Final 05. 02. 12
It is a scientific study
It studies societies
It studies human social behavior
It studies human genetic predispositions
All of the above are part of the definition
Is largely determined by our biological behavior
Is largely determined by the groups to which people belong and by the societies in which they live
Is largely determined by our personalities, which are fully formed early in life
Is a product of many unrelated decisions, making human life largely unpredictable
Is unrelated to the kind of society in which a person lives
Scientists have no personal values
Scientists can set aside their personal values in order to discover the truth
Replication is no longer necessary in science
Science is a foolproof way to achieve knowledge
Scientists strive to prevent their personal values from affecting their investigations
Derive from the functionalist perspective
Focus on the intimate level of everyday interactions between people
Focus on people's ability to use symbols and to interpret social meanings in social interaction
Are used mostly in the field of applied sociology
Focus on large groups and social institutions and on society as a whole
The conflict perspective
The commonsense perspective
The interactionist perspective
The sociological imagination
The functionalist perspective
Change involves the redistribution of scarce resources among various interest groups
Change occurs when social consensus about shared expectations breaks down
People use strategies to create a sense that shared meanings exist and govern social interaction
Because the parts of society are interdependent, a change in one part will probably lead to changes in other parts
Change occurs out of a failure of the sociological imagination
The functionalist perspective
The sociological imagination
The interactionist perspective
The conflict perspective
The verification perspective
A conflict group
A shared consensus
A social system
A control group
An interest group
Society is made up of groups struggling with one another scarce resources
Social problems arise when some element in society becomes dysfunctional
Society is a system made up of interrelated and interdependent parts
Both manifest and latent functions are important to understanding society
People are symbol manipulators who create their own world
Observational techniques
Experiments
Surveys
Reactivity
Participant observation