample, the better, gives you more statistical power
61
* Sampling frame:
how you find the people/subjects you are going to survey
62
Example of sampling frame
if sampling health outcomes in US cities, you would get sampling frame by going to the federal government and taking their list of what they consider cities; or maybe would randomly sample every thirteenth yellow pages for businesses.
63
Why does every sampling frame have some kind of bias?
(certain people/institutions in that frame, certain people not; for example, people who could not afford a phone could not be in the phone book; hard to reach undocumented people/people in prisons
64
* Ethics:
Shouldn't do harm to the people you study, especially since often looking at vulnerable populations ; generally maintain anonymity; make sure people are informed about the nature of the study
65
* Researcher effects
we might influence the thing we want to find out about (people giving socially preferred responses during an interview study; so maybe we generate the information we interpret, since people influenced by our presence, typically try to appear more moral/worthy then they actually are
66
Ethnography
trying to understand from within by becoming a competent member of the group, spend a long time with the group; try to share their way of seeing the world, their culture and routines, being in their shoes, get trusted
67
What is ethnography often used for
small groups, communities (rich people in the polo club, Vietnamese community in a certain city
68
Problems with ethnography (5 things)
1. could get into ethical dilemmas
2. could be strong researcher effect if that group has something to hide
3. risk of researcher adopting group's bias and losing objectivity
4. Takes a lot of time to do properly
5. Victimless crimes (doing drugs)
69
Observation method
look from without, study people a bit like field biologists studying monkeys.
70
Possible applications for observation method
Maybe used to study crowd dynamics, how people spread out at the beach. Works very well for applications to public design (could build a park based on where you see people sit)
71
Problems with observation (2)
1. Get patterns, but not motivations
2. Only applicable to things observable in public space
72
Benefit of interviews (2)
1. Good for getting at meanings and experiences and how they get together
2. a lot faster than ethnography, get lots of info quickly
73
Problems with interviews (4)
1. Strong researcher effect
2. Maybe we're only talking to people who want to be talked to
3. Involves language, some people maybe not bel to articulate feelings well
4. People might not remember things well
74
Action research
when you try to help the community you are researching/give back; power imbalances between themselves and the people they’re researching, might have ethical obligation to give something back
75
What methods might action research modify
interviews, observation, ethnography
76
Discourse/content analysis
(we think society runs on meanings and social representations, meaning of democracy, racism, masculinity think we can get at them best by looking at mass media, historical novels, online posts, encapsulated in artifcats of language that have existed for a long time, can reconstruct these meanings through close reading)
77
Two different approaches for discourse/content analysis
Humanist: doing deep reading, pulling out quotes
Coding: "big data," collocations
78
Benefits of surveys
1. Get a lot of data quickly for quantitative analysis
79
Problems with surveys (4)
1. Might show correlations, but maybe not causation
2. How the questions are wording
3. who volunteers the take the survey (harder to get some communities)
4. survey fatigue
80
Experiments
(usually not in the lab): example, you drop a key with an address tagged on it and you see if it gets returned
81
Natural experiments
look at things that happened in world that might generate an effect.
82
Example of natural experiment
: Eurobarometer survey on attitudes toward immigration done in Europe; if there’s a terrorist bomb hallway through collecting the survey, can compare how they filled it in before and after and see how much impact a terrorist attack makes on the responses.
83
Official statistics/business statistics:
o Often don’t have to pay money to collect these official statistics/census data
o Example: look at tax records and seeing if people move states or not (the rich don’t flee as much as you would expect)
84
Problems with official/business statistics
1. Confidentiality
2. Might not allow us to ask killer questions
3. Doesn't reveal much motivations or meanings
85
Examples of criteria to justify case study (5)
o 1. Study a case that is totally typical (can generalize)
o 2. Deviant case: study the one that is atypical (reveals things wont' see from obvious case)
o 3. Issues of theoretical experience:
o 4. Pure example: Iceland has limited other variables going on (mostly one race)
o 5. You pick the one everyone else is talking about so you can be a part of the discussion
86
Issues of theoretical experiment criterion to justify case study
you pick the case study where that variable is highlighted the most. You’re interested how women feel about killing people with guns in wars, so you go to Kurdistan where there is an established example
87
Case study
research method that relies on a single case rather than a population or sample. in-depth examination of a single instance or event
88
“The gender order
refers to way society might organize itself with regard to gender, each society might have a different gender order
89
3 main components of gender order
1. Basic dimension of inequality/stratification: to what extent are women second-class citizens with regards to men
2. Social organization (household, workplace, occupations) – very relevant in U.S., women often have large portion of family life, but maybe subordinate occupational positions,
3. Culture: expectations about behavior, body type, dress and clothing; people often try to live up to these or deviate from them
90
What implications might gender order have
demography (women's job to reproduce)
power
freedom
91
intersectionality
idea that people might carry within themselves multiple identities, being a women not the same for white and black women, need to look at intersectionality to understand things; bell hooks and Patricia hill collins
92
Sex
biological differences between males and females (different ways bodies built, different biological potentials like childbearing)
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Gender
cultural beliefs and practices based on sex; often in sociology view this as somewhat arbitrary, can be different in different cultures, decouple sex and gender
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Sexuality
sexual activity, sexual preferences and identity
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Radical constructivism
tries to undermine distinction between sex and gender; Judith Butler says nothing is “outside of culture”, she sees sex as culturally constructed, scientists latch onto chromosomal differences as arbitrary way as defining sex
96
Gender as a master status
first thing people see when they see you, most important aspect, very visible aspect
97
How do we know gender is socially constructed?
