GENERAL SOCIOLOGY (SOCY 101) ACTUAL
EXAM NOTES SUMMARIZED AND
ACCURATE TO HELP YOU PASS VIRGINIA
COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY
, Test One
● What is Sociology?
○ Sociological imagination
■ The imaginative capacity to connect individual experiences with larger
social and historical forces
■ C. Wright Mills
● Studied social problems
● Came up with sociological imagination
■ Nonconformity
■ ex) Sexuality
○ Social structure
■ Underlying regularities or patterns in how people behave in their
relationships with one another
■ ex) Social stratification in American society (racial, economic, gendered,
bureaucratic)
○ Social construction
■ An idea or practice that a group of people agree exists. Social constructs
are maintained over time by people taking their existence for granted.
■ People impute meaning into things
■ ex) Gender roles
● What people think of them
● Socially normalized/generated
■ ex) race, class, money, marriage, the legal system
○ Socialization
■ Social processes through which children develop an awareness of social
norms and values and achieve a distinct sense of self
■ How one perceives the world
■ ex) gender
● People are expected to be a certain gender, but get anxiety when
they do not meet gender expectations
■ Dominant trends
● Keep appearing in research
○ Sociology
■ Concerned with the empirical study of human societies and social
behavior
■ Empirical Study
● Evidence based; data based
● Not opinionated
○ Major Sociological Theorists
,■ August Comte
● Invented the word ‘sociology’
● Social physics
● Science can be used to predict and control human behavior for the
betterment of the human condition
■ Emile Durkheim
● Structural functionalism (functionalist)
○ Focuses on the mutual integration and interconnection of
societies
○ Theoretical perspective based on the notion that social
events can best be explained in terms of the functions they
perform
● Emphasizes the social functions that various elements of the social
system perform with regard to the system as a whole
● Social facts
○ Aspects of social life that shape our actions as individuals
● Values, cultural norms, social structures
● Establish a discipline
● Organic solidarity
○ Social cohesion that results from the various different parts
of society functioning as an integrated whole
○ Characterized by functional independence
○ Arises from specialization of work and complementaries
between people
○ Contrasts organic solidarity with mechanical solidarity
■ Social cohesion and integration results from
homogeneity of individuals. Based on kinship ties
and familial networks
● Social constraint
○ Conditioning influence on out behavior of the groups and
societies of which we are members
● Division of labor
○ Specialization of work tasks by means of which different
occupations are combined within a production system
● Anomie
○ Feeling of aimlessness or despair in which social norms
and values are no longer experienced as meaningful
○ Came up while studying suicide
, ○ Links anomie to the erosion of traditional moral
authority (religion) which results in the loss of meaning in
some individual lives
○ Le Suicide (1897), The Elementary Forms of Religious Life
(1912)
○ Argued that there was a decline in religion
■ Karl Marx (1818-1883)
● Concerned with connecting economic problems to social
institutions
● Materialist conception of history
○ material /economic factors have a primary role in
determining historical change
● Conflict theory
○ The history of human society is a human conflict between
different economic classes of people
● Marx coined the term capitalism
○ A profit-driven economic system based on the idea of free
and open markets and private ownership of wealth
● View on capitalism
○ Capitalism is a class-based system ruled by conflict
between the interests of those who own the means of
production (bourgeoisie) and those who exchange their
labor for wages (proletariat)
○ “Class struggle”
■ Max Weber (1864-1920)
● Believed that ideas and values have just as much affect on social
change as material/economic factors
● The Protestant Ethic & the Spirit of Capitalism
● Bureaucracy
○ Type of organization marked by clear hierarchy of authority
and the existence of written rules of procedure and staffed
by full-time, salaried officials
● Rationalization
○ Process by which modes of precise calculation and
rule-based procedures increasingly dominate human society
● Iron Cage of Bureaucracy
○ Weber saw society as growing inevitably more rational and
bureaucratic, increasing efficiency but also narrowing the
scope of human freedom and creativity in the process
EXAM NOTES SUMMARIZED AND
ACCURATE TO HELP YOU PASS VIRGINIA
COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY
, Test One
● What is Sociology?
