SOCIOLOGY 210 MIDTERM EXAM
2026 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
(SCORED A+)
Individualistic - ANSWER-Values individualism
Focus on your own success/quality of life, etc.
When people don't succeed, we tend to blame the individual (sociologists look at the
bigger picture)
To succeed in life, all one has to do is work hard and win in competition with others
Sociology - ANSWER-The study of social life, social change, and the social
causes/consequences of human behavior
Makes the familiar strange
Norms - ANSWER-Rules for behavior that are agreed upon by the majority in a
society
Guide people's actions and encourage conformity to social expectations
Sociological Imagination - ANSWER-C.W Mills (1959)
How do we cultivate it? By connecting the general (society) and the particular
(individual)
Descriptive question - ANSWER-What do people do?
Explanatory question - ANSWER-Why do people do what they do?
Non-sociological factors - ANSWER-Internal (anxiety, stress, etc.)
Sociological factors - ANSWER-External to individual (religion, bullying, etc.)
Personal troubles - ANSWER-Personal experience of an individual
Private feelings involving those in an individual's immediate surroundings
Public issues - ANSWER-Events that originate beyond an individual's immediate
Personal experience, but public issues
Social structure - ANSWER-Framework of society that exists beyond the individual
level (gender, race, etc.)
Shapes attitudes, behaviors, choices, experiences, interactions, and opportunities
Sociological perspective - ANSWER-Relationship between daily lives and broader
social forces
See the general in the particular
Society shapes what we think and what we do
Assumptions:
, We are social beings
We are socially determined
We create, sustain, and change the social structures in which we are embedded
What does it mean to think sociologically? - ANSWER-To make the familiar strange
Social facts - ANSWER-Patterns of behavior (not individual)
Durkheim's 4 types of suicide - ANSWER-Fatalistic: escape oppressive confinement
or lack of freedom
Anomic: lives disrupted by major events (wars, famines, etc.)
Egoistic: something in a person's social life
Altruistic: community ties too strong, group membership > individuality
Nacirema - ANSWER-American backwards
Miner makes daily social world strange
Oven = hair dryer women put on their heads at the hair salon
Enlightenment - ANSWER-Emphasized intellectual reason and scientific pursuit
Brought social changes
Industrialization - ANSWER-New sources of energy developed, such as steam
Machines > human workers
Mass production
Urbanization - ANSWER-People moving from rural areas to cities
Consequences:
Crowded
Pollution
Impersonality
Europe - ANSWER-Held theological view of sociology
Sociology = expression of God's will
Thomas Hobbes and Adam Smith - ANSWER-Individual rights
Personal responsibility
Auguste Comte - ANSWER-Coined "sociology" in 1838
French
How society operates
Positivism = based on principals of natural science
Apply scientific method to social life
Criticized
Humans not predictable, undergo changes
Theory - ANSWER-How facts are related
General statement about how society operates
2026 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
(SCORED A+)
Individualistic - ANSWER-Values individualism
Focus on your own success/quality of life, etc.
When people don't succeed, we tend to blame the individual (sociologists look at the
bigger picture)
To succeed in life, all one has to do is work hard and win in competition with others
Sociology - ANSWER-The study of social life, social change, and the social
causes/consequences of human behavior
Makes the familiar strange
Norms - ANSWER-Rules for behavior that are agreed upon by the majority in a
society
Guide people's actions and encourage conformity to social expectations
Sociological Imagination - ANSWER-C.W Mills (1959)
How do we cultivate it? By connecting the general (society) and the particular
(individual)
Descriptive question - ANSWER-What do people do?
Explanatory question - ANSWER-Why do people do what they do?
Non-sociological factors - ANSWER-Internal (anxiety, stress, etc.)
Sociological factors - ANSWER-External to individual (religion, bullying, etc.)
Personal troubles - ANSWER-Personal experience of an individual
Private feelings involving those in an individual's immediate surroundings
Public issues - ANSWER-Events that originate beyond an individual's immediate
Personal experience, but public issues
Social structure - ANSWER-Framework of society that exists beyond the individual
level (gender, race, etc.)
Shapes attitudes, behaviors, choices, experiences, interactions, and opportunities
Sociological perspective - ANSWER-Relationship between daily lives and broader
social forces
See the general in the particular
Society shapes what we think and what we do
Assumptions:
, We are social beings
We are socially determined
We create, sustain, and change the social structures in which we are embedded
What does it mean to think sociologically? - ANSWER-To make the familiar strange
Social facts - ANSWER-Patterns of behavior (not individual)
Durkheim's 4 types of suicide - ANSWER-Fatalistic: escape oppressive confinement
or lack of freedom
Anomic: lives disrupted by major events (wars, famines, etc.)
Egoistic: something in a person's social life
Altruistic: community ties too strong, group membership > individuality
Nacirema - ANSWER-American backwards
Miner makes daily social world strange
Oven = hair dryer women put on their heads at the hair salon
Enlightenment - ANSWER-Emphasized intellectual reason and scientific pursuit
Brought social changes
Industrialization - ANSWER-New sources of energy developed, such as steam
Machines > human workers
Mass production
Urbanization - ANSWER-People moving from rural areas to cities
Consequences:
Crowded
Pollution
Impersonality
Europe - ANSWER-Held theological view of sociology
Sociology = expression of God's will
Thomas Hobbes and Adam Smith - ANSWER-Individual rights
Personal responsibility
Auguste Comte - ANSWER-Coined "sociology" in 1838
French
How society operates
Positivism = based on principals of natural science
Apply scientific method to social life
Criticized
Humans not predictable, undergo changes
Theory - ANSWER-How facts are related
General statement about how society operates
