1. NOTES
Chapters 2, 3, and 4
John Bradford, Ph.D.

2. I. STRUCTURAL VS INDIVIDUAL
EXPLANATIONS…

3. Structural Explanations
• What causes….
– Traffic jams?
– Unemployment?

4. Structural Explanations
• What causes….
– Mass famine/
starvation?
Starvation in East Africa, 2011

5. Structural Explanations
• A structural explanation focuses on the overall
social pattern or collective outcome: traffic
jams, wars, poverty, etc.
• Often, these collective outcomes are not
intentional outcomes: they are not planned or
even desired.
Intended
actions
Unintended
Consequences
of Actions

6. Structural Explanations
• But this seems like a paradox: why do
hunger, poverty, and war exist even when
nobody wants hunger, poverty, and war?
Intended
actions
Unintended
Consequences
of Actions

7. CEO and Worker Pay
CEOs' pay as a multiple of the average worker's pay, 1960-2007
Source: Domhoff 2011

8. CEO and Worker Pay
• CEO’s (Chief Executive Officers)
make over 500 times more than
the average American worker.
• Ask yourself:
1. Are CEO’s 500 times smarter than
the average worker?
2. Do they work 500 times more
than the average worker?

9. CEO and Worker Pay
3. In addition, why the sudden
change? If they are 500
times smarter than the rest
of us TODAY, then why was
this not true 30 years ago?
4. Can we explain this by
saying that the billionaires
desired to become
billionaires, or wanted it
more than other people?

10. CEO and Worker Pay
We can draw two conclusions
from this example:
1. Reward is *NOT*
proportional to Effort!
2. We cannot explain these
‘social facts’ (patterns)
solely by looking at
people’s intentions or as a
consequence of their
attributes in isolation.

11. II. SOCIAL INFLUENCE AND
INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY

12. Social Influence and
Individual Responsibility
• In our culture we focus on what an individual does
as opposed to what is done to an individual.
• We think individuals (at least adult humans) are
self-determined. This is our common-sense notion
of ‘personal responsibility.’ People are
responsible for their own actions and decisions in
life.

13. Influence and Responsibility
• This point of view is not wrong, it is just
limited and one-sided.
• Also, sociologists are not interested in morally
evaluating, punishing, or praising others- we
are only interested in explaining and
understanding.
• Our past decisions obviously have a huge
impact on our present circumstances, but we
cannot explain what happens to any given
individual without also looking at his/her
relations to other people- i.e. we have to also
look at the larger social context.

14. Social Influence and
Individual Responsibility
Consider two types of situations….
1. Situations people do not
control: An individual can be
influenced by circumstances
over which s/he has little control
or counter-influence;
• People’s available actions and
decisions are always
‘constrained’ or limited by
available resources;
• Examples: your native language,
your religious and political
beliefs, your parent’s income,
etc.
Starvation in East Africa, 2011

15. Social Influence and
Individual Responsibility
2. Situations people do (or ‘can’) control: Other
times, we can directly attribute a person’s
circumstance to an attribute of that person or
to some action that person has taken.
• Example: Smoking Crack

16. Social Influence and
Individual Responsibility
Sociologists, however, will still examine:
a) the social influences or circumstances that
made this behavior more or less likely.
b) the social context in which some attributes
become significant or meaningful, and others
not.
– “Sociologists think that much of people’s
behavior is a result of what other people do.”
(McIntyre, p. 1)

17. Social Influence and
Individual Responsibility
2. Situations people do (or ‘can’)
control:
• Individuals’ ideas and preferences
determine their actions, but what in
turn influences or determines their
ideas and preferences?
– We are socialized to pay attention to
how others respond to situations.
– Emotional responses and attitudes are
often contagious!
– We tend to become most like those
we spend the most time with and/or
have an affinity for…. (‘We become
like those we like!’)
Standing ovation

18. Social Influence and
Individual Responsibility
2a. Social Circumstances
• Most human behaviors are not ‘decisions’; rather
we have varying degrees of susceptibility to
influence from others.
• Sociologists will examine those factors which
influence (or ‘cause’) the behavior itself.
X
(action)
Y
(consequence)
X
(action)
Y
(consequence)
Z
(circumstances)

19. Social Influence and
Individual Responsibility
2b. The Social Context
• Individuals do not determine the value of their
assets, nor do individuals determine how their
behavior is interpreted by others.
– some attributes are valued more highly in some
contexts or societies than in others. Individuals can
adapt to these realities, but cannot control them.
• Example: standards of beauty.

20. Social Influence and
Individual Responsibility
Conclusions
• Sociology does not deny that individuals are
personally responsible for their
actions, because we are not interested in
explaining an individual’s behavior!
• Remember, sociologists are not concerned with
the circumstances of any particular
individual, but in how the circumstances of one
individual relate to others, and in making
generalizations about individuals.
• Remember: ‘Think Patterns, Not Individuals’ !