Lessons from intersexed and cross-cultural contexts (example Hijra, Nadle)
98
Hijra
– person born biologically male, castrated, dress as women, engage in prostitution acts with men, sleezy singing and dancing
99
Nadle
in Navajo tribes; flipped between male and female tasks and forms of dress
100
Essentialism
your social role and gender expectations driven by your sex, people are essentially different, two types, no cultural differences, attributing characteristics to people based on essences
101
Biological determinism
your biological makeup determines your social role
102
Examples of biological determinism
Women should stay home, since give birth/breast feed; men should work construction jobs, since bigger/stronger
103
Doing gender
we live in gender order; doing gender is how it manifests in everyday life and reinforces our conceptions of two discreet sexes
104
What are some examples of doing gender
every time you go into a men’s or a women’s bathrooms, every time you use gendered pronouns, wearing certain types of clothes, gendered products (female razor), hair length, everyday interactions (women more nice, avoid confrontation, move bodies differently)
105
R.W. Connell's Hegemonic masculinity
idealized feature of masculine gender, like an action movie star, tough, independent, developed physique, socially dominant, preferably affluent, heterosexual.
106
What does Connell (hegemonic masculinity) recommend
emphasized feminity to get high status in society – physically attractive, married, polite, deferential, heterosexual
107
Why are women in sports in a dilemma
women have to emphasize heterosexuality; women being athletic would contradict female identity in terms of emphasized feminitity/weakness
108
Socialization into gender roles examples
babies gendered early on (girls get barbies, pink and blue), start to form aspirations based around gender roles drilled into your brain (big muscular guys want to play in MBA
109
Public and private spheres
Men’s gender roles put them in public sphere, women’s gender roles put them in private sphere
110
cult of domesticity
women expected to live up to it; got at cooking, keeping house clean, entertaining people; trad wife trend favors affluent people
111
Arlie Hoshschild: second shift
– if both men and women in the house are in the labor force, the women have to do more work afterwards; bud light vs. women cooking), maybe women are penalized for enterig workforce
112
, vertical segregation
(men in top positions, women in assistant positions),
113
glass ceiling
(there are invisible barriers to women succeeding in organizations, can get to middle management but not top ceiling),
114
tokenism
(if you’re a woman on board of directors, just because you’re a woman and worries if you are competent enough
115
horizontal segregation
(same level in hierarchy might be doing different jobs – men builders, women cleaners; people self-sort or are sorted into occupations
116
pink-collar occupations
teachers, nurses, bank teller, secretary – jobs dominated by women); argue that these are paid less, some research showing that as women move into a field, status/pay decreases
117
glass elevator
when a guy is in a pink-collar occupation, he progresses really fast
118
some components of the sample research field gender and work
public and private spheres, second shift, vertical/horizontal segregation, work devotion, glass ceiling/elevator, pink-collar occupations
119
Example of media, advertising, body norms field of gender
, sexualized female athlete ads so that women are able to prove they are heterosexual)
120
The racial order
it varies over time and society; the way it organizes itself along racial lines; every society has one
121
How to investigate the rival order? (a few ideas)
Look at
1. who's in charge
2. beauty standards
3. housing ownership/household wealth
4. incarceration rates
122
Race vs. ethnicity
race generally taks to biology, ethnicity to culture
123
o Categories and boundaries:
how people in society divide other people up. Racial boundaries deeply internalized in our everyday thinking about people; they are deep in our common sense, socially constructed/shifting but deeply consequential
124
Examples of racial boundaries shifting
Italians and Jews and Irish becomes honorary whitesbright
125
and burred boundaries
(bright boundary is a line that’s very hard to cross; blurred boundary is fuzzy line easier to cross; African Americans vs. Jews, Italians, Irish
126
What did W.E.B. DuBois do in the Philadelphia Nego
ethnography of black area of Philadelphia, , one of first attempts to figure out what are housing conditions, gender roles, the disadvantages it suffers; saw large number of unmarried mothers (men were irresponsible – still problem we have today)
127
What did W.E.B. DuBois do in the Souls of Black Folk
introduce idea of double consciousness
128
Double consciousness
if you’re a black person in America, have your own self-concept, but you also see yourselves through the eyes of the dominant white people, causes you to be self-critical, always feel like you’re judged; don’t have sovereignty over own soul/psyche
129
Racism
belief that one group is superior to another; often generated by the dominant group
130
“Scientific racism”:
believed racial differences were objectively measurable/could be category, and that all this work could prove that white people were superior, black people most superior; emerged in Victorian Era, obsessed with measuring bodies, photographing people, skull measurements
131
Eugenics
that we should engage in selective breeding of populations
132
“Color blind racism" (Howard Winant)
we should not see color in people, should treat everybody equally; “I don’t see race, I just see people,” say programs like affirmative action themselves are racist
133
Why is color blid racism problematic?
