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What is Sociology?
• What is Sociology?
○ Systematic study of social behavior and human groups interacting
The key element is interaction
Every kind of group 2 2 billion
○ The influence of social relationships upon people’s attitudes/behaviors
and how societies are established and change.
○ To identify recurring patterns of social behavior and then identify their
influences
• Sociological perspective
○ An awareness of the relationship between the individual and the wider
society
Ex: Alcoholic driving Crashes in to you Kills you
• The alcoholic is the individual and you/your death is
society and its impact is your death
Ex: Alcoholic Affects the law (Cops, roadblocks, courts, etc)
Expense ($)
Ex: Alcoholic Affects the families Loss of inhibitions +
Expense ($)
Ex: Alcoholic Affects medicine Waiting for liver Expense
($)
• Why alcoholism?
○ Problem solving
○ Childhood (Parents drank)
○ Depression
○ Genetics (?) (Unproven)
○ Peers (!)
○ Media (!!) (Song from Cheers)(Commercials)
• Perception = Reality?
○ Guy leaving a bar at 8 am
Perception: Alcoholic
Reality: Works nights, having his “dinner” now, before sleep
○ Blondes
Perception: Dumb
Reality: Not true
Some Basics
Sociological Thinkers
Types of Sociology
Sociological Research
1. Select a topic
a. Make sure its narrow enough
2. Define the problem
3. Review the literature
4. Formulate a hypothesis
5. Choose a research method
a. Survey
i. Questionnaire
1. If you use these in your study, you need to
understand you will not get back as many as
you send out.
2. Inexpensive
ii.Interviews
1. Like Gallup. If you use a good method, you’ll get
good results.
2. More expensive than a questionnaire, must train
the people doing the interview
b. Documents
i. Birth certificates, death certificates, divorce decrees,
etc.
ii.Also not expensive
c. Experiments
i. Don’t do a lot in sociology. Dealing with human beings,
don’t want to manipulate them.
d. Participant Observation
i. Watching peoples behavior, observing behavior.
e. Secondary analysis
i. Inexpensive, going back and looking at other studies.
Meta-analysis.
f. Unobtrusive measures
i. Watching someone but they are unaware they are
being observed
ii.Example is NYC, wanting to find out why people were
not throwing their garbage in the trash cans. Hired a
company. That company was paid $1m, guy hired 10
people to stand at 10 busiest intersections from 8am –
7pm and watched people throwing stuff out. What did
he see? Cans didn’t have large enough openings.
People essentially missed.
6. Collect the data
7. Analyze the results
a. Peer review
i. Other people, not involved in the study, review it for
accuracy.
b. Put it all together. Statistically valid?
8. Share the results
a. Publish your research in a journal
9. This stimulates more ideas for research
10.Which generate hypothesis
11.Begin at 1
Experiment
Ethics in Research
• Averages
○ Mode: The most frequent score in a series
○ Median: Scores placed least to most, median score is middle score.
(MOST FREQUENTLY USED IN STUDIES)
○ Mean: Place scores in order and add them up, then divide by the
number of scores. (Classic average)
Culture
Values
Cultural Variations
• Subcultures: A part of the culture that shares a pattern of norms that differ
from the larger society
○ Participate in the culture and the subculture
○ Within a subculture there is an argot
Argot: Language specific to that subculture
○ Example of subculture: Amish
Go to Philadelphia, Reading Terminal, loaded with foods from all
over you will see several booths with people from the Amish
community selling their products in our society. Thus, they
function in both their subculture and the regular society.
• Subculture: Dress, speech, religion, even government
• Us: Sales of products
○ Army
Subculture: uniform, laws, governing body, etc
Culture: Take your uniform off, in our society again
• Counter Cultures: Culture that rejects the culture and wants to change it
○ Example: Hippies. We don’t vote, or work, we travel, have fun and
enjoy ourselves
Like Utopian societies
• Culture Shock: When one is in an unfamiliar culture, many times you will
experience a disorientation (fear). When you leave your society, this is very
common.
○ Example: The gangs of kids that rob people in Brazil. If we saw that,
we’d suffer from culture shock.
Dominant Ideology