QUIZ #2 Sociology Reading Notes Culture AND Society PDF

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reading notes from SOC 105-001 spring 2018 taken with Daniel Buffington. covers assigned reading, the bulk of which come from the text: Essentials of Sociology (5th ed.); Giddens, Duneier, Appelbaum, & Carr; ISBN 978-0-393-93745-9...

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QUIZ #2 SOCIOLOGY READING NOTES: CULTURE AND SOCIETY What is Culture? ● The sociological study of culture began with Emile Durkheim ● Culture: the values, norms, and material good characteristics of a given group ○ Values: ideas held by individuals or groups about what is desirable, proper, good and bad ○ Norms: widely agreed on principles or rules people are expected to observe ○ Material goods: the physical objects that a society creates ○ Instinct: a fixed pattern of behavior with genetic patterns ○ Society: a system of interrelationships that connects individuals together ■ Culture and society are closely connected- one cannot exist without the other ■ When a person fails to adhere to society’s norms, punishment is usually the consequence How Does Human Culture Develop? ● Culture in different environments varied widely as a result of the resources available in that environment and humans’ adaptations to these conditions ● Sociobiology: the application of biological principles to explain the social activities of animal behavior ● Sociologists argue strongly against biological determinism, or the belief that differences we observe between groups of people are explained wholly by biological causes ● Sociologists are concerned with how the social environment affects how one thinks or acts ● Larger societies have subcultures, values and norms distinct from those of the majority held by a group within a wider society ● Assimilation: the acceptance of a minority group by a majority population in which the new group takes on the values and norms of the dominant culture ● Multiculturalism: the viewpoint according to which ethnic groups can exist separately and share equally in economic and political life ○ The US is compared to a salad bowl because the various ingredients are mixed together but retain some of their individual flavor ● Ethnocentrism: the tendency to look at other cultures through the eyes of one’s own culture, thereby misrepresenting them ● Applying cultural relativism, or the practice of judging a society by its own standards, is vital in sociology ● Despite the diversity within human behavior, there are still cultural universals, or the values or modes of behavior shared by all human cultures ○ Ex. marriage, religious rituals, and property rights ○ Though all cultures share these cultural universals, there are variations

within each category ○ Ex. there is no known culture without a grammatically complex language: the primary vehicle of meaning and communication in a society ■ Language allows us to extend the scope of our thought and experience ■ Linguistic relativity hypothesis: a hypothesis based on the theories of Edward Sapir and Lee Whorf stating that perceptions are relative to language ■ Human behavior is oriented toward the symbols we use to represent reality, rather than reality itself ■ Signifier: any vehicle of meaning and communication ● Ex. pink for girls and blue for boys ● There are two different types of norms: ○ Mores: a subtype of norms that are widely adhered and have great moral or social significance. Violations are sanctioned strongly. ○ Folkways: a subtype of norms that guide our casual or everyday interactions. Violations are sanctioned subtly or not at all. What is Deviant Behavior? ● Deviance: modes of action that do not conform to the norms or values held by most members of a group or society ● All social norms are accompanied by sanctions that promote conformity ○ Sanctions: a mode of reward or punishment that reinforces socially expected forms of behavior ○ Can be positive or negative and formal or informal ■ Main types of formal sanctions are represented by courts and prisons ■ Laws: a rule of behavior established by a political authority and backed by state power ■ Crime: any behavior that breaks a law...