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Flashcards in Unit 2.1 perspective Deck (24)
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0
Q

Who is considered as the founder of sociology?

A

August Comte

1
Q

Who first coined the word sociology?

A

August Comte

2
Q

Who attempted to study their social environment scientifically?

A

Plato and Aristotle;

  1. because science was evolving during the 17th century and sociology moved alongside this evolution.
  2. As it’s founder was a positivist, the scientific status was ascribed to this subject.
3
Q

Who is a positivist?

A

A sociologue who states that sociology is a science.

4
Q

What are interpretivists?

A

Sociologues claiming that sociology is not a science.

5
Q

What are the main subject matter in sociology?

A

Society and it’s components

6
Q

What are the components of society?

A

Religion, education, media, family

7
Q

What are institutions responsible for?

A

Socialisation

8
Q

What are the types of socialisation?

A

Primary and secondary

9
Q

How can society be defined?

A

Society can be defined as human groupings in a specific locations guided by it’s culture.

10
Q

Are sociologists only interested with the physical characteristics of society?

A

No, they are also interested with it’s functions towards individual.

11
Q

How does sociology investigate the social world and it’s parts?

A

In relation to human activities

12
Q

How does human beings and animals acts?

A

Human beings learn their behaviour and use their intelligence whereas animals simply act on instincts.

13
Q

What are the common sense notion that mini sociologists share about human and animals behaviour?

A

Animals are said to be guided by instinct while human beings live according to the internalized culture and experience.

14
Q

Give a simple example to illustrate instinctive behaviour in animals

A

Social insects and bees

15
Q

Describe insect societies.

A

Insect societies are well organised in terms of defined tasks and cooperation carried out by insects or bees. The workers; according to their age will perform different roles or tasks such as feeing the youngs, protect them or repel strangers. There is a clear division of labour according to their age.

16
Q

Describe how a bee society is structured.

A

Queen occupying the top position and given prime importance in the bee society; bee society is clearly organised with a good stratification, all food are taken to her.

This behaviour if not completely is determined by instincts.

17
Q

Do bees only rely on instincts?

A

Experiments have shown that bees have the ability to learn in terms of memorization of paths to a newly discovered hive; where via observations, scientists can claim that different wing beatings could be noted among the leading bee to indicate the distance to the new hive.

18
Q

What does different beatings of wings in the bee society indicate?

A

This indicate that even though bees are genetically programmed to behave in specific ways, it will be a mistake to claim that their behaviour is explicitly based in instincts.

19
Q

Via what examples can you describe that animals’ behavior are based in instincts and through learned.

A

Macaque monkeys and insect societies.

20
Q

Give an example to demonstrate that animals also learn behavior.

A

Macaque monkeys; experiments conducted by Japanese scientists. Monkeys living in forests were supplied with potatoes and they changed their eating habits as this was a new food for them. Secondly, when potatoes were placed across the shoreline, the monkeys moved to the shore and with time, developed new habits; washing potatoes before eating, learned to swim, dive and paddle in water. Later young ones imitated the behaviour of their elders.

21
Q

What can you say after knowing that macaque monkeys developed new ways of eating habits and learned new behaviours such as swimming, diving etc?

A

This experience demonstrates that animals do learn behavior and therefore the generalization that animals’ behavior is genetically programmed whereas human’s behavior is learned is incorrect.

22
Q

What can you say about human behavior? Are they the same as animals’?

A

No, in comparison to animals’ behavior, human behavior is a complex one and social beings are said to survive in behavioral patterns that are learnt and have no instincts; no inbuilt directives for behaviors

23
Q

How can you prove that human behavior are different from animals?

A

Birds are said to have instincts of building nests and therefore the nests constructed by birds share similarities whereas shelter constructed by humans do not and varies.