sociologically since overlooks fact that race has a deep history/reality; People come from different starting places: moving to policy regimes motivated by color blind racism could further cement those inequalities
134
New racism
focuses more on cultural incompatibility, avoids issue of race; “Muslim positions on women’s rights incompatible with our people, way of life/values being eroded
135
Robert Mertons' typology of racism
. Fair weather liberal = someone opposed to racism but won’t do much about it; all-weather liberal = freedom-fighting campaigner, like white people in freedom rides in South, might even risk their lives; actie bigot = someone who is racist and does something about it; timid bigot = someone who is super racist but doesn’t do anything about it, afraid to risk social sanctions
136
Herbert Gans: Symbolic ethnicity
over time, when groups settle in America, ethnicity becomes more and more optional; more of a symbolic thing tagged on, becomes “lifestyle choice,” can code-switch
137
White prievelge
white people have a lot of advantages (no one notices you, people believe you more, if you’re an angry white person people don’t take you to be a token of you’re race, you’re an angry person not an angry white person, don’t have to represent your group all the time, various privileges/more options in terms of social spaces (country clubs), consumer products organized around white people, who is used as models in catalogues, generally free form fears of racial violence, you don’t have to think about race
138
Marked and unmarked categories
Whiteness seen as default category, often not noticed
139
Complication: ethnicity and racism
this isn’t a race, it’s a religion, but people see Islamophobia as racism
140
Assimilation
micro group becomes more like host nation (generally applied to migrant groups over time),
141
How to measure assimilation
Cultural (enthusiasm for baseball, teenager beahviors); Strcutural (position in housing/labor market), marital (is third generation measuring people in host nation, civic and political (voting behavior, maybe over time stop only voting for people from your home country)
142
Multiculturalism
as model or reality (idea that we should celebrate differences), – argued that something wrong with assimilation, assumes that host nation is somehow inherently better
143
Disparities
structurally measurable differences in terms of outcomes between ethnic groups, but might not involve active discrimination
144
Structural racism
social structure, structural barriers to success, maybe something to do with culture inattentive to the problems
145
Institutional racism
organizations you can put a name on, American Airlines, police force, policies and values of that institution
146
examples of structural racism
redlining: areas circled in red line where they would not give loans, tended to be areas with high black people). Since these were poor areas, would be a risky/bad loan – though not intended to be racist, had the consequences
147
List a few causes of racial/ethinc inequality
1. Psychology (individual, shaped by culture)
2. Structural racism
148
Jennifer Lee on new boundaries in race
New boundary is black v. not black, not white/non-white. Hispanic and Asian Americans are on “immigrant track,” same track as Jews, Italians, and Irish; more intermarrying, being seen as respectable, but African Americans left behind, becoming “honorary white” people
149
Future of race
More mixing
More minority population
New boundary
150
Domination (way sociologists think about power)
Control, ability to coerce people. Force. Military. Violence. Threat of violence, not giving them an alternative; Koreans fighting in North Korea
151
Zero sum context of competition (way sociologists think about power)
(you win something, someone else loses something; balances out). Examples: Winning election
152
shaping common sense (power)
shaping what is “thinkable” or even on the table; what people want. Sometimes there is “no contest” because people don’t think competition is possible. Example: 30 years ago, being trans was unthinkable; revolution is off the agenda in America.
153
"Agenda setting" (power)
not telling people what to think, but telling them what to think about; mass media
154
Organization capacity/rule making power (power)
associated with bureaucracies, able to set rules about high society works, even if can’t literally force you to do something; people drawing redlining maps
155
Gatekeeping (power)
Gatekeeping (access to something they can either give or deny you – admissions officers, employers, landlords deciding whether to rent a house to you)
156
Network centrality/organizational role (power)
President of Yale, might have agenda-setting party;
157
Symbolic power (power)
– cultural values, belief, enthusiasm, performance, refers to meaning of meaning in social life; MAGA hat
158
Total social system capacity (power)
– big natural disaster, some countries have ability to bounce back faster than others, meaning they have more power of a total social system capacity; doesn’t need to have power over/dominate somewhere else necessarily
159
What is Max Weber's typology of power?
Traditional authority
Legal-rational authority
charismatic authority
160
Traditional authority
based on custom, has advantage of things always have been that way. Chiefs in Africa get their power since people take for granted since society is always led by chief.
161
Problem with traditional authority
: might not be able to respond to a changing environment or changing threat, as doing so might bring down whole system
162
Legal rational authority
: Bureaucracy, what we got in modernity (since 1500s); says power is legitimate if there are laws, and those laws are administered by an impartial bureaucracy;
163
Problem with mega-rational authority
meaninglessness; everyday world loses meaning, might not generate strong buy-in from people, a bit beige
164
charismatic authority
: Personality, associated with exceptional individuals. Properties: they produce signs of their brilliance that makes people think they have exceptional powers and should be followed, produce signs of winning; they are also often rule-breakers and risk-takers, maybe very good public speakers; people submit to their power.
165
Problems with charismatic authority
: if the signs of greatness start slipping away, characteristic attribution by followers can also diminish, you always have to keep winning; progression; what comes next after that person die? Maybe morphs back into form of legal-rational authority, or maybe things fall apart (Napoleon)
166
What does Michel Foucault say about power in modernity?
Docile body, soul training, microphysics of power, surveillance, biopower, hermeneutics of suspicion
167
Docile body (Foucault)
Drilling, repetitive moving of human bodies, produce docile body that can e manipulated by powers in modernity like the military
168
Microphysics of power
extremely small specifications for how you should use human power (how you should hold your finger when pulling the trigger)
169
Panopticon/Bentham/Ulititarianism (Foucault)
Panopticon (very efficient device for power – people being watched never know if they are being watched; find in critique of Google/Facebook snooping in our data, some with government
170
What does Foucault say about knowledge and power?
Knowledge is not innocent; thinks teachers and doctors are all generating forms of power; knowledge controlling more and more people, professions are places that generate knowledge to control peopleB
171
Biopower (Foucault)
. Linked to populations, generating a workforce and army; in modernity we need large populations for these functions, leading to social obsession with fertility and counting the population/censu
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"Hermeneutics of suspicion”:
”: interpretation of suspicion; never take anything at face value, there’s always a cloud behind the silver lining (doctors controlling your body, priests trying to force you to behave a certain way)
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What does Durkheim say in Elementary Forms of Religious Life?
Religious rituals is where people come together and feel solidarity to build a peaceful society; rituals are part of mobilization
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What is Steven LLukes' critique of Durkheim's Elementary Forms of Religious Life
Lukes says that Durkheim overlooks that ritual can also be tied to power, can organize themselves to protest, important in social movements. Example: people at Donald Trump rallies bonded by ritual of political rally. They are bonding with each other, but also against other people
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William McNeil musular bonding
energetic feelings of solidarity
looked at every known society and saw they all engaged in activities like group dance/marching/chanting in a rhythmic way; these ritual movements of the body create a group out of a bunch of individuals, energizes people, make them more willing to die for the group; used for armies, causes them to want to fight for their friends.
