8/24 Intro to Sociology
Psychology vs Sociology
● Psych: study individual’s mind and behavior. Making the strange familiar.
● Soc: study group of ppl. Making the familiar strange.
How can it help us?
● Sociology = study of society
● How many viewpoints help us understand phenomena
○ Observe probs and ideally find solutions
● Identify + explain patterns of social behavior by collecting and analyzing data about
social world
○ Heavy in theory AND heavy in empirical evidence
○ Example of problem: Wages – men vs women
Key Terms
● [Very important, tested… not on word for word but understanding broad ideas]
● Social Institutions: any institution in a society that works to shape the behavior of the
group or ppl within it
○ Ex: Education, Family, Government
● Micro vs Macro Sociology
○ Micro: small-scale (ex: face-to-face)
○ Macro: large-scale (ex: political system, economy)
● Sociological Imagination: using imagination to understand the phenomena
○ Putting yourself in other people’s shoes
○ Your experiences + identity shape who you are and see the world
(challenging that) – (race/class/gender)
● Agency vs Structure
○ Agency: personal free will in life choices
○ Structure: predetermined outcomes in life choices (constraints/walls)
○ Sociology focuses a lot on structure but there’s agency still
■ Structure examples: gender, class, education
● Social Construction: “socially constructed” – stuff made up but we agree on it + BUT
STILL HAS real-world effects
○ Ex: shaking hands as formal greeting
○ Use wisely, need context to make important
8/28 Research Methods
● Methods: Research techniques or procedures for accomplishing research – tools
● Methodology: Logic of research or how the course of inquiry takes shape
○ Why researchers make the decisions they do
● Usually thought of as linear process but in reality, more complicated and messy
● Deductive vs Inductive
○ Deductive: starts with theory (what we think we already know) and moves to data
■ Top to bottom
■ Find evidence to support theory
○ Inductive: starts with data (empirical research) and moves to theory
■ Bottom to top
■ Produces theory
● Quantitative v Qualitative
○ Quantitative: numbers
■ Info abt social world that’s already/can be turned into numerical form
○ Qualitative: words
■ Info abt social world that can’t be turned into numeric form
○ Mixed methods: doing both in the same project/research study
(not common bc doing both is usually taxing in time and money)
● Quantitative: used to test theory or develop theory
○ Typically can answer what, how many, or how much ?’s
● Think quantity
● Ex: how many licks does it take to get to center of a tootsie pop?
■ Primary Method: Surveys
○ Survey: ordered series of questions typically with pre-set responses
■ Very common because easy to get info
■ However, limited because can’t have information if someone wants to say
something else
● Ex: Chili’s “rate your experience” after you pay
● Qualitative: used to create theory
○ Typically can answer how and why questions (think words)
○ Emphasize processes
■ Ex: How do doctor-patient interactions impact medical treatment
○ Ethnography: (fieldwork) researchers go where they want to study and make
observations
■ Participant observation: researcher participates in the environment where
they’re studying
■ Can include interviews
○ Interviews: usually in-depth, meaning goal = to get as much detail as possible
● Experiments
○ Can be either quantitative or qualitative
○ Seek to alter smth in specific way
○ Often has control group and treatment group
■ Control = group that does not get any intentional change
■ Treatment = group that gets intentional changes
○ Difficult to do because cannot change what we want to change
■ Ex: can’t change someone’s race or (ethically) give illness
● Stanford Prison Experiment
Research Process: One Way
● Check the literature
○ Sociology = half theory + half data
● Hypothesize
○ Based off what you read + what you think is happening
○ This will be what you test or try to find evidence of
● Design study
Design a study
● Population: the “whole” of what you want to study (broad)
○ Ex: all women of world who go to clubs
● Sample: a subset (a small portion) of the population
○ What portion of “all women” can you get access to? →
sample of women in the US
● Longitudinal: Across time, takes more than one set of data
● Cross-sectional: At one point in time, one set of data
● [2 constraints]
1. Can you do it (Is it possible?)
2. Do you want to do it (Would it be helpful?)
● Operationalize: the process of turning concepts or ideas into measurable things
○ Dependent variable (Y): outcome you want to study
■ Ex: the clubbing experience
○ Independent variable (X): the thing (you think) affecting the outcome
■ Ex: Gender
○ X → Y
8/31 Research Methods (II)
Factors Influencing Choice of Methods
● Time and money
● Requirements of funding bodies
● Personal skills and characteristics
● Subject matter
○ You and research community must be interested in it
● Research opportunity
○ Access; sample size (quant v qual)
Correlation and Causation
● Correlation: When 2 variables tend to vary together (but one does not cause the other!)
○ Ex: Ice cream sales and shark attacks
● Causation: When changing one variable produces a corresponding change in another
variable. A casual relationship.
○ Ex: Having more money → better health (typically)
Good Research
● Good Research = valid, reliable, and generalizable
● Validity: The extent to which a study measures what it is intended to measure
○ Measuring the correct thing
● Reliability: The likelihood of obtaining consistent results using the same measure
○ Measuring same thing again and again
● Generalizability: The extent to which a study’s finding can inform us about a larger
group/phenomenon than the one studied
○ Is this universally applicable?
Role of Researcher
● White Coat Effect – the phenomenon where a researcher’s presence affects subjects’
behavior or response thereby disrupting the study
● Reflexivity – analyzing and critically considering our own role in, and effect on, our
research
○ Ex: Study of observations in a factory
Principles of Doing Ethical Research
1. Do no harm
a. Protects participants from ALL harm, including physical, psychological, emotional
2. Informed Consent
a. Informed consent: a statement that describes the study (its risks and benefits)
and formally requests participation
b. Participants have a right to know they are participating in a study and what it will
consist of
3. Voluntary Participation
a. They can decide whether they want to participate and can describe to stop
participating at any time
Why is being ethical complication?
● Bc sociologists don’t want to tell participants everything
● Bias: when you have prejudice or favor one thing, person, or group
○ Confirmation bias: when ppl favor info that favors their previous beliefs
○ Social desirability bias: when respondents answer in a way they think is favorable
to them or in a way they think the researcher wants to hear
(not their actual thoughts)
What does this mean for you?
● Have a researcher’s mindset – be a skeptic
● Particularly with evidence that supports what you think
● Be resistive
● Always think about what is another explanation for this outcome
Consuming social research
● Poorly done research can have a big impact on public perception
(think about John Oliver video)
What did we learn?
● Researchers worry about things beyond the methods of their studies
● What they think they're studying is what they are actually studying
○ Correlation v Causation
○ Valid and reliable
○ Account for bias while staying ethical
● Have researcher’s mindset to be a better consumer of info