21. III. THE SOCIOLOGICAL
IMAGINATION

22. The Sociological Imagination
• Sociology attempts to explain facts about
groups of people, and then to relate these
social facts to our individual lives.
• The study of how our lives are influenced by
our larger historical and social circumstances
is called the sociological imagination.

23. 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)

24. The Sociological Imagination
• To understand one side, you have to understand the
other.
• The ability to understand history and its relation to
biography is called the sociological imagination by C.
Wright Mills.
Man/Woman Society
Biography History
Self World
Personal “Troubles of
milieu”
Public “Issues of
social structure”

25. “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)

26. IV. SELF-FULFILLING AND SELF-
NEGATING PROPHECIES

27. What is Social REALITY?
• Thomas theorem: "If people define
situations as real, they are real in their
consequences“
• To understand human inter-actions and
relations, sociologists have to
understand both reality, and perceived
reality.
W. I. Thomas
1863 - 1947

28. • Social relations are often real
because we act AS IF they are real.
The social world concerns not only
the material world, but the
meanings we ascribe to the
material objects, meanings which
are themselves non-physical and
non-material.
Examples:
1. Nations
2. Money

29. Self-fulfilling and Self-negating
prophecies
• Robert K. Merton also coined the terms
– ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ and
– ‘role model’
• A self-fulfilling prophecy is something that
becomes true because it is believed to be
true.
– Example: bank run, placebos, psychic
predictions, etc…
• A self-negating prophecy is a belief that
causes its own falsehood. Explanation: it is
something that, once believed to be true or
expected to happen, cannot happen (or
becomes less likely to happen).
Robert K. Merton
(1910 – 2003)

30. The Power of Expectations
• Pygmalion Effect (aka
Rosenthal effect): the
greater the expectation
placed upon people, the
better they perform.
– According to legend, Pygmalion
was the king of Cyprus who fell
in love with a beautiful woman
(Galatea) he sculpted out of
ivory.

31. The Power of Expectations
• In the 1960s Robert Rosenthal
and Lenore Jacobson
hypothesized that teacher
expectations influenced
children’s performance.
• Study: they randomly assigned 1
out of 5 children to the
‘spurter/bloomer’ group, but
told teachers these students
were selected to the group
based on test performances that
indicated future success.
• Findings: the kids who were
expected to ‘spurt’ made larger
improvements than nonspurters.

32. Self-negating Prophecies
• In the case of financial markets, if one
person figured out how to predict market
prices, then soon everyone else would
adopt that strategy, making the strategy
ineffective. This is an example of self-
negating prophecy.
• Often observations do not influence actions
which affect the aggregate outcomes. In
this case, the observers are external or
outside observers who observe but have
little impact on what they observe. For
example, academics who can observe
persistent inequality but have no power to
change it.
New
Aggregate
Patterns
Participant-
Observers
Observing
patterns
Actions that
change
patterns
Aggregate
Pattern
Remains
Outside-
Observers
Observing
patterns
Actions
have no
impact

33. V. EMERGENCE, CASCADES, AND
TIPPING

34. Emergent Properties
• Methodological Individualism: the idea that
society can be explained entirely by the
individuals that make up society.
• Emergence: when the whole is more than the
sum of its parts. Emergent properties are those
new (and surprising) properties of the whole that
are not possessed by the individuals.
– Example: Water into Ice, Consciousness, etc.

35. Emergence and unintended
consequences
• The Invisible Hand: a famous and
early example of an unintended
collective (macro) consequence of
individual (micro) actions is Adam
Smith’s idea of the ‘Invisible Hand’
of capitalism, where everyone’s
selfish desire to make a profit ends
up making everyone better off.
• The contrary is also often argued:
competition may generate a ‘race
to the bottom.’
Adam Smith

36. Emergence and unintended
consequences
• 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

37. Emergence and unintended
consequences
• 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

38. Cascades and ‘Tipping’ points
• Diversity (differences between
people) can lead to ‘Tipping’- the
emergence of social cascades, aka
chain reactions or domino effects.
• TIPPING = a small event or a few
small actions can cause a cascade
and large scale change
• Example: There are 100 people in
the mall. How many of them have
to be running out of the mall
before you run out of the mall also?
(Assume you have no understanding
of why they running!)

39. Cascades and ‘Tipping’ points
• Diversity and Connectedness lead to ‘Tipping’
• Consider two scenarios.
– Scenario 1: Homogeneity. Everyone has the same threshold, or
tipping point. Everyone will run out of the mall if they see 20 other
people run out of the mall. What happens? NOTHING! No one will
leave unless 20 other people leave!
– Scenario 2: Heterogeneity (Diversity). Everyone is numbered from 1
to 100; their number is also the number of people they need to see
running before they also run: their threshold. What happens? First
person leaves, then the second, then the third, etc. This generates a
chain reaction, aka a CASCADE!
Person 0
Begins to run
Person 1 runs
only if 1 other
person runs
Person 2 runs
only if 2 other
people run
3 4 5 6

40. Cascades and ‘Tipping’ points
• Mark Granovetter devised this threshold
model initially to describe riots:
– one person will definitely riot; another
will riot only if one other person riots; a
third will riot only if two others riot; etc….
– We are much more likely to riot ourselves
if we see others rioting.
• His model explains:
1. Why social changes can be
abrupt, discontinuous, and sudden.
2. Why they are so unpredictable. One
person in a chain can either cause or
prevent a collective chain reaction, or
social cascade.
• Other examples: clapping, birth
rates, dancing at parties, rates of
crime, etc.