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Randall Collins Interaction ritual
. Every time you say hi to someone, you form a bond that creates emotional energy. If you engage in activities in synched rhythms and exclude other people, pair up; certain groups with really cool interaction rituals can control society
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Social Performance (Jefffrey Alexander)
You get power by tapping into the sacred; political theatre and ritual; need to be a good performer and fuse yourself with sacred values. MLK was embodiment of American justice, having some sort of contract with God and the concept of nation.
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Petrspectives on ritual as forms of power
muscular bonding
interaction ritual
social performance
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Where does Marx say power lies?
In control of economy/wealth
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What did Marx see as the role of the state?
just a puppet state that works in the interest of the bourgeoisie; really things like education and health care might just exist to keep the laboring classes content and so they can continue working, role of state is to provide conditions to keep capitalism going
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What did Marx see as role of ideology?
just a system of (often false) ideas that favor the dominant class (if you work hard, you can get ahead; the police are there to protect everyone – falsified since police always brought in to control the strikers)
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One objection to Marx
Maybe democratic inclusion of the working class proves Marx wrong
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Symbolic interactionism
Distinctive microsociology approach to explaining social order. “bottom up picture” that society is built from lots of these small-scale/face-to-face interactions
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What is view of the self in SI?
positive view of the individual (humanistic paradigm): people want to be treated with dignity/protect their dignity, preserve their identity, want to seen as worthy/humane/competent, and their action is purposive
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How is the self reflexive in SI?
people reflect on themselves and behave in this complicated way. Example: DuBois’ double consciousness; people do not naively inhabit themselves, they think about who they are and how others see them
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o George Herbert Meade. “I and me.”
– “I” you are the subject of the action, in control; “me” is what other people do to you; much of social life involves negotiating this balance, so all social action is kind of reflexive (whatever you do has an echo of what other people will do to you/respond to you)
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Example of I and me
: if you want to wear a piece of ridiculous clothing, you might not because you are aware of other people judging you; self-censorship (don’t tell people they look ugly because they might receive judgment from other people); once other people enter the room, you think about them judging you and you have fear of other people judging you
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“looking glass self” Charles Cooley
you see yourself from the outside; we pre-select and pre-censor our lines of action
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General components of self in SI
Positive conception of indvidiual
reflexive
I and Me
Looking glass self
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What did Herbert Blumer say
famous symbolic interactionist, action v. behavior distinction; behavior is not reflexive just what animals do all the time; action is what humans do, purposive, highly reflexive
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In what ways is symbolic interactionism humanistic?
Voluntaristic (people choose their lines of action),
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“accomplishment of social order (SI)
social order accomplished by individuals in events and situations, maybe there is a sense of mission
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ground-up social order, “the local, the contextual”
instead of order imposed from above, it’s built up ground us by us being clever, reflexive people
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What helps accomplish the social order?
Shared definition of the situation; if there are two different definitions of the situation, might have conflict
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Negotiated order (SI)
the social order is actually negotiated by the people who are in the place, maybe people in a community figure out a barrier for what is/is not an okay joke; NOT just rules
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grounded theory (SI)
approach in sociology saying you don’t know answers beforehand/stand with very few suppositions, have to look really closely and see what’s going on; build your theory up from what you see
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Members in grounded theory (SI)
(people who belong in a setting/organization/group)
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What are two big examples of symbolic interactionism?
Gothman theatrical analogy
Gothman asylums
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Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life by Erving Goffman
theatrical analogy
impression management
fronstage/backstage
props
role distance
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"theatrical analogy" (Goffman)
– sees life as performances of one person to another; aware of yourself as a real person, but also someone playing a role (goes back to looking glass); if you are a police officer, have to pretend you are in control, etc.
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Impression management (Goffman)
– people try to give a worthy version of themselves to others/show to others they are a worthy person, belong in the setting, are competent; often try to perform in way that makes you look interested, on the ball
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Frontstage/backstage (Goffman)
: when people see you vs. when you are getting ready; the waiter will be very nice to customer, but be shouted at by the chef; backstage might be fixing hair
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Props (Goffman)
pieces of material culture you use to make your performance look credible (a preacher might want to carry around a Bible so you look like you’re invested in, Trump might want to have a MAGA hat)
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Question of role distance (Goffman)
theory criticized since it suggests that everyone is just faking it to get along, everyone is wearing masks; maybe being a teacher is who I really am, sometimes people are distant from the role they want to play, but other times it’s part of the “I” that they have been socialized into their core
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Total institution
A place in sociology where every aspect of daily life is controlled (time table/schedule, you’re movements are controlled, sharp boundary between staff and inmates) – maybe a summer camp, military barracks, rehab, boarding school, lighthouse
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o Rites of passage (van Gennep’s term)
– you have a new identity assigned to you, enter as a civilian but have institutional identity thrust upon you; social ritual where you are given your new identity, often follows a very certain sequence (stripped, showered, told rules, system of punishment and rewards, assigned to certain job – they all happen in the same way)
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What do total institutions try to do
institutions try to shape people into certain models, into an institutional player.
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In what ways might there be a conflict at total institutions?
Sometimes people try to maintain their sense of self/identity; battle between total institution trying to wipe out total self and person trying to maintain their real self; they do say in the “cracks’ in the institution (moments of day not scheduled, places not surveyed – would do activities not institutionally approved; these are important for people maintaining sense of identity
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Goffman on asylum key elements
Total institution that attempt to control you
Rites of passage
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Poverty
: unable/struggling to meet basic needs (food, shelter, clothing; housing, health care, heat)
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What is problematic about (“Official Poverty Measure” in the USA, defined by social security administration by 3x the cost of food
things like rent have increased in price faster than food, one-size-fits all model for USA, household expenditure on rent much more than expenditure on food, housing costs vary widely regionally, doesn’t consider the health of the individual.
