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| The Scientific study of human social interaction and society. |
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| Entails the ability to make micro-macro connections and see how individual agency is influenced by broad social forces and structures in ways that help determine the choices of experiences and individuals. |
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| A theoretical perspective that pictures society as composed of different groups who each act in ways to realize their interests, including the attempt to structure aspects of society in ways that help them further their group interests. |
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| The ability to make micro-macro connections and see how individual agency is influenced by broad social forces and structures in ways that help determine the choices and experiences of individuals. |
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| Unintended consequences or results. |
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| A viewpoint that recognizes that cultures and societies frequently affect each other and are mutually affected by larger global forces such as economic markets and climate change. |
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| The belief that there exist objective facts that can be discovered and understood through the application of the scientific method |
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| A belief in ideas that are contrary to one's own best interests. |
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| A method of sociological analysis developed by Goffman that pictures society as one big play composed of many scenes with individuals playing various roles based on what society's script requires. |
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| A set of ideas or beliefs that attempt to legitimize and justify an existing social arrangement, making it more likely the existing social arrangement will continue uninterrupted. |
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| Any part, process or outcome that contributes to the functioning of a social system of which that purpose, process or outcome is a part. |
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| An intended or expected outcome that contributes to the well-being and functioning of a larger unit or social system. |
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| The ability of each individual to make decisions about their own lives from the mundane, such as what one wears, to the more consequential, such as one's career or marital partner. |
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| In Marx's view, those in who live by selling their labor in a capitalistic economic system, i.e., anyone who is employed by someone else. |
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| A theoretical perspective that examines how individuals make sense of and give meaning to themselves and their interactions with others and the world around them. |
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| The dynamics of everyday social interaction focusing on how individuals negotiate their interactions with each other and how they understand and give meaning to these interactions. |
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| The process by which individuals develop an understanding and acknowledgment of society's behavioral expectations. |
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| Anything, tangible or intangible, that is valuable or beneficial to an individual or group. |
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| The approach to social analysis Weber suggested that requires the social researcher to try to understand the meaning of any social phenomenon to individuals as well as the larger cultural patterns of which it is a part. |
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| In Marx's view those who own the means of production i.e., factories and land, giving these people greater power and influence in society. |
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| A preconceived framework of understandings in which social interaction occurs and influences human behavior in predictable ways. |
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| The theoretical perspective that pictures society as composed of interdependent parts and systems that work together in a cooperative, synergistic manner that enables society to function. |
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| Any purpose, process, or outcome that detracts from the well-being and functioning of a larger unit or social system, of which that part, process or outcome is a part. |
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| The dynamics of social interaction between groups, larger social forces, processes and structures by looking at the big picture |
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| A set of ideas that propose to explain how certain facts or phenomena are related to each other in an effort to better understand the relationship between those facts and predict additional relationships between similar facts or phenomena. |
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| A formal statement about how different variables are expected to relate to one another. |
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| Studies humans in their natural settings as they go about their usual business. |
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| The entire group (usually people but can be other units of analysis, such as organizations) that we wish to understand. |
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| Changes in response to different levels of the independent variable or variables. |
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| When a cause and effect relationship between two variables cannot be explained by a third variable. |
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| A method used to collect data in the form of numbers and which seeks to detect patterns in social life in order to make predictions about the future. |
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| Often used in social science but does not allow generalizations to be made about the larger population from which samples are drawn. |
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| Interpretaive Perspective |
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| Looks at how people make sense of the society they both construct and inhabit. |
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| Institutional Review Board |
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| A group that reviews research protocols to ensure subjects will be ethically treated during scientific research studies. |
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| Views social life from the lens of natural science and assumes society can be studied the same way the physical world is studied. |
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| A list of questions (called an instrument) used to collect information from people either face to face, over the phone, on paper or online. |
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| Makes sure each case or element of the population has the same chance of being selected. It allows for information learned from the sample to be applied to the population. |
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| Analysis examining existing materials such as documents, photographs and video to identify patterns, themes and meanings present. |
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| Is thought to cause or predict changes in the dependent variable of interest. |
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| Characteristics or information, called attributes, that can vary from subject to subject in a research study. |
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The group within an experiment that receives the intervention or treatment.
