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Definition
| Type of suicide that occurs where ties to the group or community are considered more important than individual identity |
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Definition
| Type of suicide that occurs when the structure of society is weakened or disrupted and people feel hopeless and disillusioned. |
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| Research technique that compares existing official statistics and historical records across groups to test a theory about some social phenomenon. |
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| Type of suicide that occurs in settings where the individual is emphasized over group or community connections. |
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| Type of suicide that occurs when people see no possible way to improve their opressive circumstances. |
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Term
| Individualistic Explanation |
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Definition
| Tendency to attribute people's achievements and failures to their personal qualities. |
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| Ability to see the impact of social forces on our private lives. |
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| Systematic study of human societies. |
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| Social position acquired through our own effors or accomplishments or taken on voluntarily. |
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| Social position acquired at birth or taken on involuntarily later in life. |
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| Subgroup of a triad, formed when two members unite against the third member. |
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| Theoretical perspective that views the structure of society as a source of inequality that always benefits some groups at the expense of other groups. |
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| Language, values, beliefs, rules, beahviors, and artifacts that characterize a society. |
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| Group consisting of two people. |
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| Theoretical perspective that focuses on gender as the most important source of conflict and inequality in social life. |
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| Process through which people's lives all around the world become economically, politically, environmentally, and culturally interconnected. |
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Definition
| Set of people who interact more or less regularly and who are conscious of their identity as unit. |
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| The groups to which we belong and toward which we feel a sense of loyalty. |
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Definition
| Unintended, unrecognized consequences of activities that help some part of the social system. |
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Definition
| Way of examining human life that focuses on the broad social forces and structural features of society that exist above the level of individual people. |
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Definition
| Intended, obvious consequences of activities designed to help some part of the social system. |
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Definition
| Way of examining human life that focuses on the immediate, everyday experiences of individuals. |
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Definition
| Culturally defined standard or rule of conduct. |
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Definition
| Large, complex network of positions created for a specific purpose and characterized by a hierarchial division of labor. |
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| The groups to which we don't belong and toward which we fell a certain amount of antagonism. |
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Term
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Definition
| Collection of individuals who are together for a relatively long period, whose members have direct contact with and feel emotional attachment to one another. |
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Definition
| Set of expectations - rights, obligations, behaviors, duties - associated with a particular status. |
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| Frustration people feel when the demands of one role they are expected to fulfill clash with the demands of another role. |
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| Situations in which people lack the necessary resources to fulfill the demands of a particular role. |
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Definition
| Relatively impersonal collection of individuals that is established to perform a specific task. |
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Definition
| Stable set of roles, statuses, groups, and organizations - such as the institutions of family, politics, etc. - that provides a foundation for behavior in some major area of social life. |
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Definition
| A population of people living in the same geographic area who share a culture and a common identity and whose members are subject to the same political authority. |
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Definition
| Any named social position that people can occupy. |
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Term
| Structural-Functionalist Perspective |
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Definition
| Theoretical perspective that posits that social institutions are structured to maintain stability and order in society. |
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Definition
| Something used to represent or stand for something else. |
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Definition
| Theoretical perspective that explains society and social structure through an examination of the microlevel, personal, day-to-day exchanges of people as individuals, pairs, or groups. |
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| Group consisting of three people. |
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Definition
| Standard of judgement by which people decide on desirable goals and outcomes. |
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Term
| Analysis of Existing Data |
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Definition
| Type of unobtrusive research that relies on data gathered earlier by someone else for some other purpose. |
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Definition
| Form of unobtrusive research that studies the content of recorded messages, such as books, speeches, poems, songs, television shows, Web sites, and advertisements. |
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Definition
| Variable that is assumed to be caused by, or to change as a result of, the independent variable. |
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Definition
| Research that operates from the ideological position that questions about human behavior can be answered only through controlled, systematic observations in the real world. |
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Definition
| Research method designed to elicit some sort of behavior, typically conducted under closely controlled laboratory circumstances. |
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| Type of social research in which the researcher observes events as they actually occur. |
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Definition
| Form of social research that relies on existing historical documents as a source of data. |
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Definition
| Researchable prediction that specficies the relationship between two or more variables. |
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| Unquestioned cultural belief that cannot be proved wrong no matter what happens to dispute it. |
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| Variable presumed to cause or influence the dependent variable. |
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Definition
| Measurable event, characteristic, or behavior commonly thought to reflect a particular concept. |
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Definition
| Groups that work to have their moral concerns translated into law. |
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Term
| Nonparticipant Observation |
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Definition
| Form of field research in which the researcher observes people without directly interacting with them and without letting them know that they are being observed. |
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Term
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Definition
| Form of field research in which the researcher interacts with subjects, sometimes hiding his or her identity. |
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Term
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Definition
| Sociological Research based on nonnumeric information (text, written words, phrases, symbols, observations) that describe people, actions, or events in social life. |
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Term
