[SOCIOL 1] - Final Exam Guide - Comprehensive Notes for the exam (152 pages long!)
Document Summary
Study guide: the sociological perspective, sociology as science, the problem of human variability: sociologists use the scientific method like other scientists, but the phenomena that we study - human beings - pose special challenges to the researcher. Human behavior is not as predictable as atoms, comets, flowers, or rats. Hence, there are no laws of human behavior, as there are laws of physics, because human social patterns change and vary. Conducting controlled experiments in sociology is complicated by the complexity of human social behavior. There are ways of controlling bias, but no sociologist can be completely objective about their subject matter. Subjectivity can be an asset in research, since researchers share biology, psychology, and culture with their subjects, all of which help researchers to understand what their subjects are doing and thinking. Constraining: pressure to obey; punishment ranging from prison to embarrassment. We internalize social facts, we internalize them, we make them our own---then no longer a social fact.
