SOCIOL 1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Human Behavior
4.27.18
- Debate is central to all scientific activity
- conflict/ consensus
- Conflict theorists: society composed of groups struggling against one another in a
competition for scarce resources
- System of social classes in conflict; workers and owners, students and
teachers, men and women, etc.
- choice/ constraint
- Rational Choice Theory
- Denies the existence of other kinds of action
- Assumes that humans are always acting rationally
- Human behavior understood as rationally motivated
- By no means a perfect theory
- Components
- Individual is the fundamental agent in society
- Individuals pursue goals
- These goals reflect self interest
- Behavior reflects conscious choices
- Utility maximizers
- Individuals have full information, weigh alternatives
- Assumptions embedded in this theory
- Human cognition is virtually unlimited
- We live in a world with accessible information
- Except under adverse conditions, people will act rationally
- All human actors have similar cognitive maps of the social world
upon which their behavior is predicated
- What if we make a deliberate attempt to see their life world from the inside out?
- If we make flash judgements, we will be privy to make fals judgements
- What are the constraints or limitations that are operating in their lives?
- Individual level constraints
- emotional/ psychological constraints
- Much more complicated picture emerges
- Seemingly irrational behavior seems to make a lot more sense
- EXTRA CREDIT
- Email line: I got Class
- Last name A-G: Apoorva Ghosh
- Can we do whatever we want? Are our behaviors limited?
- Status crimes vs. status offenses
- America hates poor people :(
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
