[SOCIOL 1000] - Midterm Exam Guide - Comprehensive Notes for the exam (107 pages long!)

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Noneconomic areas of social life analyzed as markets: examples: social institutions such as dating, marriage, crime, discrimination, politics, and religion. Economic models tend to assume that something like market rationality (rational individuals each maximizing his or her own utility) is a fundamental part of human nature. Markets are not natural or inevitable; rather, they are social constructions. Markets, like all social constructions, do not appear or arise automatically and they do not everywhere look the same. In traditional hunter--gatherer societies, people live in small family- (cid:271)ased (cid:272)o(cid:373)(cid:373)u(cid:374)ities i(cid:374) which men hunt and women gather wild roots, seeds, and other vegetable products. Nobody buys or sells anything, and there are no markets to speak of. Another way to exchange and distribute goods is through gift giving. In traditional societies, gift giving plays a crucial role in exchange often much more important than exchange in markets: some traditional occasions for gifts: births, marriages, deaths, exhumations, peace treaties, and misdemeanors.