SOC Exam Practice – Chapters 1-2
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Max Weber
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In an attempt to better understand the experience in college - that of the students as well as the teachers - you ask a professor for the chance to lead the class without her being in the room. Your professor grants your request. \"Thinking sociologically,\" this follows the methodology proposed and developed by which of the following early sociologists?
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functionalism
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Every four years, the United States elects a new president. The entire process of swearing in and recognition of the new office holder is an elaborate ceremony, with a great deal of symbol and pomp. Despite the enormous expenditure of time and resources, we continue to hold this ceremony, suggesting it has a crucial purpose in our society. A sociological examination of this particular American rite might well apply ideas from what branch of sociological theory?
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affected religious life in England then and now
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In her interview with Dalton Conley Julia Adams talks about the differences between sociology and history. As a self-identified historical comparative sociologist, Adams makes the point that sociologists are less concerned with uniqueness than they are with commonalities. Consider Henry the VIII of England during the mid-1500s. Henry's succession of marriages - six wives in all - is often seen as a unique case. Six wives is a lot, and by many European standards, it is a unique case. A sociologist, however, might well look at it by considering the ways in which Henry's marriages
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double consciousness
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Adekunle enters a clothing store and a security guard immediately notices him and follows his actions on a security monitor. Adekunle is aware of the security guard's actions and adjusts his own behavior to avoid a potential confrontation. This is an example of which sociological concept?
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feminist
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Allison is concerned with the messages that her little sister receives from her elementary school teacher about suitable careers. For example, class lessons portray nurses and secretaries as female but doctors and engineers as male. Allison's concerns reflect her own outlook as a
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interpretive sociology
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One of the difficult problems faced by many colleges and universities is the increase in binge drinking on campus. Pretend you are part of a group seeking to develop approaches to understanding and reducing this problem. Putting on your sociology hat, you suggest to the group that it would useful to understand the meaning placed on the binge-drinking parties, and thereby develop solutions based on an understanding of the experience itself. Your approach uses the methodology embodied in
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the social environment in shaping people's behavior and personality
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The Chicago School of American Sociology emphasized the importance of
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symbolic interactionism
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Examining the interactions between people with a focus on how the people talk, dress, and use body language is an example of which theory?
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C. Wright mills
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Who coined the term sociological imagination?
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social institutions
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Education system, government, and marriage are examples of what?
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colleges
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The social institution that comprises all ___________ would possibly be made up of a series of stories within these social networks/ a. K-12 schooling. b. the legal system. d. standardized screening test services. e. the wage labor market.
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predominance of religion in daily life
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Auguste Comte developed very early ideas about sociology at a time when concern for proper behavior was a dominant part of life. A major part of his approach revolved around the idea of a secular morality. What aspect of life at that time would likely have made acceptance of Comte's ideas difficult?
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macrosociology
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Justin decides to conduct research for a class project by recording and assessing how public transit companies can persuade people to take a public bus to and from work. Which type of sociology is this?
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W.E.B. DuBois
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Which of the following American sociologists applied Émile Durkheim's theory of anomie to explain African American crime rates?
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microsociology
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An interesting innovation created quite a stir in 2003. The Schipol airport in Amsterdam fitted the men's restrooms with urinals that had a detailed picture of a fly on the inner wall. The idea was to reduce the mess - and it worked. In order to understand how this could work, the company that made the urinals would have had to do some careful research - focus groups, interviews, and the like - and apply the methods of what kind of sociology?
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feminist
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Another early sociological writer, Harriet Martineau, wrote a book in 1838 that examined the institution of marriage and the assumptions about women's inferiority. In this respect, Martineau adopted what kind of theoretical position in her writing?
