SOC 105 Study Guide - Final Guide: Metanarrative, Cultural Relativism, Nationstates
19 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Rational Choice Theory
An individual’s behavior is purposive (oriented to achieve a known goal)
Narrow appropriation of Weber’s theory of action
Used very expansively today, especially when coupled with “behavioral economics” and some strands of neuroscience
Postmodern Theory
The belief that society is no longer governed by history or progress.
o Postmodern society is highly pluralistic and diverse, with “no grand narrative” guiding its developments
Rejection, among other things, f Marx’s materialist conception of history
The “play of representation”
o Gap between a symbol and what (if anything) is being represented
o Example: postmodern gender representation
Troubles: occur within the character of the individual and within the range of his immediate relations with others
Have to do with oneself and with those limited areas of social life
Issues: have to do with matters that transcend these local environments of the individual and the range of his inner life.
Relationship between cherished values and perceived threat:
Aware of Cherished Values?
Yes No
Perceived threat? Yes Crisis/Panic Uneasiness
No Well-Being Indifference
Steps in Research Process: (Define the problem, Review the literature, Formulate a hypothesis, Select a research design, Carry out
the research, Interpret the results, Report the research findings, Repeat)
Values: ideas held by individuals or groups about what is desirable, proper, good, and bad
Ex) freedom, faithfulness, honesty, hard work, self-sufficiency
Norms: rules of conduct (prescriptive of proscriptive) that specify appropriate behavior in a given range of social situations
Ex) “don’t kill people”, “keep your pants on in public”
Norms are both externally (through judgments and punishments) and internally enforced (through shame
and anxiety)
Material Culture: the physical objects that a society created that influence the ways in which people live
Comprise all technology and aspects of the environment that are shaped by systematic (usually intended)
human interventions
However, material culture can be put to unintended purposes
Cultural Turn: sociology’s recent emphasis on the importance of understanding the role of culture in daily life
Becker’s Theory
In addition to any natural propensity to drink/smoke weed, you must also learn to get high/drunk
As you move from a strictly behavioral category to a social one categories of meaning and understanding come into play
o Without these categories the state of getting high isn’t intelligible as being high
To get high, you have to…
o Learn to smoke the drug in a way which will produce real effects
o Learn to recognize the effects and connect them with drug use
o Learn to enjoy the sensations perceive
The “GLOBAL SOUTH”
Structured today by colonialism and its aftermath
Divided between underdeveloped economies and emerging ones
o Underdeveloped (e.g. Afghanistan)
High rural poverty, food shortages high rates of mortality, very high inequality, political violence
Cultural collision between modernity and tradition
o Emerging economies (China, India, South Korea)
Massive economic growth, still lots of inequality
The paradox of progress
o As societies grow and change (sometimes radically departing from traditional values and norms),
people actually become less happy by some measure
Contemporary Industrial Societies
Valuing community and socialization OR increasingly fragmented subcultures?
o As states and societies grow more powerful as a whole, as their populations fragmenting into splintered
subcultures
Assimilation or multiculturalism
o Do new members of society adopt the values of that society or does society change to accommodate many
different kinds of values?
Document Summary
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