Introductory Sociology CLEP Practice Exam Questions and Verified Answers| Grade A+ | 100% Correct (2024/ 2025 Update)
Sociology ✔ ✔ study of social life and social causes and consequences of human behav
basically- scientific study of society and human behav
Comte ✔ ✔ first founder
1700's
"need to use scientific method to study social world"
Karl Marx ✔ ✔ "class conflict is the root of sociology"
-argued people should change society
-two distinct social classes
1) buorgeosie= own land and factories
2) proletariats= exploited workers ("will eventaully revolt to see change in society")
Durkheim ✔ ✔ Functionalism
-study and compared suicide rates
=protestant women and married individiduals had a lower risk WHY? more socially integrated into society
believed in solidarity (types)
believed sociology was the study of groups and group interactions from small to large -microlevel= study of small grps and ind reactions =macrolevel= study of trends among lg grps and societies 1 / 4
solidarity ✔ ✔ Any time you express support of a group or the people in it, you're showing solidarity with them. The word is used most often to describe a sense of unity with a political group, a group of striking workers, or people who have been deprived of their rights in some way.
Culture ✔ ✔ Beliefs, customs, and traditions of a specific group of people.
- Wright Mills' Sociological Imagination ✔ ✔ the ability to see the relationship
between individual experiences and the larger society
"awareness of relationship bettween a persons behav and experience and the wider culture that shaped that persons choices and perceptions"
Reification ✔ ✔ an error of treating an abstract concept as though it has a real, material existence
social facts ✔ ✔ the laws, morals, values, religious beliefs, customs, fashions, rituals, and all of the cultural rules that govern social life
figuration ✔ ✔ The process of studying an individual's behavior within the context of their culture and society.
In order for an occupation to be considered a profession by a sociologist, it must be an occupation that ✔ ✔ is based on abstract knowledge and a body of specialized info
What are the most important sources of knowledge? ✔ ✔ empiricism and reason
Positivism ✔ ✔ philosophical system under which knowledge of the world and human behav is derive from scientific observation in search of universal laws 2 / 4
AKA applying scientific method to the social world as proposed by comte
Sociological Theory ✔ ✔ a set of ideas that explains a range of human behavior and a variety of social and societal events
Functionalist Perspective ✔ ✔ A sociological approach that emphasizes the way in which the parts of a society are structured to maintain its stability.
"society of a system of interrelated parts"
=family, edu, relig, polit, and econ
-durkenheim = founder (all of these work together to create balance and order) "we need clear cut norms to govern our behav" without? ANOMIE
-Merton
- Manifest functions
- Latent functions
- dysfunctions
Manifest functions ✔ ✔ the recognized and intended consequences of any social pattern
Example of manifest function ✔ ✔ the intended beneficial consequences of the new deal
Latent functions ✔ ✔ the unrecognized and unintended consequences of any social pattern
-unexpected detrimental effect on social institutions or society 3 / 4
Example of latent function of desegregation ✔ ✔ the increase in prejudice that sometimes results from court-ordered desegregation in public schools
Dysfunctions ✔ ✔ social patterns that have undesirable consequences for the operation of society
-negative consequences
Conflict Persepctive ✔ ✔ approach emphasizing the role of conflict, competition, and constraint within a society
-society is an arena of conflict and power struggles
Theme: the fight for scarce resources (money, power, fame)
founder= Marx
-believed in two social classes
"changes occure because of inequality and battles over scarce resources"
Symbolic Interactionist Perspective ✔ ✔ the sociological approach that views society as the sum of the interactions of individuals and groups
-concerned with things we attach meaning to
=key to understanding how humans view the social world
Cooley 1902
"Theory of the Looking Glass Self"
-indiv develop an image of themselves from the persepctive of others
Mead
-stressed importance of symbols, gestures, and language in development of one's self image
- / 4