Sociology Test - 6

The correct answer is Zimmerman.

Key Points

• Atomism, also known as social atomism, is a sociological theory derived from the scientific concept of atomic theory.
• Atomism, in its scientific sense, refers to the belief that all matter in the universe is made up of basic indivisible components, or atoms.
• Atomism designates the individual as the primary unit of study for all implications of social life when applied to the field of sociology.
• A nuclear/atomistic family, also known as an elemental family or a conjugal family, is a family unit made up of parents and their children (one or more), who usually live in the same house.
• A nuclear/atomistic family concept was given by Zimmerman. 
• As the dominance of the independent nuclear family is proclaimed, the evidence appears of the survival of functional kinship systems.
• Carle C. Zimmerman, who expressed concern about the return of the unstable “atomistic family,” found substantial evidence that “friend-families” tend to be supportive and homogeneous in regard to the low incidence of divorce. 
• It differs from a family with only one parent, a huge extended family, or a family with more than two parents.
• Nuclear families are often made up of a married couple with one or more children.

The correct answer is behaviors.

Key Points

• In sociology, behavior can refer to any and all basic human behaviors, including those that have no meaning—actions that are not directed at anyone.
• This type of activity should not be confused with social behavior.
• The significant influence of social contact and culture, as well as ethical, social environment, authority, persuasion, and coercion, are all addressed in social behavior, a subset of human behavior that accounts for acts aimed toward others. Hence option 1) is correct.
• Human behavior refers to a person's or a group's ability to respond to internal and external stimuli over the course of their lives (mentally, physically, and socially).
• While many aspects of one's personality, temperament, and heredity may remain constant, other behaviors change as one progresses through life stages—for example, from birth through adolescence, adulthood, and motherhood and retirement.
• Behavior is also driven, in part, by thoughts and feelings, which provide insight into the individual psyche, revealing such things as attitudes and values.
• Human behavior is shaped by psychological traits, as personality types vary from person to person, producing different actions and behavior. 

The correct answer is Harmful.

Key Points

Kenneth and Mamie Clark's sociological research 

• When Elizabeth Eckford tried to enter Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957, she was met by an angry crowd. But she knew she had the law on her side.
• Three years earlier in the landmark Brown vs. the Board of Education case, the U.S. Supreme Court had overturned twenty-one state laws that allowed Blacks and whites to be taught in separate school systems as long as the school systems were “equal.”
• One of the major factors influencing that decision was research conducted by the husband-and-wife team of sociologists, Kenneth and Mamie Clark.
  • Their research showed that segregation was harmful to young Black schoolchildren, and the Court found that harm to be unconstitutional.
• Since it was first founded, many people interested in sociology have been driven by the scholarly desire to contribute knowledge to this field, while others have seen it as a way not only to study society but to improve it.
• Besides desegregation, sociology has played a crucial role in many important social reforms, such as
  • the equal opportunity for women in the workplace,
  • improved treatment for individuals with mental handicaps or learning disabilities,
  • increased accessibility and accommodation for people with physical handicaps,
  • the right of native populations to preserve their land and culture, and
  • prison system reforms.

The correct answer is all of the above.

Key Points Studying Sociology helps people analyze data because they learn-

• Sociology studies society in a scientific way.
• Sociology increases the power of social action.
• The study of sociology is indispensable for understanding and planning society.
• Sociology is of great importance in the solution of social problems.
• Sociology has drawn our attention to the intrinsic worth and dignity of man.
• Sociology has changed our outlook with regard to the problems of crime.
• Sociology has made a great contribution to enriching human culture.
• Sociology is of great importance in the solution of international problems.
• Sociology is useful as a teaching subject.
• Studying sociology helps people analyze data because they learn: interview techniques, to apply statistics, to generate theories. Hence statement 4 is correct.

The correct answer is Aristotle.