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Consequences of poverty for individual
problems with body, health problems; stress and anxiety from being worried about eviction, etc.;children don’t have solid home; if you’re poor more likely to be victim of crime
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Consequences of poverty for society
costs for looking after poor people (social welfare problems), crime, urban blight, drug use
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The near poor
people working minimum wage jobs and struggling to get by, often forgotten
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Why get rid of poverty
o A net drain on society – have to keep paying for poverty (social workers, police, food stamps); poor people often unproductive (maybe they are sick)
o If you have poor people, you have to spend money either way – either police them or give them welfare
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One solution to poverty and the problems with it
Raise taxes - BUT people are turned off by ideas of undeserving poor, steroetypoes like welfare queen
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Culture of poverty (Oscar Lewis)
. Says poor people have a sense of fatalism (that they cannot do much to change their lot). Time orientation is short sighted (people not interested in saving, paying off their mortgages); if you live a life with a lot of uncertainty, it’s better to spend you’re money while you have it, as otherwise could get taken away (crops fail, pay bribes for police, taken away by theif or landlord)
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"concentrated disadvantage," William Julius Wilson
– there are geographical traps in America with spatially lots of disadvantaged people, due to historical reasons; black workers came up from south 1950s/60s (The Great Migration); but people got stuck in place working in factory in North where, due to deindustrialization, things start to shut down. People with skill base/capital leave; white flight and black flight out of these communities, so the people left behind are the most disadvantaged; get whole areas of the city with crime, terrible housing quality, etc.
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What are "neighborhood effects"
on a smaller scale, even more local; Concentrated disadvantage on a small scale; they’re long lasting neighborhood effects of where you grow up as a kid, strong predictor of future income
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Poverty traps/feedback loops
idea that poverty is like a vortex, hard to get out of it. Live in a bad neibhrohood, this increases your risk of several things (poor health, people stealing your stuff) – because you’re poor, can’t get out of this; people who have money can save money, people who don’t have money have to spend it; unable to build up capital to get out of it, always spending money on stuff; might be victim of predatory loan sharks
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Barbara Ehrenreich “Nickle and Dimed”
experimental ethnography; she got into this poverty trap where she had to spend money on a motel room every night, couldn’t get money together for an apartment, ate junk food and had health problems. Even she, who was advantaged, was not able to make it work.
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List some cause for why poverty sticks around
Culture of poverty
Concentrated disadvantage
Neighborhood effects
Poverty trap
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"Moving to Opportunity"
o Sociological experiment. Housing and Urban Development; gave out vouchers to people for housing in 1990s, 4600 families
o 1/3 got voucher to pay housing costs and move out of area of concentrated disadvantage
o 1/3 got voucher and could leave only after a year
o 1/3 stayed where they were
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Results of "Moving to Opportunity"
; when people moved they went to low-crime areas, younger kids improved educational attainment but older kids did not, even further down the track with SAT; positive impacts on obesity/happiness BUT did not lead to huge shift in job opportunities
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Why did "Moving to Opportunity" maybe not have desired effects?
Problems of poverty are bundled, and you have to deal with all of the problems at the same time. If you move someone, other things move too
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Why is "moving to opportunity" not a good social experiment
people broke the rules (retained social contact, moved to wrong places, break contract)
Self-select into the experiment (people who are already more motivated to move)
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Marx on poverty elements
Poverty is inevitable with capitalism
Reserve army of labor
Immiseration of the proletariat
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o Reserve army of labor (lumpenproletariat)
– people willing to work but not in industrial work force; if they are there always willing to take the job of people who are resigning/going on strike, means capitalists can just continue to drive wages lower and avoid having to respond to the complaints, can just get rid of the problem workers
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o “Immiseration of the proletariat”
poverty comes about not only due to reserve army of labor, but workers in factory will get poorer and poorer. Why? Because of competition in the marketplace (capitalists have to cut costs, one way to do that was cutting wages; low wages baked into capitalism)
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How did Marx envision stratification order?
stratification order based on class and means of production, factory owners were dominant class, workers at bottom and have nothing to sell but labor power
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Why is Marx's conception of stratification order a bit dated?
o Why is this a bit dated/in need of some changes? Pension plans (both a worker and an owner; investing shares (still an owner)); real estate (in many cities, largest chunk of capital people have is their property; you have wealth that has nothing to do with your job, but that was just lucky where you bought your house, sociology hasn’t found great ways to map this onto class), skills, professions (Marx predicted growing gap between proletariat and workers, but then middle class emerged) – these complicate things for Marx
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What is Weber's vision of stratification?
There dimensions - class, status, power; could be on top of stratification order if ranked high on any one of these
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What is an example illustrating WEber's vision of stratification (class, status, power)
Example: Pope is super high on status, even if he has no money.
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* Wisconsin model
argued that stratification was multidimensional in America, could rank as high or low on order depending on many things: household income, occupational prestige (big innovation – whether it’s a highly sought after job or not, there was stable sense about which occupations considered higher status or not), education (did you finish high school/have degree); then ranked people based on these factors
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What was Marxist response to the Wisconsin model
some people took all the Wisconsin model and tried to redefine them or “rebadge” them in terms of class.
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Status consistence and inconsistency (what is and example)
when all those factors line up, you have status consistency; generally you have high status occupation, you get paid more money and have more education; counterexample is teachers in Taiwan very respected but not rich
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Issue of income vs. wealth for stratification
sometimes how many assets you have (emergency fund, pension) would give you a buffer, so you can take more of a ris
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o Thomas Picketty and the 1%
noticed rich was getting richer, no one else was; in 20th century had been growth of middle class, but now getting hollowed out; this is because wages only went up slowly, but returns on capital invested in shares/corporations went up steeply. The wealthy have most of their money in share portfolios, returns to economic productivity went to people who were owners.
