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chapter 5
social structure & interaction
42
Sociology
Undergraduate 1
08/03/2011

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Term
Achieved status
Definition
A social position that is within our power to change
Term
Agrarian society
Definition
The most technologically advanced form of preindustrial society. Members are engaged primarily in the production of food, but they increase their crop yields through technological innovations such as the plow.
Term
Alienation
Definition
Loss of control over our creative human capacity to produce, separation from the products we make, and isolation from our fellow producers.
Term
Ascribed status
Definition
A social position assigned to a person by society without regard for the person’s unique talents or characteristics.
Term
Avatar
Definition
person’s online representation as a character, whether in the form of a 2-D or 3-D image or simply through text.
Term
Bureaucracy
Definition
A component of formal organization that uses rules and hierarchical ranking to achieve efficiency.
Term
Bureaucratization
Definition
The process by which a group, organization, or social movement increasingly relies on technical-rational decision making in the pursuit of efficiency.
Term
Classical theory
Definition
An approach to the study of formal organizations that views workers as being motivated almost entirely by economic rewards.
Term
Coalition
Definition
A temporary or permanent alliance geared toward a common goal.
Term
Gemeinschaft
Definition
A close-knit community, often found in rural areas, in which strong personal bonds unite members.
Term
Gesellschaft
Definition
A community, often urban, that is large and impersonal, with little commitment to the group or consensus on values
Term
Goal displacement
Definition
Overzealous conformity to official regulations of a bureaucracy.
Term
Group
Definition
Any number of people with similar norms, values, and expectations who interact with one another on a regular basis.
Term
Horticultural society
Definition
A preindustrial society in which people plant seeds and crops rather than merely subsist on available foods.
Term
Human relations approach
Definition
An approach to the study of formal organizations that emphasizes the role of people, communication, and participation in a bureaucracy and tends to focus on the informal structure of the organization.
Term
Hunting-and-gathering society
Definition
A preindustrial society in which people rely on whatever foods and fibers are readily available in order to survive.
Term
Ideal type
Definition
An abstract model of the essential characteristics of a phenomenon.
Term
Industrial society
Definition
A society that depends on mechanization to produce its goods and services.
Term
In-group
Definition
Any group or category to which people feel they belong.
Term
Iron law of oligarchy
Definition
The principle that all organizations, even democratic ones, tend to develop into a bureaucracy ruled by an elite few.
Term
Master status
Definition
A status that dominates others and thereby determines a person’s general position in society.
Term
McDonaldization
Definition
The process by which the principles of efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control shape organization and decision making in the United States and around the world.
Term
Mechanical solidarity
Definition
Social cohesion based on shared experiences, knowledge, and skills in which things function more or less the way they always have, with minimal change.
Term
Organic solidarity
Definition
A collective consciousness that rests on mutual interdependence, characteristic of societies with a complex division of labor.
Term
Out-group
Definition
A group or category to which people feel they do not belong.
Term
Peter principle
Definition
A principle of organizational life according to which every employee within a hierarchy tends to rise to his or her level of incompetence.
Term
Postindustrial society
Definition
A society whose economic system is engaged primarily in the processing and control of information
Term
Postmodern society
Definition
A technologically sophisticated, pluralistic, interconnected, globalized society.
Term
Primary group
Definition
A small group characterized by intimate, face-to-face association and cooperation.
Term
Reference group
Definition
ny group that individuals use as a standard for evaluating themselves and their own behavior.
Term
Role conflict
Definition
The situation that occurs when incompatible expectations arise from two or more social statuses held by the same person.
Term
Role exit
Definition
The process of disengagement from a role that is central to one’s self-identity in order to establish a new role and identity.
Term
Role strain
Definition
The difficulty that arises when the same social status imposes conflicting demands and expectations.
Term
Scientific management approach
Definition
Another name for the classical theory of formal organizations.
Term
Secondary group
Definition
A formal, impersonal group in which there is little social intimacy or mutual understanding.
Term
Social institution
Definition
An organized pattern of beliefs and behavior centered on basic social needs.
Term
Social interaction
Definition
The shared experiences through which people relate to one another.
Term
Social network
Definition
A series of social relationships that links individuals directly to others, and through them indirectly to still more people.
Term
Social role
Definition
A set of expectations for people who occupy a given social position or status.
Term
Social structure
Definition
The way in which a society is organized into predictable relationships.
Term
Status
Definition
The social positions we occupy relative to others.
Term
Trained incapacity
Definition
The tendency of workers in a bureaucracy to become so specialized that they develop blind spots and fail to notice potential problems.
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