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Definition
| Sociological research based on the collection of numeric data that uses precise statistial analysis. |
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Term
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Definition
| A problem associated with certain forms of research in which the very act of intruding into people's lives may influence the phenomenon being studied. |
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Definition
| Typical of the whole population being studied. |
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Term
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Definition
| Subgroup chosen for a study because its characteristics approximate those of the entire population. |
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Definition
| Assumption or prediction that in itself causes the expected event to occur, thus seeming to confirm the prophecy's accuracy. |
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Term
| Social Construction of Reality |
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Definition
| Process through which the members of a society discover, make known, reaffirm, and alter a collective version of facts, knowledge, and "truth". |
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Term
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Definition
| A false association between two variables that is actually due to the effect of some third variable. |
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Definition
| Form of social research in which the researcher asks subjects a series of questions verbally, online, or on paper. |
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Definition
| Set of statements or propositions that seeks to explain or predict a particular aspect of social life. |
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Definition
| Research technique in which the researcher, without direct contact with the subjets, examines the evidence of social behavior that people create or leave behind. |
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Definition
| Any characteristic, attitude, behavior, or event that can take on two or more values or attributes. |
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Definition
| Method of studying society that uses photographs, video recordings, and film either as means of gathering data or as sources of data about social life. |
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Definition
| Principle that people's beliefs and activites should be interpreted in terms of their own culture. |
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Term
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Definition
| Tendency to judge other cultures using one's own as a standard. |
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Definition
| Informal norm that is mildly punished when violated. |
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Definition
| Culture in which heterosexuality is accepted as the normal, taken-for-granted mode of sexual expression. |
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Definition
| Pattern of behavior within existing social institutions that is widely accepted in a society. |
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Definition
| Individuals in whom sexual differentiation is either incomplete or ambiguous. |
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Definition
| Artifacts of a society that represent adaptations to the social and physical environment. |
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Definition
| Highly codified, formal, systematized norms that bring severe punishment when violated. |
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Term
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Definition
| Knowledge, beliefs, customs, values, morals, and symbols that are shared by members of a society and that distinguish the society from others. |
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Definition
| Social response that punishes or otherwise discourages violations of a social norm. |
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Definition
| Belief that two biological sex categories, male and female, are permanent, universal, exhaustive, and mutually exclusive. |
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Term
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Definition
| Set of norms governing how one is supposed to behave and what one is entitled to when sick. |
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Term
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Definition
| Values, behaviors, and artifacts of a group that distinguish its members from the larger culture. |
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Term
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Definition
| People who identity with a different sex and sometimes undergo hormone treatment and surgery to change their sex. |
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Term
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Definition
| Various individuals, groups, and organizations that influence the socialization process. |
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Term
| Anticipatory Socialization |
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Definition
| Process through which people acquire the values and orientations found in statuses they will likely enter in the future. |
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Term
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Definition
| Culture in which personal accomplishments are less important in the formation of identity than group membership. |
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Term
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Definition
| Culture in which personal accomplishments are less important in the formation of identity than group membership. |
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Term
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Definition
| Control of mating to ensure that "defective" genes of troublesome individuals will not be passed on to future generations. |
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Definition
| Stage in the development of self during which a child acquires the ability to take the role of a group or community (the generalied other) and conform his or her behavior to broad societal expectations. |
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Term
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Definition
| Stage in the development of self during which a child acquires the ability to take the role of a group or community (the generalied other) and conform his or her behavior to broad societal expectations. |
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Term
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Definition
| Psychological, social, and cultural aspects of maleness and femaleness. |
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Definition
| Perspective of the larger society and its constituent values and attitudes. |
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Definition
| Essential aspect of who we are, consisting of our sense of self, gender, race, ethnicity, and religion. |
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Definition
| Culture in which personal accomplishments are a more important component of one's self-concept than group membership. |
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Term
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Definition
| Sense of who we are that is defined by incorporating the reflected appraisals of others. |
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Term
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Definition
| Stage in the development of self during which a child develops the ability to take a role, but only from the perspectie of one person at a time. |
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Definition
| Behavior in which the person initiating an action is the same as the person toward whom the action is directed. |
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Definition
| Process of learning new values, norms, and expectations when an adult leaves an old role and enters a new one. |
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Definition
| Ability to see oneself from the perspective of others and to use that perspective in formulating one's own behavior. |
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Definition
| Unique set of traits, behaviors, and attitudes that distinguishes one person from the next; the active source and passive object of behavior. |
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Definition
| Biological maleness or femaleness. |
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Definition
| Process through which one learns how to act according to the rules and expectations of a particular culture. |
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Term
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Definition
| Place where individuals are cut off from the wider society for an appreciable period and where together they lead an enclosed, formally administered life. |
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Definition
| Grouping of students into different curricular programs, or tracks, based on an assessment of their academic abilities. |
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