Deck 1: Sociology: Perspective, Theory, and Method

Question 1

Sociology is defined as the systematic study of human society.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

The structural-functional, social-conflict, and symbolic-interaction approaches are three basic theoretical approaches in sociology.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Sociologists focus only on unusual patterns of behavior.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Most people in the United States marry partners who differ from themselves in terms of race and ethnicity.

Question 5

Sociologists test their theories by gathering facts in order to confirm, reject, or modify them.

Question 6

Studying other societies is a good way to learn about our own way of life.

Question 7

Revolutionary changes in European societies sparked the development of sociology.

Question 8

Ancient philosophers, including Plato, were primarily interested in imagining the "ideal" society rather than studying society as it really is.

Question 9

As a discipline, sociology first took root in France, Germany, and England.

Question 10

The last of Comte's three stages is the metaphysical stage, in which people know the world in terms of God's will.

Question 11

Durkheim documented that categories of people with weaker social ties have lower suicide rates.

Question 12

Societies around the world are more interconnected than ever before.

Question 13

The sociological perspective reveals the truth of the "common sense" beliefs we tend to take for granted.

Question 14

According to sociologists, human behavior reflects our personal "free will."

Question 15

U.S.sociologist C.Wright Mills argued that times of social crisis foster widespread sociological thinking.

Question 16

Sociology is useful training for any job that involves working with people.

Question 17

In the United States, African Americans have a higher suicide rate than whites.

Question 18

Rarely are people aware of all the functions of any social structure.

Question 19

Auguste Comte was a positivist who believed that there were laws of society in the same way that there are laws of physics that describe the operation of the natural world.

Question 20

In the United States, men have a higher suicide rate than women.

Question 21

Both feminism and the gender-conflict approach highlight ways in which women are unequal to men.

Question 22

Validity refers to actually measuring what you want to measure.

Question 23

When two variables are statistically related, a cause-and-effect relationship always exists.

Question 24

The symbolic-interaction approach is a micro-level orientation.

Question 25

Like the gender-conflict approach, the race-conflict approach is concerned with social inequality.

Question 26

To say that a social pattern is "dysfunctional" means that it has more than one function for the operation of society.

Question 27

The mean is always a better statistical measure than the mode or the median.

Question 28

The manifest functions of our society's reliance on personal automobiles include tens of thousands of deaths each year in traffic accidents.

Question 29

Social-exchange analysis is one micro-level approach to understanding social interaction.

Question 30

The goal of the structural-functional approach is not simply to understand how society operates, but to reduce social inequality.

Question 31

A variable that is changed by another variable is called the "independent variable."

Question 32

The focus of the symbolic-interaction approach is how society is divided by class, race, and gender.

Question 33

Keeping young people out of the labor market is one latent function of higher education.

Question 34

A positivist approach assumes that an objective reality exists "out there."

Question 35

Harriet Martineau, who wrote about the evils of slavery and the need to improve the lives of factory workers, is regarded as the first woman sociologist.

Question 36

Both Jane Addams and Harriet Martineau are remembered today because they were married to important sociologists.

Question 37

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois encouraged sociologists to avoid studying controversial topics such as racial inequality.

Question 38

Reliability refers to the quality of consistency in measurement.

Question 39

"Stacking" in sports is the pattern by which people of one racial category disproportionately play in favored positions.

Question 40

Both Karl Marx and W.E.B.Du Bois carried out their work following the structural-functional approach.

Question 41

Participant observation is a research method by which researchers stand back from a setting, watch from a distance, and then carefully record the behavior of others.

Question 42

If social marginality encourages sociological thinking, we would expect people in which category listed below to make the most use of the sociological perspective?

A) the wealthy
B) disabled persons or people who are a racial minority
C) politicians
D) the middle class

Question 43

The pioneering sociologist who studied patterns of suicide in Europe was

A) Robert K. Merton.
B) Auguste Comte.
C) Emile Durkheim.
D) Karl Marx.

Question 44

A survey is a research method in which subjects respond to a series of statements or questions.

Question 45

Carrying out research on Hispanic people, Asian people, or people of any distinctive ethnicity or category demands that researchers be sensitive to how subjects will interpret a researcher's words and actions.

Question 46

Sociologists always achieve complete personal objectivity in their work.

Question 47

Which discipline defines itself as "the systematic study of human society"?

A) sociology
B) psychology
C) economics
D) history

Question 48

Peter Berger describes using the sociological perspective as seeing the ______ in the _______.

A) good worst tragedies
B) new old
C) specific general
D) general particular

Question 49

Gender blindness is the problem of failing to consider the importance of gender in sociological research.

Question 50

Because there is more social isolation in rural areas of the United States than in urban areas, we would expect suicide rates to be

A) higher in urban areas.
B) higher in rural areas.
C) high in both urban and rural areas.
D) low in both urban and rural areas.

Question 51

Baltzell found that a surprisingly large number of high-achieving people in our country's history came from the Boston area.

Question 52

According to Emile Durkheim, categories of people with a higher suicide rate typically have

A) more clinical depression.
B) less money, power, and other resources.
C) lower social integration.
D) greater self-esteem.

Question 53

In the United States today, the suicide rate is highest for which of the following?

