The one where Amy blogged about Sociology for a year and a half

"Amy, will you blog again? Cause I've read all your stuff." Okay.
So before she made that request, Katie and I were talking about sociology (almost studying) and discussing how last week Katie blogged about Sociology, namely Sternberg's Love Triangle Theory. (Not the classic love triangle, but an actual geometric shape), and how writing about things helps to internalize them. So then we decided, just like the responsible people that we are, that we would never study again.

Instead, we are going to blog about our various studies. Specifically, Sociology. Seeing as how my final is tomorrow and I still have to memorize all that crap about prejudice and family groups and different types of minority groups and stuff. So, I guess really that this is a warning. This might be boring. But I will try. And if I blog about it Katie can read it tomorrow morning and that will count as studying. So she has to read it.

So the three chapters are eleven (race and ethnicity, which are not the same thing, by the way). then there is thirteen and part of twelve, and those are politics, systems of government, and family theories.

So there are the four Patterns of Prejudice and Discrimination which I think are super fascinating. There is the Active bigot, who is prejudiced and discriminates, you know. Classic scuzzer. Then there is the timid Bigot, who is prejudiced but does not discriminate. The enxt one is pretty intteresting. This one is the Fair-Weather Liberal. This wierdo is not prejudiced, but discriminates anyway. Why the heck would you discriminatea if you are not prejudiced? The only thing we could come up with is doing this for your job. Like a person who is not prejudiced but works in an airport and has to search specific groups of people. Then there is the all-weather liberal, who is not prejudiced and does not discriminate. I have decided that this should be the goal for society.

This stuff isnt interesting. I just have to talk about it so I will remember it so feel free to skip. My feelings won't be hurt. Not that I would know if anybody was skipping stuff anyway...

Terrorism is an act of violence or destruction performed for a political purpose.  The two different types are revolutionary and repressive. Basically offense and defense. The two types of terrorism victims are Random and selective. Pretty self- explanatory. The really interesting thing that we talked about is that terrorism definitely connotes some negative things. But really, it depends on your point of view. Like how the Revolutionary war would have been called a civil war if we had lost. Dani used the Boston Tea Party as an example of terrorism and I thought, no it isnt. But then, it really is. We jsut liked the Founding Fathers. I bet the English kids don't hear about the Boston Tea Party and swell with patrioic zeal like us Yankees. Anyway...

Next up.... Five Models of Power. Go!
1 Power-elite (power concentrated in top of society)
2 Marxist Social Economy -power directed by capitalism. social conflict theory
3 Pluralist- power spread widely structural functionalist
4 Power Resource- whoever has the resources has the power. so James will rule the world.
5 State Centered- system of checks and balances.
This is where I type all of them without looking at my notes.
State Centered Marxist Social Economy Power Resource Pluralist, and PowerElite. Bam. Roasted.

oKAY. fAMILY sYSTEMS. whoops. Caps lock. Ahem.
There are a lot of different types of families and this chapter is kind of scary when you see how normal it is in society for all these different types of families. Some of them are not gonna work as building blocks of society, just saying....

Family of Affinity. people without legal or blood ties who feel they belong together. I immediately thought of Friends. Of Course. I also thought of how we all walk into my apartment and say, "Hi, Family!" And in high school how the drama/ choir department people was a family of affinity. I spent way more time with those people than my actual family. There is a reason we call her Mama T.

Family of Orientation. Family you are born into
Family of Procreation. Family you (pro)create
Extended Family. Duh. Why do we have to define that?
Nuclear Family. Traditional social Family unit. Single Parent families now count. Say what?

Sternberg's Triangular Love Theory.
None of this will make sense if you don't see the diagram. FYI.
1Intimacy Only
2 Passion/ Infatuation
3 Empty Love/ Commitment Only
4 Romantic Love
5 Fatuous Love
6 Compassionate Love
7 Consumate Love
I was confused about why 4 2 and 5 were different, but that's okay, cause Katie explained it to me. yep.

ALTERNATE FAMILY FORMS
1 single parent families
2 cohabitation
3 singlehood- did you know that seventy five percent of women are unmarried at thirty? look at that and                               then  look at the fifties. whoa! societal changes. these ones aren't necessarily bad.
4 Homosexual Relationships.

4 Functions of the Family
First is Socialization. Second is regulation of sexual activity, third is social placement and organization of society, fourth is material and emotional security. Structural Functionalist view.

