SOC 204 Telecourse Final Exam - Fall 2005


1. A set of two or more individuals who share a sense of common identity and belonging and who interact on a regular basis is
 an aggregate.
 a social group.
 a social category.
 a population.
 

2. People that share the same sex, race, or age are in the same
 social cohort.
 social group.
 social category.
 population.
 

3. Relationships that involve few aspects of their members' personalities are found in
 secondary groups.
 primary groups.
 family groups.
 cohesive groups.
 

4. Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of primary groups?
 Intimacy
 Instrumental or task orientation
 Face-to-face interaction
 Cooperation
 Sympathy and mutual identification between members
 

5. Which of the following is NOT an example of a secondary group?
 Classrooms
 Town committees
 Political party organizations
 Families
 Corporations
 

6. A reference group is a group that
 secondary groups refer to when they wish to extend their goals.
 employers use when checking on the qualifications of an applicant.
 is composed of relevant others whom we admire and whose behavior we try to imitate.
 primary groups use as models in establishing norms.
 

7. Compared with dyads, triads
 are more stable, since adding another person tends to reduce sexual tension
 are less stable, since it increases competition for attention
 are smaller
 have less conflict
 

8. Professional associations, such as the American Medical Association and the American Bar Association, are examples of
 in-groups
 out-groups
 nonterritorial communities
 territorial communities
 

9. A group used by an individual to judge themselves is called a
 in-group
 out-group
 reference group
 comparison group
 

10. After their guests left, Alice and Ted started laughing and talking about how bored they had been. They felt relief and were looking forward to changing to more comfortable clothing and relaxing. Alice's and Ted's relief at the departure of their guests is an example of
 frontstage behavior.
 backstage behavior.
 instrumental leadership.
 the rationality principle.
 

11. Which of the following best describes the significance of groups for individuals?
 Groups are of minimal importance in the growth and development of individual personalities.
 Groups totally determine people's desires, goals, and plans.
 Groups are unnecessary for formulating good self-images and adequate functioning.
 Groups shape individuals' behavior and give their lives meaning.
 

12. W. I. Thomas' argument that 'situations we define as real, are real in their consequences' is significant because it shows that
 our understandings or definitions of what is occurring around us guide our actions
 there is no such thing as reality
 people usually interpret their world wrongly
 our understandings of the world are largely objective
 

13. Goffman's technique of studying how social interaction is guided by our efforts to impress those who may be watching us is known as
 the narcissistic approach
 the dramaturgical approach
 the reciprocity approach
 structural functionalism
 

14. The study of the underlying rules of behavior that guide group interaction is known as
 interactionism
 the dramaturgical approach
 ethnomethodology
 social network analysis
 

15. When people set up a front stage and a back stage in order to control the impressions they give to others, Erving Goffman would call this
 dramawork
 stagework
 impression management
 ethnomethodology
 

16. Kitty Genovese's murder was explained by sociologists as an example of
 dramaturgy
 impression management
 bystander effect
 territorial conflict
 

17. In their study of the Nazi army, Morris Janowitz and Edward Shils discovered that the reason Nazi soldiers were so effective and committed was because
 they were loyal to their small combat unit.
 the Nazi army bureaucracy went out of their way to care for all its soldiers.
 they were subjected to massive ideological manipulation, so they were dedicated to Hitler and the Nazi effort.
 All of the above.
 None of the above.
 

18. According to Kornblum, ideological primary groups
 are less effective than non-ideological primary groups, because ideologies undermine the efficiency of the groups
 are more effective than non-ideological primary groups, because sharing an ideology often leads to high levels of cohesion and devotion to group leaders and teachings
 are no more, nor no less, effective than non-ideological primary groups, because ideology generally has little or nothing to do with primary group membership
 None of the above, since there's no such thing as ideological primary groups; all ideological groups are secondary groups
 


19. Which of the following is characteristic of formal organizations?
 They have explicit sets of norms, statuses, and roles for each member
 They are usually democratic, and run by elected figures
 They usually develop out of informal organizations
 Membership is such organizations is rarely voluntary; people are either drafted into it, or otherwise required to participate
 

20. Which of the following is NOT an example of a formal organization?
 A group of friends at work who meet every Friday to discuss how their week went
 A New England town meeting
 Lane Community College
 The Boy Scouts
 

21. According to Morris Janowirtz, participation in voluntary organizations
 has declined slightly in recent years
 has nearly disappeared in recent years
 has increased during the past few decades
 is more common among people living on the semirural fringe of society
 

22. Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of bureaucracy, according to Max Weber's analysis?
 Positions are ordered in a hierarchy
 Personnel are usually hired and promoted by management based on who they know and prefer (Weber called this the "it's not what you know, it's who you know" system)
 A career ladder exists
 A system of rules and precedents exists
 The norm of efficiency dominates
 

23. Weber argued that bureaucracy has become more common because it makes social life more
 secular.
 rational and efficient.
 personal and meaningful.
 enchanted.
 

