- achieved status
- the status a person chooses, such as a level of education or income
- agricultural societies
- societies that rely on farming as a way of life
- alienation
- an individual’s isolation from his society, his work, and his sense of self
- anomie
- a situation in which society no longer has the support of a firm collective consciousness
- ascribed status
- the status outside of an individual’s control, such as sex or race
- bourgeoisie
- the owners of the means of production in a society
- capitalism
- a way of organizing an economy so that the things that are used to make and transport products (such as land, oil, factories, ships, etc.) are owned by individual people and companies rather than by the government
- class consciousness
- the awareness of one’s rank in society
- collective conscience
- the communal beliefs, morals, and attitudes of a society
- false consciousness
- a person’s beliefs and ideology that are in conflict with her best interests
- feudal societies
- societies that operate on a strict hierarchical system of power based around land ownership and protection
- habitualization
- the idea that society is constructed by us and those before us, and it is followed like a habit
- horticultural societies
- societies based around the cultivation of plants
- hunter-gatherer societies
- societies that depend on hunting wild animals and gathering uncultivated plants for survival
- industrial societies
- societies characterized by a reliance on mechanized labor to create material goods
- information societies
- societies based on the production of nonmaterial goods and services
- institutionalization
- the act of implanting a convention or norm into society
- iron cage
- a situation in which an individual is trapped by social institutions
- looking-glass self
- our reflection of how we think we appear to others
- mechanical solidarity
- a type of social order maintained by the collective consciousness of a culture
- organic solidarity
- a type of social order based around an acceptance of economic and social differences
- pastoral societies
- societies based around the domestication of animals
- proletariat
- the laborers in a society
- rationalization
- a belief that modern society should be built around logic and efficiency rather than morality or tradition
- role conflict
- a situation when one or more of an individual’s roles clash
- role performance
- the expression of a role
- role strain
- stress that occurs when too much is required of a single role
- role-set
- an array of roles attached to a particular status
- roles
- patterns of behavior that are representative of a person’s social status
- self-fulfilling prophecy
- an idea that becomes true when acted upon
- social integration
- how strongly a person is connected to his or her social group
- society
- a group of people who live in a definable community and share the same culture
- status
- the responsibilities and benefits that a person experiences according to his or her rank and role in society
- Thomas theorem
- how a subjective reality can drive events to develop in accordance with that reality, despite being originally unsupported by objective reality