Jeremy wrote an essay criticizing the college admissions process

Introduction to Sociology (SOCY 100) Spring 2016

Instructions: Please use the answer sheet provided along with this Exam. The test is comprised of 100 points and contains multiple choice, true/false, matching, and short-answer essay questions. You may use any notes you have taken and any course materials (e.g., the course Modules and Course Text) in answering the questions. This is an open-book test. I view this as more of a learning exercise than a traditional final exam. I do ask that you do your own work and do not work with others. Please note that the Final is worth 100 points but will be weighted as 25 percent of the course grade. Please review the syllabus for more information about how the final grade is calculated.

Multiple Choice Questions:

1. Which of the following men coined the term Sociology and is widely considered the father of sociology?

a. Auguste Comte

b. Karl Marx

c. Herbert Spencer

d. Émile Durkheim

2. The totality of learned, socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects, and behaviors is known as:

a. Social roles

b. Socialization

c. Culture

d. Ethnocentrism

3. Jeremy wrote an essay criticizing the college admissions process, arguing that heavy competition and limited educational resources make admission difficult for the average student. Which perspective would Jeremy’s argument fall under?

a. Structural Functionalism

b. Conflict Theory

c. Symbolic Interactionism

d. Human Radicalism

4. Which is NOT one of the three distinctive characteristics of a total institution?

a. Staff members supervise all spheres of daily life

b. Staff members encourage the maintenance of individuality, and creativity

c. Food, sleeping quarters, and activities are standardized

d. Formal rules dictate how virtually every moment is spent.

5. Eleanor is researching the effect social media has on worldwide political awareness and revolution. Felix is examining the effect World of Warcraft has on romantic relationships of middle-age men in his metro area. Eleanor’s analysis is ______________, while Felix’s analysis is ____________.

a. Micro-level; macro-level

b. Macro-level; micro-level

c. They are both macro level

d. Middle Range and macro-level

6. Max Weber defined the term Verstehen as:

a. To maintain a moral conscience.

b. To compare and contrast social facts.

c. To understand in a deep way.

d. To require proof of interpretation.

7. Kyle is collecting newspaper clippings from his grandfather about the American public’s perception of World War II. This is an example of ______.

a. Tertiary data

b. Interactive data

c. Primary data

d. Secondary data

8. Kevin conducted a study on whether the length of the line at a local Starbucks affected how well the customers enjoyed their coffee after receiving it. Malcolm conducted the study at his local Starbucks, and found the same results. Kevin’s study had a high level of _____.

a. Literacy

b. Validity

c. Interpretation

d. Reliability

9. The term value neutrality is defined by the text as:

a. A practice of remaining impartial, without bias or judgment during the course of a study and in publishing results.

b. The study of evolving ethics and morals in relation to sociological research.

c. A systematic approach to record and value information gleaned from secondary data as it relates to the study at hand.

d. A study’s participants being randomly selected to serve as a representation of a larger population.

10. Elise travels across Thailand with her friends and, to her surprise, finds the country quite unlike the United States. “I hate the food,” she tells her family at home. “I hate the language, I hate the weird customs, and awful music. America is clearly the best place to be.” This is an example of _______.

a. Paradigms

b. Xenocentrism

c. Moral relativism

d. Ethnocentrism

11. Ivanka Trump is the daughter of business mogul Donald Trump. Her role as heiress to the Trump fortune is an example of ______.

a. Achieved status

b. The Thomas Theorem

c. Ascribed status

d. Cultural drift

12. Charles Cooley’s concept of the looking-glass self hypothesizes that:

a. Self-esteem is directly correlated with body image.

b. The media encourages society to base their appearances on visible public figures.

c. People base their images on how they think other people see them.

d. Personal identity isn’t influenced by outside social forces.