24. Which of the following is FALSE regarding membership in small groups?
 People in large cities tend to join small groups more often than people in small towns.
 Women tend to join small groups more often than men
 People over age 50 tend to join small groups more often than younger people
 People with a college education tend to join small groups more often than people with only a high school education
 

25. According to Wuthnow, people join small groups because
 they tend to benefit economically from such membership.
 they need to be part of face-to-face groups in which they attain a sense of community with others.
 they are pressured into doing so by their families or other significant others.
 they are an excellent source for finding friends and mates.
 



26. Deviance is defined as
 behavior that harms others, physically or emotionally
 behavior that violates the norms of a particular society
 behavior that violates the laws of a particular society
 behavior that violates the norms or laws of all societies
 

27. Which of the following persons is most likely to be classified as deviant?
 A child whose stealing becomes noticed by school authorities
 A student who is cheating regularly but never gets caught
 A child who gets in fights but whose parent is president of the school board
 A person involved in influence peddling in the state legislature
 

28. According to Kai Erikson's functionalist analysis, the Salem witch hunt occurred because
 of the increasingly common practice of engaging in witchcraft rituals by young women in Salem
 of the weakening of Puritan society, and the need to reaffirm their community values by declaring some people were witches
 local religious leaders used it as a way to steal the land and wealth of the people they killed.
 British authorities used it as a way to stem the American Revolution
 

29. The capacity of a social group, including a whole society, to regulate itself is known as social
 regulation.
 equilibrium.
 control.
 boundary maintenance.
 

30. Power is
 negatively associated with who defines what is considered deviant: the less power people have, the more they control what is defined as deviant
 positively associated with who defines what is considered deviant: the more power people have, the more they control what is defined as deviant
 unrelated to who defines what is considered deviant, since deviance is defined objectively
 related to who defines what is considered deviant, but not to who is punished for deviant behavior
 

31. When someone is considered deviant because of their race, physical appearance, or other characteristic over which they have no control, sociologists would say s/he has
 an ascribed deviant status
 an achieved deviant status
 a prejudicial deviant status
 a corporeal deviant status
 

32. Which of the following is NOT one of the FBI's Index Crimes?
 Murder
 Forcible Rape
 Robbery
 Espionage
 Aggravated Assault
 

33. According to Kornblum, the FBI crime statistics
 are the most reliable statistics on crime
 are limited by differences in the effectiveness of crime-reporting agencies
 are of limited value, since the data covers only reported crimes, not the crime rates for the total population
 overestimate the amount of real crime, as shown by victimization surveys
 e. BOTH b and c
 

34. Which of the following is NOT an example of a deviant subculture?
 Biker gangs
 Skinheads
 Fraternities
 Anarchists
 

35. According to Denno's research, an important biological source of social deviance is
 the throwback to primitive human beings
 lower innate intelligence
 childhood hyperactivity
 mesomorphic body types
 

36. Which of the following is NOT true, regarding early sociological theories of social deviance that attributed such deviance to 'social pathology'?
 They argued that deviance was bred in slums and tended to infect innocent slum residents, just as diseases are passed from one person to another
 These theories led to the building of many juvenile training schools in rural areas to isolate youth from the corrupting influence of cities
 These theories led to the creation of weekend furlough policies for prisoners, based on the argument that if the population had a small amount of contact with deviants, they would develop an immunity to them
 These theories are criticized today for relying on subjective definitions of deviance and engaging in circular reasoning, offering little insight into the actual causes of deviance
 

37. The young man told the social worker that he had tried to be successful in school, but the material was just too hard for him. Therefore, he had resorted to theft to get the stereo he had wanted for so long. This young man's theft falls under which of Robert K. Merton's categories in his functionalist theory of deviance and crime?
 Innovation
 Ritualism
 Retreatism
 Rebellion
 Conformity
 

38. Merton would say a hobo or tramp who chose to ride the rails rather than work a steady job is an example of
 innovation
 ritualism
 retreatism
 rebellion
 conformity
 

39. If a sociologist argued that 'when robber barons used illegal means to acquire great wealth they simply illustrated the logic of capitalism', her argument would most reflect which of the following theories?
 conflict
 labeling
 differential association
 cultural transmission
 

40. According to Edwin Sutherland's differential association theory of crime, teenagers in certain neighborhoods became delinquent because they
 interacted in groups whose culture legitimized crime.
 inherited genes that gave them a predisposition to become delinquent.
 were from families that didn't give them enough love and attention.
 were labeled as delinquent by school and other authorities at a very early age.
 