○ Sociological imagination
■ The imaginative capacity to connect individual experiences with larger
social and historical forces
■ C. Wright Mills
● Studied social problems
● Came up with sociological imagination
■ Nonconformity
■ ex) Sexuality
○ Social structure
■ Underlying regularities or patterns in how people behave in their
relationships with one another
■ ex) Social stratification in American society (racial, economic, gendered,
bureaucratic)
○ Social construction
■ An idea or practice that a group of people agree exists. Social constructs
are maintained over time by people taking their existence for granted.
■ People impute meaning into things
■ ex) Gender roles
● What people think of them
● Socially normalized/generated
■ ex) race, class, money, marriage, the legal system
○ Socialization
■ Social processes through which children develop an awareness of social
norms and values and achieve a distinct sense of self
■ How one perceives the world
■ ex) gender
● People are expected to be a certain gender, but get anxiety when
they do not meet gender expectations
■ Dominant trends
● Keep appearing in research
○ Sociology
■ Concerned with the empirical study of human societies and social
behavior
■ Empirical Study
● Evidence based; data based
● Not opinionated
○ Major Sociological Theorists
,■ August Comte
● Invented the word ‘sociology’
● Social physics
● Science can be used to predict and control human behavior for the
betterment of the human condition
■ Emile Durkheim
● Structural functionalism (functionalist)
○ Focuses on the mutual integration and interconnection of
societies
○ Theoretical perspective based on the notion that social
events can best be explained in terms of the functions they
perform
● Emphasizes the social functions that various elements of the social
system perform with regard to the system as a whole
● Social facts
○ Aspects of social life that shape our actions as individuals
● Values, cultural norms, social structures
● Establish a discipline
● Organic solidarity
○ Social cohesion that results from the various different parts
of society functioning as an integrated whole
○ Characterized by functional independence
○ Arises from specialization of work and complementaries
between people
○ Contrasts organic solidarity with mechanical solidarity
■ Social cohesion and integration results from
homogeneity of individuals. Based on kinship ties
and familial networks
● Social constraint
○ Conditioning influence on out behavior of the groups and
societies of which we are members
● Division of labor
○ Specialization of work tasks by means of which different
occupations are combined within a production system
● Anomie
○ Feeling of aimlessness or despair in which social norms
and values are no longer experienced as meaningful
○ Came up while studying suicide
, ○ Links anomie to the erosion of traditional moral
authority (religion) which results in the loss of meaning in
some individual lives
○ Le Suicide (1897), The Elementary Forms of Religious Life
(1912)
○ Argued that there was a decline in religion
■ Karl Marx (1818-1883)
● Concerned with connecting economic problems to social
institutions
● Materialist conception of history
○ material /economic factors have a primary role in
determining historical change
● Conflict theory
○ The history of human society is a human conflict between
different economic classes of people
● Marx coined the term capitalism
○ A profit-driven economic system based on the idea of free
and open markets and private ownership of wealth
● View on capitalism
○ Capitalism is a class-based system ruled by conflict
between the interests of those who own the means of
production (bourgeoisie) and those who exchange their
labor for wages (proletariat)
○ “Class struggle”
■ Max Weber (1864-1920)
● Believed that ideas and values have just as much affect on social
change as material/economic factors
● The Protestant Ethic & the Spirit of Capitalism
● Bureaucracy
○ Type of organization marked by clear hierarchy of authority
and the existence of written rules of procedure and staffed
by full-time, salaried officials
● Rationalization
○ Process by which modes of precise calculation and
rule-based procedures increasingly dominate human society
● Iron Cage of Bureaucracy
○ Weber saw society as growing inevitably more rational and
bureaucratic, increasing efficiency but also narrowing the
scope of human freedom and creativity in the process