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postmodernism
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Gender, a topic that will be covered in greater detail in the chapters ahead, frequently poses a challenge to many, even leading to violent reactions. Seeing someone dressed as a male who also has obvious, visible secondary sex characteristics such as breasts and yet insists on using the personal pronoun he is a good example of how meaning is subjective. This is an example of
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a collection of individual stories told between individuals
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The chapter notes that Duke University has changed its name twice and yet remains the same institution, and that the tobacco company Philip Morris changed its name to Altria in order to remake itself into a different institution. These two examples explore the idea of social identity as
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moderating variable
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A factor that affects the relationship between the independent and dependent variables is what?
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longitudinal study
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What is another name for a panel survey?
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voluntary participation
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In an effort to understand how group dynamics change under duress, a research team gathers 100 people at a very remote mountain location, bringing them all in by helicopter. Using carefully designed interviews, the researchers begin the lengthy process of interviewing the participants. After the second day, however, there are a dozen participants who express unhappiness and want to leave. The research team reminds them that they signed an agreement agreeing to be interviewed knowing what it entailed, that leaving is not practical and that they need to continue with the process. The research team is overlooking what aspect of research?
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low reliability
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In his experiment, Duncan Watts created a website where respondents could rate songs. His sample size was 14,341 respondents. If Watts selected a new sample of 14,341 different respondents and their average ratings of each song were significantly different than the first sample, what problem would Watts's research suffer from?
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inductive reasoning
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A researcher observes that most women entering a café choose to sit near other occupied tables, whereas most men choose a table that is farther away from other customers. The researcher then theorizes that women like to feel part of a larger group of people, whereas men are more comfortable being alone. This is an example of which kind of research approach?
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correlation, time order, ruling out alternative explanations
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What three factors are needed to establish causation?
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comparative research
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What kind of research involves studying two or more units of analysis that have a number of things in common but differ on a dimension (or dimensions) of interest
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informed consent
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In an interview with the Dalton Conley, Mitchell Duneier describes his desire to conduct research that adheres to the ethical guidelines of social research. If Duneier had interviewed street vendors by secretly recording their interactions, what ethical guideline would he have violated?
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dependent variable
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the outcome that the researcher is trying to explain
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independent variable
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a measured factor that the researcher believes has a causal impact on the ______________ variable
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inductive approach
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a research approach that starts with empirical observations and then works to form a theory
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deductive approach
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a research approach that starts with a theory, forms a hypothesis, makes empirical observations, and then analyzes data to confirm, reject, or modify the original theory
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operationalization
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In the effort to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS, organizations and countries have marshaled a vast number of resources, including research designed to understand how the virus is spread among a population. Often, this research involves an investigation into the nature of \"having sex.\" Here, one the challenges is to precisely define what exactly is meant by having sex in order to then consider the variables related to such a study and the methods needed to gather the data. This challenge is crucial to any good sociological study and is called
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operationalization
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the process of clearly defining a term so as to assign a precise method for measuring the defined term
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deductive approach
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One of the classes you are enrolled in is not only full, but the other students seem to rave about it. It's not due just the subject and it's not due to the professor, and that makes you curious. You have a theory as to why this is so, and you decide to test your theory by building a hypothesis, asking other students a few questions, and then seeing if the results fit your theory. As a sociologist, you are employing what kind of research in your search for answers?
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content analysis
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Amber is conducting research on the negative portrayal of Hispanics in the media. She searches through newspapers to document instances of discriminatory language toward Hispanics. What type of research is Amber conducting?
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quantitative method
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This method seeks to obtain information about the social world that is already in, or can be converted to, numeric form.
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correlation
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After almost a year and half in college, you notice that lack of sleep seems to yield poorer grades. That is, when you (and your friends) don't get enough sleep, your grades seem to go down. It makes sense, right? But if you wanted to do a little research on this and really \"tell the story,\" you might also notice that for some students, lower grades leads to lack of sleep - the worry over those sinking grades keeps them up at night. What kind of relationship between the two variables - lack of sleep and lower grades - are you noticing here?
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causal relationship
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Both quantitative and qualitative methods - the way sociologists can gather data about a social issue or problem - are approaches that attempt to establish a __________ between social elements.