Six Causes of Divorce.
(Somehow, finances didn't make it in here.)
1 Individualism overcomes relationship
2 Romantic love fades
3 Women less dependent on men
4 Stressful Marriages
5 Socially Acceptable
6 Easy to obtain legally

3 Ways the Family Perpetuates Inequality
    1Property Inheritance
    2 Patriarhcy: male dominance
    3 Race/Ethnicity constants

RELIGION Chapter 13
Conflict Theory as it applies to Religion: Religion uses the fear of God to repress the individual. "Religion is the opiate of the masses." -Marx I think. maybe. probably.

Weber- Predestination and Capitalism
Theory that protestant belief in predestination  includes the belief that social and economic success is a sign of predestination. hard individual work supports capitalism.

Civil Religion- quasi religious loyalty bonding individuals in a secular society.
Secularization: not being affiliated with any religious group
Liberation Theology: theory that religion creates feelings of individual worth and liberates the individual.

Functions of Religion in Society
Katie, sitting next to me, says, " None. Stupid." She was kidding. " Really, Mrs. President? Are you serious?"
There are lots of them.  But the three we want to talk about are as follows: Social Cohesion, Social Control, Provides meaning and purpose. Mormons. I am one. We do all these things.

5 Characteristics of Religious Fundamentalism
1 take sacred text literally, always
2 Reject Religious Pluralism.
3 Pursue personal experience with Deity
4 Opposes secular humanism
5 May endorse conservative political goals
6 Warren Jeffs.
just Kidding katie. Are you actually still reading this crap? Who needs to study? It's just a final. No biggie.


Okay. Politics. Let's get through it before someone tells me I am a bigot for not liking Obama.
Authoritarianism: Denies people government participation.
Totalitarianism: Tyrrany 1984

Types of Legitimate Authority
1 Traditional
2 Rational- Legal
3 Charismatic
I dont really know what those are. But katie explained it to me. again.

And this is where I realize that I already did the whole rest of the politics section. Gladness in the extreme.
We can continue onto racism and prejudice and discrimination and all those party subjects.

Institutional Prejudice: prejudice and sometimes discrimination that is built into a system or bureaucracy. Like the wage penalty, pay gap, or how Joann's won't hire men. I think trevor should sue them.

A Class Divided
that video where the teacher divides up the brown eyes and the blue eyes and tells all the kids who have lbue eyes htat htey are better and smarter, and then switches the next day. The kids who were told that they were the superiro eye-color consistently preformed better academically and they all jumped on the chance to mistreat the rest of their classmates. I just noticed all those typos but it is twelve thirteen am at this moment in time and I am not fixing them.

Stereotyping is a type of prejudice. Prejudice and Discrimination are different. Stereotyping is not always bad, which they did not teach us in class. I believe it anyway. Minority Groups can be  the majority in numbers. Quantity is irrelevant- minority is based on power.

4 Cognitive Processes that contribute to Prejudice
I have all of them written down but I have no idea what they are. let us now dig into the annals of sociology notes and  find this information..... and maybe play the jeopardy theme because I can't find it.......
....And then amy found it and called herself a champion. 
1 Perceptual Assimilation
tendency to percieve emwmberrs of a social group as more similar than they are. (stereotyping. why can't they just call it that. stupid vocabulary that makes my brain hurt.)
2 Contrast Effect
tendency to overestimate the differences between social groups. ( another kind of stereotyping. maybe they actually do need differentiation.)
3 The Ultimate Attribution Error
making biased judgements that favor the ingroup versus the outgroup. (ingroup is whatever group you belong to. out group is obviously the opposite. You like how I just had to type that so that the line didn't end with just one word? cause that looks wierd and ocd takes over in the wee hours...
4 Principle of least Effort
It takes effort to use your brain and realize reality and people are lazy. Yep. I have faith in Human Nature.

6 Patterns of Majority-Minority Interaction
big words. so tired. kill me. keep going!
1 Pluralism
seperate groups with social parity
2 Assimilation
we all know what that is.
3 Segregation
de jure: by law. de facto: in fact.
4 Genocide
Hitler Stalin Pol Pot. nasty stuff.
5 Expulsion
kick em out. russians. jews. native americans. humans are nice people.
6 Amalgamation
chemsitry or sociology? who knows. this is the melting pot.


3 ways to reduce prejudice and discrimination
establish laws, increase contact between groups, education
almost done. marathon.

Theories of Prejudice (attitudes)
1 Scapegoat Theory- blame a group
2 Authoriatarian personality- racist about one group, more likely with the rest of the groups
3 Culture Theory- everyone's a little bit racist sometimes...
4 Conflict Theory- I don't remember what that is, but it is always the most angry view so it shouldn't be too hard to guess.

Remember how there was that one theory that Durkheim theorized about and now I have no idea what it is? that is okay. I am going to kick this test's butt. And katie and I are starting a study blog so you never have to read anything this boring again unless you actually want to. be excited.

SLEEP! GO!