Sociology Flashcards
Absolute monarchy
- A political system under which a king or queen has complete control of a country.
Achieved status
- A status that we either earn or choose and that is not subject to where or to whom we were born.
Agents of socialization
- People, groups, and experiences that influence our behavior and self-image.
Aggregate
- A collection of people who happen to be at the same place at the same time but have no other connection to one another.
Agricultural or agrarian society
- A society that raises crops by using animal-drawn plows.
Alienation
- The feeling of workers in a bureaucracy that they are being treated as objects rather than people.
American Dream
- The belief that all Americans, regardless of the conditions of their birth, have an equal chance to achieve success.
Anomie
- According to strain theory, the feeling of being disconnected from society that can occur when people aren’t provided with the institutionalized means to achieve their goals. The term was coined by Émile Durkheim.
Anticipatory socialization
- The learning of new norms and values in anticipation of a future role.
Apartheid
- A social system in which there is total separation of the races.
Appearance
- The way we look physically to other people.
Ascribed status
- A trait or characteristic people possess as a result of the circumstances of birth.
Assimilation
- The process whereby members of a group give up parts of their own culture in order to blend in to a new culture.
Authoritarianism
- A political system that does not allow citizens to participate in government.
Belief
- A specific idea that people feel to be true.
Blue-collar
- Another term for the working class.
Body language
- The ways in which we use our bodies consciously and unconsciously to communicate.
Bourgeoisie
- Karl Marx’s term for the owners of the means of production—factories, businesses, and equipment needed to produce wealth.
Bureaucracy
- According to Weber, a type of formal organization in which a rational approach is used for the handling of large tasks.
Capitalism
- The economic system in which the means of production are owned privately and individuals are free to keep the profits they make.
Capitalist class
- In industrialized societies, the rich and powerful and the owners of the means of production. It is also called the elite.
Caste system
- A system of stratification based on ascribed statuses.
Category
- A collection of people who share a particular characteristic but have nothing else in common.
Charismatic authority
- Authority that depends on the personal magnetism of one person, according to Weber’s power theory.
Church
- A religious group integrated with society.
Class system
- A system of stratification based on achieved statuses.
Clergy
- The middle stratum of the estate system of stratification, composed of Roman Catholic priests.
Clique
- An internal cluster or faction within a group.
Colonialism
- The tendency for a powerful country to invade a weaker country in order to exploit its resources by making it a colony.
Commoners
- The lowest stratum of the estate system of stratification, composed of the masses of people who spent their lives engaged in hard physical labor.
Communism
- An economic system similar to socialism in which all the means of production would be owned by everyone and all profits would be shared equally by everyone.
Conflict theory
- Marx’s theory that in any capitalist society there is eternal conflict between the owners of the means of production and the workers.
Conflict view of deviance
- The view that purports that equality in a capitalist society is an illusion. The owners of the means of production have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo by keeping the working class in a disadvantaged position.
Conformists
- According to Merton’s theory of goals and means, those who accept cultural goals and the institutionalized means of achieving them.
Constitutional monarchy
- A monarchy in which the reigning member of the royal family is the symbolic head of state but elected officials actually do the governing.
Control theory
- Walter Reckless’s theory that posits that when a person is tempted to engage in deviance, inner controls and outer controls can prevent him or her from doing so.
Counterculture
- A way of living that opposes the dominant culture.
Crime
- The violation of a written law.
Crime against the person
- An act of violence either threatened or perpetrated against a person.
Crime against property
- The theft of property or certain forms of damage against the property of another person.
Cult
- A religious group that is outside standard cultural norms.
Cultural diffusion
- The process whereby an aspect of culture spreads throughout a culture or from one culture to another.
Cultural relativism
- The attitude that in order to understand the traits of another culture, one must view them within the context of that culture.
Culture
- Everything made, learned, and shared by the members of a society.
Culture lag
- The tendency for changes in material culture to occur at a more rapid rate than changes in nonmaterial culture.
Culture of poverty
- The phrase that Oscar Lewis used to describe the idea that poor people do not learn the norms and values that can help them improve their circumstances and hence get trapped in a repeated pattern of poverty.
Culture shock
- The surprise, disorientation, and fear people can experience upon encountering a different culture.
Degradation ceremony
- Garfinkel’s term for the process whereby an individual with a spoiled identity is expelled from a group and stripped of his or her group membership.
Democracy
- A political system in which citizens periodically choose officials to run their government.
Deviance
- The violation of a norm.
Deviant subculture
- A way of living that differs from the dominant culture, in which members share a particular form of deviance.
Differential association
- Edwin Sutherland’s theory that posits that deviance is learned behavior.
Divine right of kings
- An ideology developed by the nobility during the Middle Ages that posited that the authority of the nobility came directly from God.
Dominant culture
- The culture held by the majority and/or by the most powerful group in a society.
Dramaturgy
- Goffman’s theory that life is like a never-ending play in which people are actors.
Dyad
- A group composed of two people.
Economy
- The institution responsible for the production and distribution of goods and services.
Education
- The institution responsible for preparing young people for a functional place in adult life and for transmitting culture from one generation to the next.
Ego
- According to Freud, the part of the mind that resolves conflicts between the id and the superego.
Endogamy
- Marriage between members of the same category, class, or group.
Estate system
- The three-tiered stratification system used during the Middle Ages.
Ethnocentrism
- The tendency to judge another culture by the standards of one’s own culture.
Ethnomethodology
- A theoretical perspective formulated by Garfinkel that examines how people’s background assumptions help them make sense of everyday situations.
Exogamy
- Marriage between members of different categories, classes, or groups.
Extended family
- Several generations or branches of a family.
Family
- The institution responsible for the rearing of children.
Feminization of poverty
- The phrase that describes the increasing number of female-headed households living at or below the poverty level.
Folkway
- A norm followed out of convenience or tradition.
Formal organization
- A secondary group that is organized to achieve specific goals and tends to be large and impersonal.
Gender role
- A set of behaviors, attitudes, and personality characteristics expected and encouraged of a person based on his or her sex.
Gender socialization
- The tendency for boys and girls to be socialized differently.
Generalized other
- George Herbert Mead’s term for the internalization of the norms and values of a culture.
Global stratification
- The stratification of nations.
Globalization of capitalism
- The adoption of capitalism by countries around the world.
Goal displacement
- A formal organization’s displacement of one goal with another in order to continue to exist. It is also called goal replacement.
Goals and means
- Robert Merton’s theory that examines how members of a society adapt their goals to the means that society provides of achieving them.
Government
- The institution responsible for making and enforcing the rules of society and for regulating relations with other societies.
Group
- Two or more people who interact over time, have a sense of identity or belonging, and have norms that nonmembers do not have.
Group dynamics
- A term that implies that our thoughts and behavior are influenced by the groups of which we are members and, in turn, we influence the thought process and behavior of the group as a whole.
Groupthink
- A term coined by Irving Janis that refers to the tendency of people in positions of power to follow the opinions of the group, to the point that there is a narrow view of the issue at hand.
Halo effect
- The assumption that a physically attractive person also possesses other good qualities.
Health
- The well-being of people.
Holistic medicine
- A medical approach that involves learning about a patient’s physical environment and mental state.
Horticultural society
- A society in which hand tools are used to grow crops.
Hunting and gathering society
- A society in which people acquire food by hunting game and gathering edible plants.
Id
- According to Freud, the first part of the mind to develop and the part of the self responsible for the satisfaction of physical states.
Ideal type
- Max Weber’s theoretical model of how a formal organization should function.