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Counterargument to the 1%
Counterargument to 1%: 90% of America’s wealth owned by 10% of the people…different ways to slice the pie. To be in the 10% means having a college degree, preferably be married (dual income household), have job like doctor, lawyer, teacher; have to pay off credit card every month; if you do all these things, by the time you are 60 you’ll be in top 10%
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Why is wealth inequality growing? (3)
Different taxation of share dividends
Rich moving money offshore
Propery values shifting around
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Horatio Alger Myth
in America anyone can get ahead if you just work hard and try hard (maybe the 10% confirms this); in sociology think it’s too overindividualizstic and overlooks structural things (not having inherited wealth,s sexism, racism, neighborhood disaprities)
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4 types of social mobility
Vertical
Horizontal
Intergeneratoinal
Structural
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Vertical mobility
Moving up or down the income scale
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Intergenerational mobility
They would look at father’s occupation, income, and occupation and look at where the son ended up;
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Why is intergenerational mobility hard to measure
there are different types of jobs, occupational categories may have shifted between generations, hard to know how to compare them; more people go to college now then in previous generations; women have since entered labor force and maybe occupying jobs that men first occupied
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Structural mobility
so makes it hard to see if a society is open/closed and compare societies across time/places since there is so many changes; people might move up Wisconsin prestige scale of organization simply because jobs they used to do, manual jobs, no longer exist, so more people are going to be doing jobs that sound cool, fewer and fewer people are farmers, workers; normal people are counselors, HR,
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What is functionalist view saying inequality is a good thing?
Core roles need good people, society needs to work efficiently; to get these people in the jobs, need to give them more money and more prestige
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What is economist view about why inequality is a good thing?
Inequality is a sign of an active economy, otherwise stagnant. It shows that people are being inventive, innovative, etc.; socialism/too much equality gets rid of incentives for people to try
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Pushback on functionalist view of inequality
some core roles have low status or are not rewarded (being a first-responder, garbage collector; seems we arbitrarily say that having a good professor or judge is more important, so many of important jobs are actually low-renumerated); also uneven playing field might prevent some talented places from getting mobility
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What is disproportion argument saying that inequality is a bad thing?
people in core roles get disproportionally more rewards, they are overvalued, at the expense of workers
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What can sexuality be split into
Sexual activity
Sexual identity
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examples of cross cultural regulation sexuality
Inceset taboo, age of consent (but this varies cross-national), whether homosexuality legal or not
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Focault "History of Sexuality"
talked about population counting and the need for big army and industrial society; sex actively shaped by institutions telling us which forms of activity more legitimate than others
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Sexual scripts
– people do not know what to do (how many people, how often, etc.); turn to sexual scripts, or social templates, that tell you what to do/what’s normal, what type of person they were. They are attached to your gender and sexuality. Use them as a guide for their sexual biographies.
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Examples of sexual scripts
chaperone for Victorian era women; marines/merchant sailors
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Heterosexual double standard
ok for men to have multiple sexual partners, but bad for women
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The “hooking up” script
aspect of campus and college life; casual sexual relationships with no emotional commitment, people try super hard to show there’s no long-term romantic interest, friends with benefits; not the same as dating
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Sexual attitudes
which sex acts do you think are normal/disgusting, what are your attitudes toward gay people; over time they have become more liberal
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Heterosexism
idea that heterosexual relationships are super/normal/the standard against which we measure others
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Opportunity structures
): refers to fact that things happen when there’s a space/change for them to happen.
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How might "opportunity structures" be applied to sexualty
They might make you "turn" gay; homosexuality common in all-male boarding schools
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situational homosexuality
when someone becomes homosexual because the situation there’s in, and the opportunities structures for heterosexual activity disappear;
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sexual orientation
: can refer to desire (who you want to have sex with), behavior (if you follow through on your desire/how often), or who you think you are (gay/straight/bi).
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Difficutly of sex survey research
Taboo
Embellishing results
hard to remember details
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Asexual heteroromantic
person with no sexual desire, but they love dating and romance; comfort of having best friend.
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What does asexual heteroromantic show
Show that dating script is different/decoupled from the sex script
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o Why more non-binary identification nowadays?
People know it's a thing
label exists
less negative reprecrussions
more media represntation/role models
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What are two competing explanations for public behaviors
Ethology
Symbolic interactionism
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Example of explaining manspreading in two different ways
Ethology - species hardwired for men to want to dominate
SI - arbitrary cultural code for masculinity
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What did Georg Simmel say about the city as features?
Intensification of movement in time and space
Accelerated social life
More encounters with strangers
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What did Georg Simmel say result of cities were?
led to psychic shock for individuals, caused people to block themselves off from others and become more dispassionate/cold in disposition (blasé attitude was people’s response to physic shock, their interaction styles changed).
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Walter Benjmain
Wroet a lot about Paris,
movement bround the city
city social life was largely about consumption
Flaneur
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Flaneur
a type of French person who would walk around the city, people watching, moving slowly through the streets with no particular purpose
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"drift," Michel de Certeau
Derived from flaneur
thinks there should be forms of resistance in everyday life
Reaffirm our humanity in face of dehumanizing modernity
move around the city in random patterns and subvert expected patterns of movement
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Civil inattention, Goffman
don’t make eye contact/talk to people; feature of life in modern cities full of stranger (by not engaging with people, tacit agreement to keep going)
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What is the feminist critique of the open person for Goffman's civil inattention?