Key Points

• During the Classical period in Ancient Greece, Aristotle (384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath.
• He was the founder of the Lyceum, the Peripatetic school of philosophy, and the Aristotelian legacy, and was taught by Plato.
• Aristotle is credited with the first study of formal logic with the Prior Analytics, and his notion of it dominated Western logic until 19th-century breakthroughs in mathematical logic.
• In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant claimed that logic had attained its apogee with Aristotle.
• Aristotle the legendary Greek philosopher said, “Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Hence option 4) is correct.
• What we now call Aristotelian logic, with its several varieties of a syllogism (logical argument procedures), Aristotle would have dubbed "analytics."
• He used the term "logic" to refer to dialectics.
• Most of Aristotle's work has been revised by students and later professors, thus it is unlikely to be in its original form.

The correct answer is Sociology.

Key Points Sociology 

• Sociology, the science of society, is the youngest and it came to be established only in the nineteenth century.
• The term "social science" first appeared in the 1824 book An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth Most Conducive to Human Happiness; applied to the Newly Proposed System of Voluntary Equality of Wealth by William Thompson (1775–1833).
• Sociology is a discipline in social sciences concerned with human society and human social activities.
• It is one of the youngest social sciences.
• Auguste Comte, a French social thinker, is traditionally known as the ‘Father of Sociology’ as he coined the term ‘Sociology’ in 1839.
• sociology, social science that studies human societies, their interactions, and the processes that preserve and change them.
  • It does this by examining the dynamics of constituent parts of societies such as institutions, communities, populations, and gender, racial, or age groups.

The correct answer is Comte.

Key Points Comte

• Auguste Comte is considered one of the founders of sociology.
• He coined the term “sociology” in 1838 by combining the Latin term socius (companion, associate) and the Greek term logia (study of, speech).
• Comte hoped to unify all the sciences under sociology.
• He believed sociology held the potential to improve society and direct human activity, including the other sciences.
• Auguste Comte was one of the founders of sociology and coined the term sociology.
• Comte believed sociology could unite all sciences and improve society.
• Comte was a positivist who argued that sociology must have a scientific base and be objective.
• Comte theorized a three-stage development of society.
  • The first was the theological stage where people took a religious view of society.
  • The second was the metaphysical stage where people understood society as natural rather than supernatural.
  • Comte’s final stage was the scientific or positivist stage, which he believed to be the pinnacle of social development.
    • In the scientific stage, society would be governed by reliable knowledge and would be understood in light of the knowledge produced by science, primarily sociology.
• While Comte’s approach is today considered a highly simplified and ill-founded way to understand social development, it nevertheless reveals important insights into his thinking about the way in which sociology, as part of the third stage, would unite the sciences and improve society.
• In sociology, scientific methods may include quantitative surveys or qualitative cultural and historical analysis.
• One common scientific method in sociology is the survey.

The correct answer is all of the above.

Key Points Sociology

• Sociology is the study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior.
• SOCIOLOGY is the science of society, social institutions, and social relationships.
• Sociologists investigate the structure of groups, organizations, and societies, and how people interact within these contexts.
• Since all human behavior is social, the subject matter of sociology ranges from the intimate family to the hostile mob;
  • from organized crime to religious cults;
  • from the divisions of race, gender, and social class to the shared beliefs of a common culture; and
  • from the sociology of work to the sociology of sports.
• In fact, few fields have such broad scope and relevance for research, theory, and application of knowledge.
• Sociology provides many distinctive perspectives on the world, generating new ideas and critiquing the old.
• The field also offers a range of research techniques that can be applied to virtually any aspect of social life: street crime and delinquency, corporate downsizing, how people express emotions, welfare or education reform, how families differ and flourish, or problems of peace and war. Because sociology addresses the most challenging issues of our time, it is a rapidly expanding field whose potential is increasingly tapped by those who craft policies and create programs.
• Sociologists understand social inequality, patterns of behavior, forces for social change and resistance, and how social systems work. As the following pages convey, sociology is an exciting discipline with expanding opportunities for a wide range of career paths.

The correct answer is It is empirical.