41. The 'lumpenproletariat' is Marx's term for
 the 'robber baron' class, who make great fortunes by swindling and creating monopolies that exploit consumers
 the middle class bureaucrats and small businessmen that rip off both the government and their customers
 the poorest strata in society, who are unable to find regular employment and therefore turn to street crimes such as thieving, prostitution, and pickpocketing to make a living
 the vanguard of the working class revolution, who are labeled deviants by capitalists threatened by their political rebellion
 

42. Once we are labeled as deviant, we tend to commit additional deviant acts in order to fulfill the negative definitions that society has attached to us. This statement represents which of the following?
 Independent deviance
 Additive deviance
 Primary deviance
 Secondary deviance
 

43. In William J. Chambliss' study, he discovered that whether delinquent boys became labeled as delinquent was based largely on the
 social position of their parents.
 seriousness of the offense involved.
 degree of commitment of the delinquent to law-abiding individuals.
 intelligence and wit of the individuals involved.
 

44. In the fourth grade Marcia was caught stealing a pencil from a classmate's notebook. The school authorities made note of this incident on Marcia's record, and other teachers in the school called her a little thief. This reputation followed her through high school. The description of Marcia best represents which theory of deviance?
 Anomie
 Labeling
 Differential association
 Conflict
 

45. Just as during Prohibition when many people condoned drinking alcohol, many people today condone smoking marijuana. Both are evidence of
 immorality
 hypocrisy
 cultural conflict over definitions of deviancy
 high cultural deviance
 elite deviance
 

46. Kornbloom discussed the weaknesses of theories of deviance. Which of the following is FALSE?
 Social pathology theory offers no real theory of why deviance and crime occur.
 Functionalist theory doesn't explain why some people drift into deviant subcultures.
 Biological theories ignore evidence that crime is a product of socialization.
 Marxist theories exaggerate the crimes by the poor.
 

47. Which region of the U.S. has the highest crime rate?
 Northeast
 Midwest
 South
 West
 

48. The probability that a person who has served a jail term will commit additional crimes and be jailed again is called
 revolving crime
 recidivism
 rehabilitation
 the ecology of crime
 deterrence
 

49. The probability in the U.S. that a person who has served a jail term will commit additional crimes and be jailed again is approximately what percent?
 10%
 25%
 50%
 75%
 100%
 

50. Kornblum suggests that crime rates have significantly declined in the U.S. in recent years because of
 the reemergence of traditional values (also referred to as the 'decline of anomie')
 the changing age composition of the U.S. population, especially the movement of the baby-boom generation out of the young adult years, when people are more likely to commit crimes
 strict gun control laws today
 the end of the Cold War
 

51. Which of the following is NOT one of the factors Kornblum uses to explain high rates of interpersonal violence in the U.S.?
 An inability of Americans to get along with each other, due in part to its multiethnic origins
 A frontier stage of rapid social change, resulting in traditions of vigilantism and possession of personal weapons
 Large scale drug epidemics
 Norms encouraging possession of personal weapons
 

52. Which of the following statements regarding the rates of homicide is true?
 The U.S. has one of the lowest rates of homicide in developed nations.
 The U.S. has among the highest rates of homicide in the world.
 The homicide rate in the U.S. is significantly higher than other industrially developed countries, but significantly lower than most less developed countries (also known as third world countries)
 Little can be said about homicide rates in the U.S. because homicide is so inaccurately measured
 

53. Compared with 1980, the number of people imprisoned in the U.S.
 has been cut in half, and is among the lowest in the world
 has remained about the same
 has doubled
 has more than tripled
 

54. In 2000, approximately people __________ were imprisoned in the U.S.
 200,000
 500,000
 1,000,000
 2,000,000
 4,500,000
 

55. Functionalists believe prisons serve many important functions. Which of the following is NOT one these functions?
 restitution
 deterrence
 rehabilitation
 retribution
 

56. By far the least successful aspect of prison life is
 restitution
 deterrence
 rehabilitation
 retribution
 

57. What do most sociologists say about the success of prison systems in the United States?
 Prisons are a dismal failure.
 Prisons deter crime.
 Prisons are appropriate for second offenders, but not for first offenders.
 Prisons successfully rehabilitate and resocialize most criminals.
 

58. According to Kornblum, researchers critical of the prison system argue all BUT which of the following?
 Too many people are being imprisoned and otherwise overseen by the criminal justice system
 Far from rehabilitating inmates, prisons function more as schools for crime
 Punishment for drug use and sales is extremely unequally distributed, with young Black men more likely to go to prison today than to go to college
 Prisons are unable to achieve their goals of promoting deterrence because they are too attractive
 

59. Studies show that the most effective rehabilitation programs in prisons involve
 getting prisoners to confess and take responsibility for their crimes
 making prisons so oppressive that prisoners never want to be sent back again
 job training and education
 using chain gangs and military style boot camps
 

60. Studying the differences between corporate crimes and those committed by people without great wealth and political power would most likely be done by a sociologist using which of the following sociological perspectives?
 conflict
 functionalist
 interactionist
 None of the above
 
 

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