Women treated like the open person, someone you are allowed to go up to talk to in person where norm of civil inattention does not pertain (like police man)
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Lyn Loveland's typology for railroad station
"Sweet young thing"
"Explorer" looking at maps
"Nester"
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Third space, Ray Oldenberg
place of work or your home; places where strangers can come together and interact in public, makes cities work
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William White
commissioned by New York to improve public spaces, importance of design in parks and plazas
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William White's findings about succeessful feature
options for shade or sunshine, people like to hang out where there are other people (cascade effect), the sense that someone was there who was in control of the space to feel safer (vendor selling coffee, or a sweeper); discovered people don’t like benches, and end to sit on their own and then occupy more real estate,
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Elements of Goffman's "territories of the self"
Personal space
The stall (something you occupy)
Stall defense
Use space
The turn
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Smith "Rude stranger"
Actually driven by situations and design of spaces, not about the person itself,
Prdicted by flows and high densities of people
the person will often be like you
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Rational choice Theory
Actor is “seeking utility.” “Utility maximinizing”. Calculation, but there are scarce resources, tradeoffs
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Example of two utility curves
Apartment location vs. space
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Preference structures
rank ordering of your priorities, which one you want the most, since there are scarce resources
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What leads to hierarchies/complex social organizatoin
Fact that people have different preference structures
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Information asymmetry
in real world information is unevently distributed, the information you have is imperfect, so you end up making sup-optimal decisions
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How does exchange theory explain social facts/aggregate patterns
emerge from lots of people making many decisions, people having different preference structures
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Game Theory
Variation of rational exchange theory; in making the best choice, need to predict what others will do
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Examples of game theory
Prisoner's dilemma
Guessing which beach people will go to
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Bounded rationality/imperfect information/satisficing
People have limited time and do not know anything, so won’t make a perfect decision all the time; might guesstimate.
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What are some limits on action/effort/transacting
search costs
Transaction costs
Sunk costs
Path dependence
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Path dependence
dependence (when you do one think, you keep heading that direction, maybe due to sunk costs;
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Satiation (Homans)
When you have had enough of something, maybe there are diminishing returns, each slice of cake less good; change in utility
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Deprivation
increases the utility of something over time; you don’t get your ice cream, you are fed up from taking the bus
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Two types of changes in utility over time (which might affect rational exchange theory)
Satiation
Deprivation
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What are some examples of sociological applications for rational exchange theory
Collective action problem (being the first mover)
Public goods/tragedy of commons
Selection, ranking, game theory scenarios
Information seeking cascades
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Collective action problem
Being the first mover
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Selection, ranking and game theory scenarios
Eg. School choice, school lottery with rankings (parents might be tactical in trying to guess which schools other people will be guessing to);
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Criticisms of rational choice theory
1. works better for some contexts than others (markets/money vs. expressive activities)
2. Doesn't tell us where preferences coexist fro
3. Some people face structural/legal barriers to choice
4. Banality and absurdity
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In what three ways can social factors still prevail over biological determinism?
1. Management/control
2. Experience/meaning/interpreation
3. Biological process distribution
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social correlates for illness
there are social correlates for eviction, crime, other thigns as well, latch onto particular class groups/demographics; example of inequality, illness latches onto inequality
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Some things tha impact probability to sickness
1. knowledge about healthy lifestyel
2. Where you live/what work you do (toxins)
3. Aceess to medication
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Why might wealthier people do better in patient-doctor encounter?
1. More time to go to doctor
2. will be more pushy to get better treatment
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The sick role, Talcott Parsons
being sick is not just a biological status, also a social role comes with duties and expectations and obligations; follow doctor's orders, can't enjoy being sick, have to try to be getting better
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How do you get entrance to the sick role
Fromlegitimate authority like doctor
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Role complementarity/role set
When roles match onto each other (patient and doctor) -example from sick role
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What are the physician/patient roles
Physician - treat people impartially, not sex
Patient - be deferential, listen to doctors
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"The good death" Allan Kellehear
expected to try to get better, expected to keep taking care of your garden and plant things that will flower after your death (think about future people), be with your family, try to keep active in social life, continue with life as normal, have positive mental attitude, tying up emotional loose ends/grudges, letting people know your funeral preferences, making last farewells
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Philippe Ariès changing attitudes to death over history argument
Modernity changed the orientation of death – death started to take place in hidden places where people were excluded (hospitals under medical people’s supervision); as mortality rates went down, people became more fearful of death and death become less meaningful; when it was part of community, it was less fearful
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Blue Zones Dan Buettner
Places where people live to very old ages (Sardinia, Okinawa); social aspects to these blue zones in terms of life style that account for this, not just biology (people had no real sense of retirement, would keep working longer, had physical activity built into daily lives, high levels of social context, low levels of drinking, not like putting people in nursing homes, more intergenerational households, fish and vegetarian diets, sense of life’s purpose, more family contacts)
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Possible criticisms of Blue Zones
: sometimes the records are dodgy (especially since in 1920s and 10s people wouldn’t have recorded it, also sometimes people might not keep death records in order to keep collecting checks)
Could also be a genetic advantage (especially since two village every close together with similar lifestyles would have different death rates)
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First and second sleep (Roger Ekirch)
in middle ages, before full-blown modernity, people would go to bed, sleep for a bit, then wake up and do stuff (sexual activity, knitting, playing cards, reading books, talking), then would go back to sleep – used to be elemental in social life, then disappeared
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In what ways is sleep not as simple as we thought?
Babies have to be trained to sleep longer, some people can get by on very little sleep, some people;le break it up
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in what ways can insomnia not be just a purely biological condition?
Maybe used to just be second sleep; never existed before
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Connection with sleep to time/task orientation
Now sleeping becomes a task rather than something fun – you need to get your sleep so that you can work properly
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Cross-cultural and context variations on sleep
Example: siesta during the hottest part of the day.
Infantrymen on ships (people good at sleeping)
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Issue of coordinated action in social system
Sleep becomes a problem in a system when people have to get up and be productive, go to the factory
Counter-example: old people napping in nursing homes; your sleeping doesn’t exert a tax on society, since it does not create problems for coordinated action, since you are not expected to contribute
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How do patterns emerge in rational choice theory
Large-scale patterns emerge based on how individual people make decisions; when they are repeated frequently enough, get exchange relationship with is core of social organization, get emergence of groups and networks
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What does rational choice theory look towards
economics and behavioral psychology
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What are some key features of rational exchange theory?