Key PointsThe characteristics of sociology

• Sociology is the youngest among the Social Sciences.
• The term “Sociology” is derived from the Latin word “Socius” which means ‘Companion’ or ‘Associate’ and the Greek word “LOGOS” means ‘Science’ or ‘Study of Society’.
• Thus the etymological meaning of the term Sociology is “Study of Society”.
• The nature and characteristics of sociology can be summarised in the following way:
• 1. Sociology is an independent science: Sociology is not treated and studied as a branch of any other science like philosophy or political philosophy. As an independent science, it has its own field of study, boundary, and method of approach.
• 2. Sociology is a Social Science and not a physical Science: Sociology belongs to Social Science and not to Physical Science. As a social science, it concentrates its attention on man, his Social behavior, Social Activities, and Social life. It is intimately related to other social Sciences like Anthropology, Political Science, Economics, Psychology, etc.
• 3. Sociology is a categorical and not a Normative Discipline: Sociology Studies things “as it is” and not “as they ought to be”. As a Science, Sociology is necessarily silent about the questions of value. It does not make any kind of value judgments. Its approaches are neither moral nor immoral but amoral. It is ethically neutral. It cannot decide the directions in which Sociology ought to go.
• 4. Sociology is pure science and not an Applied science: Sociology is a pure Science because the immediate aim of Sociology is the acquisition of knowledge. On the contrary applied science is interested in the application or utilization of that knowledge. Sociologists never determine questions of public policy and do not recommend to legislators what laws should be passed or repealed. But the knowledge acquired by a Sociologist is of great help to the administrator, legislators, diplomats, teachers, social workers, and citizens.
• 5. Sociology is relatively an abstract science and not a concrete science: Sociology does not confine itself to the study of particular or concrete instances of human events. But it studies the abstract forms of human events and their patterns. For example, it does not limit itself to the study of any particular war or revolution. On the contrary, it deals with them in a general or abstract manner, as social phenomena, i.e., as types of Social conflict. In a similar manner, it makes such generalized Studies of marriage, religion, family, group, etc.
• 6. Sociology is a Generalising and not a particularising science: Sociology tries to make generalizations on the basis of the study of some selected events. For example, a sociologist makes generalizations on the following: (i) Joint families are more stable than nuclear families.  (ii) Social changes take place with greater rapidity in urban communities than in tribal or rural communities.
• 7. Sociology is a General Social science and not a Special Social Science: The area of inquiry of Sociology is general and not specialized. It is concerned with human activities whether they are political, economic, religious, social, etc., in a general way.
• 8. Sociology is both an Empirical and a Rational Science: Sociology is an empirical science because it emphasizes the facts that result from observation and experimentation, it rests on trial, experiment or experience. It is a rational science because it stresses the role of reasoning and logical inferences. An empiricist collects facts where as a rationalist coordinates and arranges them. All modern science including Sociology avail themselves of both empirical and rational resources.

The correct answer is Expansion of family.

Key PointsMatriarchal Theory:

• Main supporters of the matriarchal theory, McLinnen Jacques and Morgan, etc. think that the state has originated from a Matriarchal society, not from a patriarchal society.
• In ancient times, marital relations were not stable.
• Husband-wife relations used to be unstable and they developed on mutual understanding and were broken also on the same basis.
• The mother used to look after the offspring.
• Children also gave preference to mothers.
• Geneology was known by the mother and had no relation to the tribe of the father.
• Main Features of Theory:
  • There was a lack of stable marital relations.
  • Blood relation could be known only through the mother. 
  • Mother was considered to be the head of the family.
  • Females had the right to family property.
  • After the death of the mother, the property was divided among daughters, not sons.

Patriarchal Theory: 

• According to patriarchal theory, the state originated from families which were related to the father. In ancient times, society was a group of families.
• Head of the family as father had unlimited powers.
• Every member of the family has to follow his orders, otherwise, he would be punished.
• He could distribute his property according to his own wish.
• He could eject anyone from his property and could marry his children according to his own wish.
• Clans were made from joining the families.
• All members of the clan had blood relations and lived under the protection of the oldest male.
• The tribe was formed by joining many clans and the state was formed from tribes.
• Main Features of Patriarchal Theory:
  • In ancient times, the family was the unit of society.
  • The basis of the family was stable and permanent marriage relations.
  • Male used to be the head of the family and there were many patriarchal elements.
  • Geneology was searched only through males.
  • Females had no right in the families.
  • Father or Grandfather used to be the head of the family.
  • He had many unlimited powers.
  • Clans were formed from patriarchal families and tribes’from clans and state was developed from tribes.