UCSP

• Social control


  Certain ways that society encourages people to behave
• Social contract theory


  Illustrates how individuals willingly enter into a collective agreement to form a society and establish a government, sacrificing some personal freedoms in exchange for the benefits of social order, protection, and mutual cooperation
• Conformity

  • Matching one's behavior to what is expected of him or her by society
  • Doing what is socially acceptable
  • The act of matching behaviors, acts, and attitudes to what is generally acceptable in a society or a group
• In his book, Edward Alsworth Ross described social control as the basis of order and cooperation in society
• Without social control, there can be no successful cooperation, where the fruits of cooperation of individuals are enjoyed and shared to the society as a whole
• Formal Means of Social Control


  • Institutionalized rewards and punishments implemented to prevent chaos in society
  • Education
  • Law
  • Coercion
• Informal Means of Social Control


  • Internalized sense of what is right and wrong through socialization
  • Social values
  • Sanctions
  • Rewards and punishments
• Informal Means of Social Control


  • Sympathy (the capacity to connect with another person)
  • Sociability (the instinct to facilitate harmony in one's interactions)
  • Sense of justice (the mental capacity to appropriate that one's desires, interests and rights are the same as that of others)
  • Resentment (taken to mean individual reaction)
• Proscriptive


  Focuses on what cannot be done
• Prescriptive


  Focuses on what should be done
• Deviance


  An act that violates cultural norms
• Forms of Deviance


  • Formal Deviance - violations of formally enacted laws
  • Informal Deviance - violations of informal cultural norms
• John Hagan's Classification of Deviant Acts


  • Consensus Crimes - The public agrees that these acts are injurious and morally intolerable
  • Conflict Crimes - There is an undeniable disagreement on the seriousness of the crimes
  • Social Deviations - It is not illegal but publicly regarded as inappropriate
  • Social diversions - It is not necessarily harmful but regarded as distasteful
• Types of Deviance


  • Individual Deviance - committed by an individual
  • Group Deviance - committed by a group
• Caesare Lombroso concluded that criminals were biologically predisposed to deviate from norms
• Biological factors may have a small, but real, effect on an individual's propensity for criminality, but social environments are still the most crucial determinants on whether an individual will engage or restrain from crime
• Deviance is an integral part of society for French sociologist David Emile Durkheim
• Social organizations


  The pattern of individual and group relations resulting from social interactions
• Social Group


  Two or more people who share enduring interaction and relationship resulting in similarities in values, beliefs, lifestyle, and attitudes
• Aggregate


  Quasigroup that possesses physical proximity but does not have enduring social interaction
• Category


  Assembly or gathering of people with common traits and interests. Does not need to be physically together or have interactions
• Primary Groups


  • Small social groups
  • Personal and lasting relationships
  • Tightly integrated groups with more commonalities
  • High sense of group identity, loyalty, and emotional ties
• Secondary Groups


  • Large membership
  • Impersonal relationships
  • No sense of group identity
  • Exist to accomplish goals or objectives
• In-group


  The social group to which an individual feels he belongs. This is the group with which an individual identifies
• Out-group


  That social group with which one does not identify. Those individuals that do not belong to the in-group are considered as part of the out-group
• In-group members treat each other with loyalty and respect, while outsiders are regarded with opposition
• In-group members are more inclined to view themselves in an overly positive manner, and perceive out-group members in an overly negative way
• Stereotypes


  Overgeneralizations made by an in-group about members of an out-group
• Prejudice


  Hostile and negative attitude toward people in a distinct group
• In-group favoritism


  One's preference of the in-group with which he identifies, over out-groups
• In-groups and out-groups


  • Strain from opposition may help affirm boundaries and strengthen social identity
  • In-group members tend to view themselves positively and out-group members negatively
• Stereotypes


  Overgeneralizations about out-group members
• In-group favoritism


  Preference of the in-group over out-groups, can manifest in judgments or resource distribution
• Power of a large in-group


  Ability to control how others view minority out-groups, can demote out-groups to demoralizing social status
• Intergroup aggression


  Actions intended to harm those outside one's in-group, usually when the in-group is challenged or threatened
• The concept of in-groups and out-groups is essential to understand dynamics among different social groups in society
• William Graham Sumner


  Pioneer of American sociology, studied political economy, taught sociology at Yale, known for his book Folkways
• Social Comparison Theory


  Humans are naturally motivated to have an accurate self-evaluation, so they use their groups as reference
• Reference group


  A group to which one compares themselves to evaluate their attitude, beliefs, and behaviors
• Anticipatory socialization


  Adoption of another group's attitudes and values to facilitate moving into the group and make future adjustments easier