Individualistic, rational actors, calculation
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George Homans on rational choice theory
): said people will interact when they both get something out of the interaction; should look at cost/risks/risks of interaction to see whether it will take place or not, and we add these up; we will stop interacting when the negatives outweigh the positives of the interaction
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What is anthropological equivalent of rational exchange theory
transnationalism
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o Blau “Dynamics of Bureaucracy
– studied what was driving interactions in U.S. government federal office, saw lots of interactions between senior people and junior people (which seems like it would be not good use of senior people’s time) – but there was an exchange relationship in which junior person extended deference to senior person, which enhanced their status; the junior agent did this in order to get advice
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o Mancur Olson “The Logic of Collective Action”
sometimes the best solution for the collective is not the best solution for the individual; free rider problem
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Free rider problem
person who benefits from the public goods without contributing anything, which is a problem for society
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What did Durkheim say in The Rules of Sociological Method
need to study society like scientist studies natural world, needs to establish laws
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What is a social fact
A social determinant of outcomes, not a pscyhlgoical or economic explanation
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Currents in collective conscience
Sweeping ideas moving through society that shape the way we think; shape action and aggregate patterns
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Determinism
idea that people’s actions are controlled, social facts outside of us drive our choices and aggregate patterns; social forces are strong, we are weak; we don’t have control over the social facts, they are somehow beyond us
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Positivism
View that we can study society like we study natural world (should have hypothesis, use scientific method to discover laws, etc.)
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Can social facts be either material or non=material?
Yes! Sense of morality; housing prices
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Give examples of Steven Luke's typology of social facts
1. Social rules/laws (sanctions)
2. Pragmatic necessities
3. Objective features of society beyond individual control
4. Psychological currents
5. Culture, norms, morals, sense of obligation
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Examples of objective features beyond individual control social fact
heterosexual male in China would have a hard time finding a wife, you can’t control demographic sex ratio
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Example of psychological currents social facts
belief in French Revolution, crowd behavior
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o Culture, norms, morals, sense of obligation social fact
(sense of values inside your brain that shape your beavhior; we’ve internalized society into ourselves
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Three really good examples of social facts
Baby names
Suicide
Gifts
338
How do we know that baby names are a social fact?
Chocies predictable to demographics and politics
339
What is the mechanism behind baby names being social fact?
Imigtation
Differentiation
Information (lists on internet)
Practicality (ethnic names)
340
Audit studies
o Audit study (experiment, might send out CVs and just adjust one feature, like a names) – give people stereotypical names, and have a white/control name; the number of people who get called back often depend on this, due to swirling currents in collective consciousness
341
In what ways could your name b connected to belief/predjuice (culture)
your name will generate prejudices about you
342
Durkheim book Suicide
Used government statistics/records and also saw extra information about those individuals, derived many predictors
343
Risk factors for suicide
o Widowed man, being Protestant, being single, economic prosperity change
344
Protective factors for suicide
o Being Catholic or Jewish, being a widowed woman (shows that maybe marriage is more of a burden to women), being a married man
345
Typology of suicide (4 types)
Egoistic
Anomic
Altrustic
Fatalistic
346
Egoistic suicide
individual too cut off from the community, too much of an individual and not much of a group (explains Protestants)
347
Anomic suicide
lack a moral compass and have no sense of restraint on action (thinks this is the form tied to rapid social change, since that leads to people not having moral compass, too much gets shaken up); like Hollywood people who have too much wealth and drugs; no one would say no when you are a celebrity, so you have no restraint on your action, start to lose moral compass
348
Altruistic suicde
when you do suicide for the benefit of the group (you are too highly integrated). Example: kamikaze; ancient warriors who throw themselves off cliff, Native Americans who crawl out in a snowstorm for the good of the group
349
Fatalistic suicide
when you think there is no way out (people in military who can’t see an end to their military service, maybe people in prison)
350
Marcel Mauss
gift as a social fact
351
Laws of gift giving
o You have to give a gift back in return
o Supposed to wait a bit before giving gift back
o Return gift has to be different than the original gift
352
Mauss "total social fact"
o It’s a social fact that has internalized itself into our psyches, we feel an obligation to it ; we have tacit knowledge of it, we use it without knowing it
353
Different views of social action
Voluntaristic/voluntarism (qualitative)
Determinsitic/determinism
Probability-driven determinism
354
Voluntaristic view of social action
People are acting actively toward an ideal
355
How do most people think of social order?
Non=random, patterned; predictable
356
Five common answers for why social life is patterned/social order exists
Culture (custom, habit, routine)
Cultlure (meanings, values)
Rationality (incentives and disincentives_
Cocertion, control, power, threat of sanctinos
Organization (coordination, networks, bureaucracy)
357
Information cascade
“when individuals, in the face of uncertainty, opt to follow others rather than making an independent decision”
358
Technological determinism
a theory that suggests technology is the primary driving force behind social and cultural change, essentially arguing that the development of technology dictates how society evolves and functions, rather than society shaping technology itself;
359
Two key findings from gift
1. people can operate a complex system even when don't explicitly know the rules
2. "moral obligation," internalized rules and sense of duty from society
360
Hobbes' view of the social order
“war of all against all” in the state of nature, a lot of chaos
361
Criticism of Hobbes' view of social order/alternative
o He conflates social conflict/war with chaos, but war is actually very ordered;
o More analytic treatment. Non-random, patterned social action. Predictable.
o Social action is very patterned
362
audit study
An "audit study" is a type of field experiment used in social science research to test for discriminatory behavior by randomly assigning characteristics like race, gender, or ethnicity to individuals (often through correspondence like emails or applications) and observing how they are treated compared to others with different assigned characteristics
363
anomie
anomie or anomy is a social condition defined by an uprooting or breakdown of any moral values, standards or guidance for individuals to follow.
364
.Sociologists speak of the ‘social construction of reality”. What are they generally talking about here?
Impact of society (religion, traffic disputes, commonsense understandings of what is real), anthropological relativism,
365
What are the three experiments supposed to show?
The social construction of reality
366
what is female counterpart of hegemonic masculinity
emphasized femnininithy
367