13. When Michael starts high school, he joins the basketball team. He begins to look to his teammate friends for cues on how to behave at dances, in the hallways, and even in the classroom. Michael’s basketball team is serving as Michael’s _____.

a. Out-group

b. Reference group

c. Aggregate group

d. Secondary group

14. What is considered the first agent of socialization?

a. The law

b. Family

c. Friends

d. School

15. When Jeanette’s parents find out her twin brother, Rex, has been sexually active, they tell him to use protection. When they found out Jeanette has been sexually active, they ground her for a month. This is an example of:

a. A double standard

b. A misunderstanding

c. Homophobia

d. Gender identity

16. A sociologist studies how a teacher’s attitudes toward particular students affect students’ performance. Students of similar abilities who are “teacher’s pets” perform at a high level, and students who are viewed as “troublemakers” perform poorly. This would illustrate which explanation of deviance?

a. Labeling theory

b. The Societal Drift theory

c. Dramaturgical deviance

d. Differential association theory

17. Adolf Hitler blaming Germany’s pre-war problems on the Jewish population is an example of:

a. The scapegoat theory

b. The social construction of race

c. White privilege

d. Pluralism

18. In a small town in the Midwest, all of the children attend the same school and most of the community members attend the same church. Everyone in this community knows everyone else, and they have shared numerous experiences with one another. This community would be characterized by Ferdinand Tonnies as a (an)

a. Gemeinschaft

b. Gesellschaft

c. Organic solidarity

d. Mechanical solidarity

19. Which of the following is the best example of ethnocentrism?

a. People move to a new state expecting to find more job opportunities and become frustrated when it does not happen.

b. People travel to a new society and find it difficult to adjust to the new food and language.

c. John meets a student from Brazil and finds the student’s culture fascinating.

d. People travel to another country and regard their practice of worshipping many gods as primitive and ignorant.

20. According to C. Wright Mills, as sociologists we should learn to understand our individual lives in terms of the social forces that have shaped them. This is referred to as.

a. Positivism

b. The generalized other

c. The sociological imagination

d. Impression management

21. An individual wears jeans to a formal dinner. This breach of social etiquette is regarded as breaking:

a. Folkways

b. Mores

c. Laws

d. Values

22. Skipping school for the first time as an eighth grader is an example of:

a. Recidivism

b. Primary deviance

c. A degradation ceremony

d. Secondary deviance

23. Travis Hirschi developed which of the following theories:

a. Social control theory

b. Differential association

c. Symbolic interactionism

d. Retrospective interpretation

24. Emile Durkheim coined the term Anomie to mean:

a. A feeling of cultural neutrality

b. Conformist behavior

c. A sense of normlessness, disorientation, and alienation from society

d. Cognitive dissonance

25. Bob and Sue paint their baby’s room pink as soon as they find out that they are having a girl. They are beginning to provide the baby with what?

a. Self-awareness

b. A playroom

c. Her sexuality

d. Her gender identity

26. Corporal Punishment is another way of saying:

a. White Collar Crime

b. Life in prison

c. Spanking

d. The death penalty

27. In which part of the family life cycle, do sociologists point to as the most stressful time for a marriage?

a. The engagement period.

b. The first year of marriage.

c. The birth of the first child.

d. The birth of the last child.

28. Peter finds that he always reacts differently to correction from his father than from his mother. What might a symbolic interactionist studying families make of this situation?

a. Peter needs professional counseling.

b. Peter plays different roles with his father and mother.

c. Peter needs a sibling.

d. Peter’s lack of respect for his mother means he’ll probably get divorced when he’s older.

29. Sociologists have adopted the phrase, “the graying of the United States.” What does this phrase mean?

a. People are living under so much stress now, that they are going gray early.

b. Gray is culturally considered beautiful and thus people are bleaching their hair.

c. The greatest part of the population is reaching the age of 65 and entering old age.

d. With industrialization and the building of big cities, there is very little green nature left and everything is the color of steel.

30. What is a dependency ratio?

a. It is the comparison of working people to non-working people.

b. It is the comparison of children to parents.

c. It is the comparison of grandparents to parents.

d. It is the comparison of healthcare professionals to the elderly.

