Transcript Culture and Socialization

SOC101Y
Introduction to Sociology
Professor Robert Brym
Lecture #3
Social Interaction
28 Sep 11
A dyad is a twoperson group.
A status is a
recognized position in
a social interaction.
How We Get Emotional
external
stimulus
For example,
a grizzly bear
attacks.
physiological
response and
initial emotion
Your pulse rate
increases etc.;
you experience
fear.
cultural
script
You have learned that
lying still and playing
dead increases the
chance the grizzly bear
will lose interest in you.
modified
emotional
response
Still fearful,
you act according
to the cultural
script, which
gives you hope.
Emotion management
involves people obeying
“feeling rules” and responding
appropriately to the situations
in which they find themselves.
Emotion labour is emotion
management that one does as
part of one’s job and for
which one is paid.
The crude death rate is
the annual number of
deaths per 1,000 people
in a population.
A rate is the frequency
with which an event occurs
in a given time span
(usually a year) per
population unit (usually
100,000 or 1,000 people).
The Decline of Celtic Languages
in Great Britain
2011
Welsh
Irish Gaelic
Breton
Scottish Gaelic
Cornish
Manx
Total
750,000
651,000
200,000
92,000
3,000
1,700
1,697,700
British & Irish
population
(millions)
Celtic speakers
(millions)
Celtic speakers
as percent of
total
1700 2011
6.5
65
3
1.7
46
2.6
A Competitive Conversation
Draws attention to
himself
John: “I’m feeling really starved.”
Begins to compete by
refocusing attention on herself
Mary: “Oh, I just ate.”
Engages in the competition by trying to
draw attention back to himself
John: “Well, I’m feeling really starved.”
Mary: “When was the last time
you ate?”
Concedes the competition by
allowing the conversation to
focus on John
Norms are standards
of behavior or
generally accepted ways
of doing things.
Values are shared
ideas about what
is right and wrong.
Why We Interact
 We gain valued resources
from interaction and we
compete to maximize our gains.
 We learn norms and values
(some of them altruistic) that
require interaction.
Where Do Norms and
Values Come From?
 from culture
 from creative negotiation:
 we manipulate the impressions
we make on others
 we communicate verbally and
nonverbally
Impression management
is the manipulation of how
we present ourselves to
others so as to appear in the
best possible light.
Important Types of
Nonverbal Communication
 facial expressions, gestures and
body language
 status cues (visual indicators of
other people’s social positions)
 stereotypes (rigid views of how
members of various groups act,
regardless of whether individual
group members really behave
that way)
(Lower case indicates sample; upper case indicates population.)
Probability of Being Stopped by the Police,
Toronto, by Race, Sex, and Age (n=1,257)
Probability
Which category has
the highest
probability of being
stopped? For white
and Asian males and
females, what is the
association between
age/education and
the probability of
being stopped? For
black males and
females, what is the
association between
age/education and
the probability of
being stopped?
Correlation
 A variable is a concept that can have more
than one value.
 A correlation is the relationship or
association between two variables.
 The correlation coefficient (r) measures
the strength of the association between two
variables. Its value ranges from -1 to +1, with
-1 indicating a perfect negative linear
association, +1 indicating a perfect positive
linear association, and 0 indicating no
association.
Correlations
Variable y
60
Variable y
Variable y
60
60
r = .85
40
40
20
20
0
0
0
2
4
6
8
Variable x
r=0
r = -.92
40
20
0
0
2
4
6
8
Variable x
0
2
4
6
8
Variable x
1. Positive Correlation 2. Negative Correlation 3. No Correlation
Coincidence
 Events, including correlations, may be due to
coincidence.
 For example, you may toss a coin and get heads, and
then toss it again and get heads. The chance of this
happening is ½ x ½ = ½2 = ¼. Common sense
suggests that these successive events are likely just a
coincidence.
 However, if you tossed a coin 10 times and got all
heads, the chance of this happening is 1/210 =
1/1,024. This is a sufficiently rare event that we
suspect the event is not due to chance.
 We study statistics partly to know the chance that
events, including correlations, are likely to be real or
coincidental.
Spuriousness
 A correlation may also be spurious (or
phony) if it is preceded by the real cause
of the correlation.
Frequency of
stork sightings
Frequency of
stork sightings
Correlation
Correlation
Rurality
Correlation
Fertility rate
Fertility rate
Statistics
 We must eliminate (or at least
sharply reduce) the chance of
coincidence and spuriousness
before we can conclude that a
correlation signifies a causal
relationship.
 Statistics teaches us how to do
these things.