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Socialization

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Lifelong process of learning to become a member of the social world, beginning at birth and continuing until death.

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Interaction

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Basic building block of socialization.

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Peer Groups

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Small microlevel groups, include families, and voluntary groups. Example: Girl scouts.

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Looking-Glass Self

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(Cooley) A reflective process based on our interpretations of the reactions of others. We imagine how we appear to others, others judge our appearance and respond to us, and we react to that feedback.

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Role-Taking

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(Mead) Individuals take others into account by imagining themselves in the position of that other.

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Imitation Stage

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The child, under 3 years of age is preparing for role-taking by observing others and imitating their behaviors, sounds, and gestures.

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Play Stage

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Involves a kind of playacting in which the child is actually "playing at" a role.

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Significant Others

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Society and its rules are initially represented by this. Parents, guardians, relatives, or siblings are especially influential.

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Game Stage

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The child learns to take the role of multiple others concurrently.

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Generalized Other

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Child learns to initialize the expectations of society-the generalized other-over and above the expectations of any "significant others".

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Resocialization

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The process of shedding one or more positions and taking on others. Involves changing from established patterns learned earlier in life to new ones suitable to the newly acquired status.

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Total Institution

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A group of people are bureaucratically processed, physically isolated from the outside world, and scheduled for all activities.

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Agents of Socialization

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Transmitters of culture- people, organizations, and institutions that teach us how to thrive in our social world.

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Formal Agents

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socialization is the state goal. Usually have some official or legal responsibility for instructing individuals

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Informal Agents

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Do not have the express purpose of socialization, but they function as unofficial forces that shape values, beliefs, and behaviors. Example: media, books, the internet, and advertisements bring us continuous messages even though their primary purpose is not socialization but entertainment or selling products.

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Transnationalism

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involves an individual or a family that has national loyalty to more than one country.

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Social Networks

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Refer to individuals linked together by one or more social relationships, connecting us to the larger society.

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Social Interaction

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Consists of two or more individuals purposefully relating to each other

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Nonverbal Communication

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Interactions using facial expression, the head eye contact, body posture, gestures, touch, walk, status symbols, and personal space-makes up the rest.

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Social Statuses

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Positions you hold in the social world

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Ascribed Statuses

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Often assigned at birth and do not change during an individuals lifetime.

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Achieved Status

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Chosen or earned by the decisions one makes and sometimes by personal ability. Example: attaining a higher education

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Master Status

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When a individual's status may become most important and take precedence over others.

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Role Strain

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Tension between roes within one of the statuses. Causes the individual to be pulled in many diretinos by various obligations of the single status.

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Role Conflict

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Conflict is between the roles of two or more statuses. Can come from within an individual or be imposed from outside

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Primary Groups

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Characterized by close contacts and lasting personal relationships - the most micro level. Examples: Family, friends school classmates, and close work acquaintances.

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Secondary Groups

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Are those with formal, impersonal businesslike relationships.

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Reference Groups

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Are composed of members who act as role models and establish the standards against which all members measure their conduct. Set guidelines for behavior and decision making.

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In-Group

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Is one to which an individual feels a sense of loyalty and belonging.

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Out-Group

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Is one to which an individual does not belong, but more than that, it is a group that is often in competition or in opposition to an in-group.

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Rationality

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The attempt to reach maximum efficiency, became the trend in managing organizations and was thought to be the best way to run organizations- efficiently and with rules that are rationally designed to accomplish goals.

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Formal Organizations

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Complex secondary groups deliberately formed to pursue and achieve certain goals.

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Bureaucracies

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Specific types of very large formal organizations that have the purpose of maximizing efficiency. Evolved as the most efficient way of producing products economically for mass markets.

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Ideal-Type Bureaucracy

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(Weber 1947) refers to the dominant and essential characteristics of organizations that are designed for reliability and efficiency. An organization with a particular set of traits.

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Informal Bureaucracy

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Includes the unwritten norms and the interpersonal networks that people use within an organization to carry out roles.

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Professionals

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In bureaucracies, involves doctors, lawyers, engineers, professors, and others who have certain special attributes: advanced education, knowledge and competency in a field, high levels of autonomy to make decisions based on their expertise.

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Alienation

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Feeling uninvolved, uncommitted, unappreciated,and unconnected, occurs when workers are assigned routine, boring tasks or dead-end jobs with no possibility of advancement.

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Field Studies

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(observational methods) are used when systematic, planned observation of interaction is needed to obtain data.