True & False Questions:

31. The symbolic-interactionist approach presents society less in terms of abstract generalizations and more as everyday experiences.

a. True

b. False

32. Any collection of individuals can be called a group.

a. True

b. False

33. Mechanical or segmental solidarity is defined as social cohesion based on sameness.

a. True

b. False

34. The concept “culture of poverty” is a term relating poverty to a lower-class subculture that inhibits personal achievement and fosters resignation.

a. True

b. False

35. A Society is made up of people who live in the same territory, are relatively independent of people outside it, and participate in a common culture.

a. True

b. False

36. The only real jobs available for sociologists are in education as a teacher, lecturer or professor?

a. True

b. False

37. True or false: A person’s sex, as determined by his or her biology, does not always correspond with his or her gender.

a. True

b. False

38. True or false: The majority of American citizens are descendent of immigrants?

a. True

b. False

39. Maria babysits as a form of income while she is in college. Because the amounts she gets per job are not huge, Maria never bothers to report her earnings to the IRS. Maria is a part of the underground economy.

a. True

b. False

40. Mores may carry serious consequences if violated; folkways do not.

a. True

b. False

Matching: This section is worth 10 points. Match the term, concept or theory with the appropriate person. Each correct answer is worth 1 point.

(a) Karl Marx (f) C.W. Mills

(b) Emile Durkheim (g) Jane Addams

(c) Erving Goffman (h) Erik Erickson

(d) Margaret Mead (i) Robert Merton

(e) Robert Park (j) W.E.B Du Bois

___41. _______________ wrote the Division of Labor in Society and Suicide among other things.

___42. ______________ believed that societies grew and changed as a result of the struggles of different social classes over the means of production and greatly favored communism.

___43. ________________ coined the phrase ‘total institutions” where all aspects of life are conducted in the same place and under the same single authority. He also created the theory of Dramaturgy.

___44. The Anthropologist ___________________ studied gender in three societies in New Guinea and found that what is considered feminine in one society may be considered masculine in another.

___45. _____________________ was the first sociologist to point out the importance of culture in determining race.

___46. __________________ developed five adaptations to his strain theory of deviance including retreatism, ritualism, conformity, innovation and rebellion.

___47. ___________________ spoke out against racial separation / segregation and was a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

___48. _______________ advocated the use of the sociological imagination to view social problems such as divorce, problem gambling, and crime in the United States as not just an individual’s personal problem but as societal concerns.

___49. ________________ was a German-born American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on psychosocial development of human beings. He helped explain how the actions of society help shape personalities throughout the eight basic stages of life.

___50. _________________ Early sociologist and co-founder of Hull House in 1889 in Chicago, Illinois.

Short Answer Each Question is worth 10 points for a total of 50 points in this section. You should be able to answer each of the following questions in a paragraph or two.

51-60. An undecided voter who knows little about the political candidates reads the result of the latest poll on voting day and sees that other voters seem inclined to choose one of the candidates. According to Asch’s work on conformity, how might the poll affect the voter’s behavior? Do you think media sources should release polls shortly before an election?

61-70. A student wants to achieve good grades but is not interested in studying for exams; instead, the student finds various ways to cheat. How does Robert Merton’s strain theory explain this behavior, and which “type” does the student exemplify?

71-80. Is there a difference between the terms “prejudice” and “discrimination” or are they exactly the same things? Which is more difficult to get rid of and why? In your answer give an example of Institutional Discrimination.

81-90. Explain if there is a difference between the terms “deviance” and “crime” or if these two terms are completely interchangeable. Make sure to indicate why or why not the terms are the same and provide examples.

91-100. Parents of different social class socialize their children differently. Middle-class parents are more likely to stress independence and self-direction, whereas working-class parents prioritize obedience to authority. Using this example, explain how these different socialization experiences could perpetuate (reproduce) social inequality.