A) white males
B) African American males
C) white females
D) African American females

Question 54

TheCHAPTER's sociological analysis of childbearing around the world suggests that the number of children born to a woman reflects

A) only her preference for family size.
B) how many children she can afford.
C) whether she lives in a poor or a rich society.
D) simply the desires of her husband.

Question 55

Sociological research can never be harmful to subjects.

Question 56

What might a sociologist say about people's selection of marriage partners?

A) People marry because they fall in love.
B) When it comes to romance, it is all a matter of personal taste.
C) Typically, a person marries someone of similar social position.
D) When it comes to love, opposites attract.

Question 57

To identify cause-and-effect relationships, it is usually necessary to exercise experimental control of variables.

Question 58

By stating that the sociological perspective shows us "the strange in the familiar," the text argues that sociologists

A) focus on the bizarre elements of society.
B) reject the familiar idea that people simply decide how to act in favor of the initially strange idea that society shapes our lives.
C) believe that people often behave in strange ways.
D) believe that even people who are most familiar to us have some very strange habits.

Question 59

Interpretive sociology focuses less on action itself and more on the meaning people attach to their actions.

Question 60

A False correlation between two variables caused by a third variable is described as a "spurious" correlation.

Question 61

Comte described the earliest human societies as being at which stage of historical development?

A) theological stage
B) metaphysical stage
C) scientific stage
D) post-scientific stage

Question 62

C.Wright Mills claimed that the "sociological imagination" transformed

A) common sense into laws of society.
B) people into supporters of the status quo.
C) personal problems into public issues.
D) scientific research into common sense.

Question 63

Sociologist Lenore Weitzman carried out research showing that women who divorce

A) typically remarry within one year.
B) claim they are happier than before.
C) suffer a significant loss of income.
D) have a happier sex life.

Question 64

Among the historical changes that stimulated the development of sociology as a discipline was

A) the founding of the Roman Catholic church.
B) the rise of the industrial economy and growth of cities.
C) the power of tradition.
D) a belief that our futures are defined by "fate".

Question 65

Learning more sociology can help you

A) understand how people have little control over their lives.
B) assess the opportunities and constraints in our lives.
C) understand that people should just be happy with their lives.
D) see how individuals guide their own lives through "free will".

Question 66

Sarah is spending a summer living in another country where people have a way of life that differs from her own.A sociologist might expect that this experience would lead her to

A) end up with a greater understanding of both a new way of life and her own way of life.
B) accept what people in the United States call "common sense."
C) assume that people's lives simply reflect the choices they make.
D) gradually understand less and less about her own way of life.

Question 67

According to Auguste Comte, people begin to see society as a natural-rather than a supernatural-phenomenon as their society enters which stage of development?

A) theological stage
B) metaphysical stage
C) scientific stage
D) post-scientific stage

Question 68

Sociology differs from the older discipline of philosophy by focusing on

A) what the ideal society should be.
B) human nature.
C) the place of God in shaping human events.
D) how society actually operates.

Question 69

_____ is a way of understanding the world based on science.

A) Tradition
B) Positivism
C) Metaphysics
D) Free will

Question 70

Countries in which average people's income is typical for the world as a whole and in which people are as likely to live in a rural area as in an urban area are categorized as

A) low-income nations.
B) middle-income nations.
C) high-income nations.
D) socially marginalized nations.

Question 71

Gaining a global understanding is

A) unimportant because the United States is so rich and there is little reason for us to learn about other nations.
B) important for college students because most new U.S. jobs involve international trade.
C) unimportant since there is no longer very much poverty in the world.
D) important although people the world over have ways of life that are mostly the same.

Question 72

Sociologists cannot identify "laws of society" that allow us to precisely predict the behavior of an individual because

A) human behavior may be patterned, but it is also spontaneous.
B) sociology is still very young.
C) no sociologist ever tried to discover such laws.
D) no sociologist would wish to predict human behavior.

Question 73

Social problems in the United States, such as poverty and gender inequality, are

A) less serious in poorer countries.
B) more serious in poorer countries.
C) equally serious in poorer countries.
D) unheard of in poorer countries.

Question 74

The United States falls within which category of the world's nations?

A) low-income nations
B) middle-income nations
C) high-income nations
D) socially marginalized nations

Question 75

The nations of Western Europe, Israel, Japan, and Australia fall into which category of countries?

A) low-income nations
B) middle-income nations
C) high-income nations
D) socially marginalized nations

Question 76

Which of the following statements best illustrates the career advantage a person gains by studying sociology?

A) A researcher discovers a new and effective vaccine.
B) A person in retail sales knows how to exceed the monthly sales target.
C) A police officer understands which categories of people are at high risk of becoming victims of crime.
D) A financial services worker devises a new type of hedge fund.

Question 77

Sociology first appeared as a formal discipline in

A) the United States.
B) Japan.
C) France.
D) China.

Question 78

The term "sociology" was coined in 1838 by

A) Karl Marx.
B) Herbert Spencer.
C) Adam Smith.
D) Auguste Comte.

Question 79

We would expect the sociological perspective to be most likely to develop in a place that was

A) very traditional.
B) experiencing many social changes.
C) very poor.
D) small and socially isolated.

Question 80

When did sociology become established as an academic discipline in the United States?

A) during the Middle Ages
B) about 1800
C) about 1900
D) about 2000