41. VI. PARADIGMS AND
ETHNOCENTRISM

42. Functionalist Paradigm
1. Consensus about values and norms
makes society possible
2. Society is a whole made of
integrated parts that work (i.e.
function) together.
– A change to one part of society will
affect all others.
– All parts are interdependent.
– Society is ‘more than the sum of its
parts.’
3. Society seeks stability and tends to
avoid conflict

43. Conflict Paradigm
1. In every society, there are disagreements and
differences (i.e. lack of consensus) about values and
norms
2. Society is made up of subgroups (aka ‘classes’) that
are in ruthless competition for scarce resources
3. Society is not harmonious: conflict is normal in a
society.
– The conflict can be latent (i.e. conflict of interests) or
manifest (i.e. real conflict such as violence).

44. Symbolic Interactionist Paradigm
• Also known as social constructionists
1. How people act depends on how
they see and evaluate reality
2. People learn from others how to
see and evaluate reality
3. People constantly interpret the
meaning of their own behavior
and the behavior of others
4. Misunderstanding and conflict
comes from people not perceiving
reality in the same way

45. Which paradigm is correct?
• Society is like this cube: we
can see it from multiple
perspectives!
• The paradigms are just lenses
through which we view society.

46. Ethnocentrism and Relativism
Ethnocentrism: the ‘process of judging other peoples and
their customs and norms as inferior to one’s own
people, customs, and norms” (pg. 52). Ethnocentrism is
normal! Most societies exhibit some amount of
ethnocentrism.
Toward Own Group Toward Outsiders
See members as superior See outsiders as inferior
See own values as universal and
true
See outsiders’ values as false
See own customs as original,
reflecting ‘true’ human nature
See outsiders’ customs as ignorant,
lacking in humanity
Cultural Relativism: ‘the belief that other people and their ways of doing
things can be understood only in terms of the context of these people’ (pg. 56).
McIntyre argues that although ethnocentrism is common, it can get in the way of
understanding. To understand others, you have to see things from their point of
view.

47. VII. MANIFEST AND LATENT
FUNCTIONS

48. Functions and Dysfunctions
• “Function” simply means a purpose, intention;
what something is used for.
– Prefixes: ‘Dys’ vs ‘Dis’
• Dys- Greek prefix meaning ‘defective’, ‘difficult’, or
‘painful.’
• Dis- Latin prefix meaning ‘apart’, ‘asunder’, or ‘deprived
of.’
• Functional = positive; something works
• Dysfunctional = negative consequences;
something that doesn’t work.

49. Latent and Manifest Functions
• “Manifest” = obvious, evident, apparent.
• “Latent” = not manifest; hidden; concealed.
– Like a latent disease; the hidden content of a
dream, etc.
• Manifest function = intended or conscious
purpose (or consequences) of some action.
– The reasons people give for why they do things.
• Latent function =
unintended, unconscious, or hidden
purposes (consequences) of actions.
– The ‘real reasons’ or purposes that people’s
actions may have, as seen by outside observers
(sociologists)
Robert K. Merton
(1910 – 2003)

50. Latent and Manifest Functions
1. Rain Dance Ceremony
– Manifest function:
• ‘We dance to bring rain’
– Latent function:
• The ceremony is ‘really’ a way of
building social solidarity through
ritual participation
Rain Dance

51. Latent and Manifest Functions
2. University Education
– Manifest function:
• Higher Learning, Education
– Latent function:
• Keep young adults out of the job
market
• Conduct research that supports
the ‘Military-Industrial-Complex’
(Eisenhower)
• …?
University

52. VII. CHAOS AND THE BUTTERFLY
EFFECT…

53. Fundamental Indeterminacy
• Chaotic systems are extremely sensitive to initial conditions, so
that tiny differences in the initial conditions of otherwise
identical systems will generate huge differences between them.
A butterfly creates massive tornados or hurricanes in another hemisphere. The idea is
that small and simple causes can generate complicated, non-proportional (i.e. ‘non-
linear’) effects. Brain teaser: could a butterfly also cause disproportionate phenomena
of a different kind, such as political revolutions or economic or legal upheavals?

54. Fundamental Indeterminacy
• Note: chaos theory as described in the book actually describes
phenomena that are, in principle at least, determinate.
Chaos, however, does make predicting events difficult in the real
world, simply because we can’t know all of the interacting
causes and initial conditions! Chaos theory is determinate.
• In contrast, Complexity theory describes systems that are self-
organizing (aka emergent) and therefore in principle
indeterminate.