Sociology 1020 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Symbolic Interactionism, Testability, Auguste Comte

• School: Western University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: Sociology 1020
• Professor: Suzanne Ricard

Document Summary

Sociology: the systematic study of human behavior in social context. Social causes are distinct form physical and emotional causes. Understanding social causes can help clarify otherwise inexplicable features of famine, and so on, Analyzing suicide sociologically to give a sociological perspective. Suicide appears to be the supremely antisocial and nonsocial act, Recent years there have been about thirteen suicides annually for every 100 000. We do not think about the patterns of social relations that might encourage such actions. French sociologist emile durkheim, one of the pioneers of the discipline, demonstrated that suicide is more than just an individual act of desperation resulting from psychological disorder. Suicide rates he showed are strongly influenced by social forces. Durkheim made his case by examining the association between rates of suicide, and rates of psychological disorder for different groups. This idea is only supported if suicide rates tend to be high where rates of psychological disorder are low.