- 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
- class consciousness
- 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 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
- 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
- status
- the responsibilities and benefits that a person experiences according to their 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