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| Where researchers participate in daily life with the people they wish to observe in order to collect data. |
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| Whether a measurement is a generally acceptable way of measuring what is being investigated. |
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| Data that were collected for one purpose and were reused by other researchers for different research purposes. |
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| A measurement's stability and consistency. |
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| Examines the progress of social inventions or is conducted to plan improvement to or gauge effectiveness of social policy. |
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| Used to examine an aspect of social life not previously discovered or explored. |
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| The group within an experiment that does not receive the treatment or intervention. |
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| A method used to collect data in the form of words and which seeks to richly describe and understand the complexity of social life. |
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| Assumes all social groups are vying for power and examines who benefits and who loses from the current social arrangements. |
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| A general statement regarding the relationship between variables that is not necessarily true in all cases but is in the majority of cases. |
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| A type of research used for explanation. Two equivalent groups (the control group and the experimental group) created through random assignment are used to isolate the effects of the intervention. |
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| A small subset of cases drawn from the larger population of interest. |
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| When a cause and effect relationship between two variables can be explained away by the introduction of a third variable. |
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| Answers the question of why. It attempts to explain the relationships of social life--for example, why more men than women die in car crashes. |
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| Describes both the social group(s) involved in the behavior(s) of interest and the behavior(s) themselves. |
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| Does not use human subjects but instead analyzes information already collected or evidence left behind by society. |
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| Collective ideas about what is right or wrong, good or bad, desirable or undesirable in a particular culture. |
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| Societies which use hand tools to raise crops in order to acquire food. |
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| Rewards for normal behaviors and penalties for abnormal behaviors. |
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| The coexistence and equal standing of diverse cultures within a society. |
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| Abstract or intangible things that influence our behavior |
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| Physical or tangible creations that members of a society make and use. |
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| The widespread infusion of a society's culture into that of other societies. |
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| An organized system of symbols that people use to think and to communicate with each other. |
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| Specific ideas that people think are true. |
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| The values that people actually have. |
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| Socieites based on technology that mechanizes production to provide goods and services. |
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| The judging of another culture by its own standards. |
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| Established rules of expected behavior that develop out of society or group values. |
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| Anything that carries a meaning and represents something else. |
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| The culture traits that people share across cultures. |
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| Values that conflict with each other, either within a culture or across cultures. |
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| A process through which one generation passes culture to the next. |
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| Strongly held mores, the violation of which is considered to be extremely offensive. |
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| Formal norms that are enacted by governments and enforced by formal sanctions. |
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| Societies which use technology that supports the domestication of animals in order to acquire food. |
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| Everyday customs that may be violated without formal sanctions within a society. |
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| Hunting and Gathering Societies |
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| Societies which use simple subsistence technology to hunt animals and gather vegetation. |
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| Societies based on the technology of animal-drawn plows that support large-scale cultivation to acquire food supplies. |
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| The spread of cultural traits from one group or society to another. |
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| A way of life within a particular social group or society, encompassing a set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features. |
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| Widespread cultural patterns that appeal primarily to the middle and working classes. |
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| Cultural patterns that appeal to the upper class or elite of a society. |
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| The combination of the productive forces (labor, instruments and raw materials) and the relations of production (the social structure that regulates the interactions between humans in the production of goods). |
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| The disorientation that people feel when they experience an unfamiliar culture. |
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| A variety of cultural differences within a society and across societies. |
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Post-Modern (industrial)
Societies |
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| Societies which are based on computer technology that produces information and supports service industries. |
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| A cultural group whose values and norms are opposed to those of the dominant culture. |
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| The belief that one's culture is superior and other ethnic groups or nations are inferior. All other cultures and societies are judged according to the standards of the society or culture that one belongs to. |
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| The process of reshaping existing cultural traits into new forms. |
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| Diverse groups of people who share distinctive cultures in defined geographic locations. |
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| A discrepancy between material culture and nonmaterial culture that disrupts an individual's way of life. |
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| Distinctive lifestyles and values shared by a category of people within a larger society. |
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| The rules of expected behavior that people should follow. |
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| Strongly held, formally enforced norms with moral overtones. |
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| The process of knowing and recognizing something previously in existence. |
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