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Nonparticipant Observation

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i. the researcher is not involved in group activities but observes or videotapes the activity.

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Participant Observation

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occurs when the researcher actually participates in the activities of the group being studied. Problems of this are that they may alter a group functioning and interaction by their presence. This is called research effects

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Survey Method

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When sociologists want to gather information directly from a number of people regarding how they think or feel or what they do.

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Controlled Experiment

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a. researchers manipulate the main variable being studied to determine the social consequences of a change in that variable.

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Experimental Group

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A controlled experiment usually requires this because people are exposed to the variable being studied to test the effects of manipulating the main variable

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Manifest Functions

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Planned outcomes of interactions, social organizations, or institutions. Ex: the function of a microwave

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Latent Functions

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a. unplanned or unintended consequences (Merton 1938). Ex: the unplanned consequences of the microwave which caused for new material in cookbooks to be made.

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Conflict Theory

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Contends that conflict is inevitable in any group or society.

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Hunter Gather Society

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a. People that rely on plants and animals in their habitat to live. Example The !Kung

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Herding Societies

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a. They have food producing strategies based on keeping herds of domesticated animal, whose care is the central focus of their activities.

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Horticultural Society

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a. They keep domesticated animals but focus on primitive agriculture or gardening.

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Agricultural Society

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a. Agrarian farmers rely primarily on raising crops for food. However, agricultural societies are more efficient than horticultural societies.

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Postindustrial Society

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a. They are undergoing significant structural change. They require workers with high levels of technical and professional education. This results in new class lines being drawn.

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Ethnocentrism

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a. The tendency to view one's own group and its cultural expectations as right, proper, and superior to others. Our way is the right way and the only way, otherwise it's the highway.

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Cultural Relativism

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a. In contrast to ethnocentrism, this is a view that requires setting aside cultural and personal beliefs and prejudices to understand another group or society through the eyes of members of that group. The goal is to be impartial in learning the purposes and consequences of practices and behaviors of the group understudy.

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Norms

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a. Rules or behaviors shared by members of a society and rooted in the value system. Range from religious warnings such as "though shalt not kill".

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Laws

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a. Norms that have been formally encoded by those holding political power in society.

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Sanctions

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a. Reinforce norms through rewards and penalties.

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Formal Sanctions

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a. To enforce the most important norms are implemented by official action. Example: Speeding tickets

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Informal Sanctions

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a. Unofficial rewards or punishments. Example: When your professor praises you privately after class on how well you did on an exam.

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Symbolic Interaction Theory

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a. Maintains that our humanness comes from the impact we have on each other through these shared understandings of symbols that humans have created.

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Structural Functional Theory

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a. Explains why members of an ethnic subculture or a society engage in certain practices.

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Karl Marx

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German Social philosopher where the modern conflict theory originated from. Believed the capitalist and the workers would continue to live in conflict until the workers shared more equally in the profits in their labor and that workers would rise up and overthrow capitalism forming a classless society.

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Comte

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Coined the term "sociology" in 1838. Religious or philosophical speculation about society did not provide an adequate understanding of how to solve society's problems.

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Cultural Lag

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the change that occurs unequally between material culture and non material culture.

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Mores

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Norms that most members observe because they have great moral significance in a society.

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Taboos

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Strongest form of norms. They concern actions considered unthinkable or unspeakable in the culture. Example: Incest.

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Folkways

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Customs or desirable behaviors. Example: Having table manners.

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Durkheim

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Developed functionalism. Theorized that societ is made up of necessary parts that fit together into a working whole. Felt that the individual conformed because of a collective conscience. Wrote the volume Suicide

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Egoistic Suicide

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Occurs when the individual feels little social bond to the group or society and lacks ties., such as family or friends.

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Anomic Suicid

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Occurs when a society or one of its parts is in disorder or turmoil and lacks clear norms and guidelines for social behavior. Usually occurs during drastic changing times such as a depression.

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Altruistic Suicide

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It involves such a strong bond and group obligation that the individual is willing to die for the group. Example: Bombers of Iraq who died for their country.

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Differential Association Theory

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Refers to 2 processes that can result in individuals learning to engage in crime. It focuses on the theory on the process of learning deviance from family, peers, fellow employees, political organizations, neighborhood groups, and other groups in one's surroundings.

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Labeling Theory

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focuses on how people define deviance - what is or is not "normal". No behavior or deviant is intrinsically deviant. Behavior is deviant because individuals in society label it deviant.

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