Welcome to INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY

(SOC 211)John Bradford, Ph.D.

What is Sociology?

• Socius (Latin) = ‘associate’ as in society; • logy (Greek) = ‘study’ of

SOCIO-LOGY = the study of SOCIETY.

What is Sociology?

• Definition: Sociology is the scientific study of interactions and relations among human beings.– Sociology studies and explains how people influence one

another.– Sociology studies and explains the intended and

unintended consequences of human interaction.

Unintended Consequences

Intended actions

Unintended Consequences

of Actions

Traffic jam

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.”

Karl Marx

(1818-1883)

The Sociological Imagination

“Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both.”

C. Wright Mills(1916-1962)

What is Sociology?• Sociology studies the PATTERNS that people generate

as they interact, influence, and relate to one another. • In short:

THINK PATTERNS, NOT PEOPLE!(at least not individual people)

HOMOPHILY• HOMOPHILY is the tendency for more similar

people to interact more frequently, and for people who interact more frequently to become more similar.

InteractionSimilarity

HOMOPHILY• HOMOPHILY = SIMILARITY: Like Attracts Like• People *like* those who are *like* themselves.• “Birds of a feather flock together”

HOMOPHILY• NOTES:

– Similar in what respect? How do we measure similarity?– Homophily is based on perceived similarity. People tend to

gravitate towards others that they perceive as similar to them in some important or salient characteristic.

HOMOPHILY

• Examples:– 1987 Study, only 8% of people in US have

someone of another race that they “discuss important matters with”

– 2006 study: Interracial marriages. 1% of white marriages, 5% of black marriages, 14% of Asian marriages.

– Closest friend: 10% of men name a woman; 37% of women name a man.

Two paths to Homophily• SORTING- occurs when people actively seek out and

socialize with people who are similar to them in some respect. SELECTION.

• PEER Influence- occurs when people become more similar to the people they spend the most time with, over time. INFLUENCE.

InteractionSimilarity

SORTING

INFLUENCE

SORTING

High School Friendships

Online Blogs

Image by Frank Paynter

Boston

Baltimore

New York

Houston

DETROIT

New Orleans

Unintended Sorting?

• Neighborhood Sorting: Thomas Schelling (2005 Nobel Prize winner) showed that macro-level segregation would arise from micro-level tolerance, so long as individuals prefer to live adjacent to some neighbors similar to them.

Thomas Schelling

Unintended Sorting?

• Imagine a city as a giant checkerboard, and suppose each piece wants 30% of its neighbors to be the same kind.

• A few, with more than 30% of its neighbors of a different kind, will move.• Two effects of initial relocations:1. other checkers of the same color from old neighborhood will also

want to move 2. other checkers of different color in new neighborhood will want to

move

PEER INFLUENCE

Soda or Pop?

Water Fountain or Drinking Fountain?

Political Affiliation U.S.

Religious Affiliations U.S.

Religious Diversity U.S.

World Religions

Social Influence

There are many types of social influence. Consider a standing ovation…

• We usually do not decide whether to stand or sit based on our own independent evaluations…

• Instead, we often imitate what others are doing!

Social Influence

Consider applause more generally…• Here the goal is to coordinate with others so that

everyone is clapping at the same time and people are not clapping by themselves.