SOCI 2013 1st EditionExam # 1 Study Guide Lectures: 1-4Lecture 1 (January 12)Syllabus dayLecture 2 (January 14) Syllabus dayLecture 3 (January 16)What is Sociology?Sociology is the systematic study of human society and social interaction.What are reasons to study sociology?(1) See how behavior is “influenced” by society, (2) understand (global) inter-dependence, (3) see connection between self/society, (4) see “new” ways of problem solving, (5) the social world has more influence on us then we think.What is Commonsense Knowledge?Commonsense knowledge guides social behavior, maybe in error.What is myth?Myth is popular, but inaccurate notion that may be used to perpetuate social action.Why do people commit suicide?It’s the relationship between the cohesiveness / connectedness in their society. Dr. Durkheim studied suicide. He looked at the rates of suicide and then the connectiveness between the members of society and saw that the suicide rates were not random. The rates were connected.If society members were loosely connected, they would feel lonely and if they were too tight they felt too much pressure, resulted in suicide. Why do students not respond to questions, asked of the teacher, during class?Rebecca Nathan researched this and wrote a book called My Freshman Year. She went back to college to do her study and acted as a normal student. Concluded that its not that the students aren’t uninterested, it is because of the norms which effects the behavior.What is Social Imagination?C. Wright Mills came up with Social Imagination. Social Imagination is a link between personal experience and social context, we are embedded in society.What are Personal Troubles and Public Issues?Personal troubles are private, actors, and networks. Private Issues affect large networks. Example – if you have a heart beat, you can get a job. If you don’t have a job, people might thinkyou are a screw up (personal trouble) Example – it’s 2008 and the economy is awful and there ishigh unemployment. It doesn’t have anything to do with you, there is no available job (public issue).Lecture 4 (January 21, 2015)Who are Early Thinkers?Spencer- Evolutionary perspectiveDurkheim- Egoistic – isolated, all social groups- Altruistic – excessively integrated- Anomic – lack of social regulation- Fatalistic – excessive integratedWhat were differing views?Marx - History is a continual conflict- Class conflict; owners / workers- Alienation (Dilbert Cartoons?)- Capitalism causes crimeWeber- Economics and ideas matter- Sociology should be “value free”- Bureaucracies are soul crushing and maintain power(ful)Simmel- Early social networking theorist- Dyad – mutual intersto Principle of least interest – the person with least interest has the most power- Triad – principle of least interest, power (attribute of structure)o Structural power (alternatives) the person least interested has two options.What is functionalism?Assumes that society is orderly/stable. Assumes overall “consensus”. Manifest (intended) and Latent (unintended) functions. (Macro Theory)What is Conflict Theory?Groups that are in continuous power struggle for the control of scarce resources. (Macro Theory)What is Symbolic Interaction?Society is the sum interactions between individual and groups. (Micro Theory)What is the Sociological Research Process?Systematic (orderly, organized), continuous (never “prove”), quantitative (objective, statistics), qualitative (subjective, themes)What are some research methods?Survey research (random sampling), secondary analysis of existing data, Field work (participant/observation) [ex: when Rebecca Nathan went back to college to conduct a study], experiments (control/exposure)What are some ethical issues in sociological research?Subjects need to give informed consent, conflicts of interest, full disclosure of