Exam 5: Separate and Together: Life in Groups

When someone joins the Green Party and then starts recycling old plastic bags because she believes it can help save the environment,this is an example of what type of conformity?

People who associate with each other on a regular basis for no other reason than to spend time together are usually members of a:

If two people worked together to create the test you are now taking,would it have been produced twice as fast than if it were written by one person? Explain.

Simon Langlois studied government employment in Quebec.He found that even though the government had made efforts to formalize recruitment,more than 40 percent of the people he surveyed found their jobs through personal contacts.In the majority of those cases,the personal contacts were fairly casual acquaintances,not close friends.What principle is demonstrated here?

How does the immense value that some cultures place on "the group" contribute to honor killings?

In all probability,the sociology professor who is giving this test would be totally unable to grade a test given in the chemistry department.What aspect of bureaucracy does this illustrate?

List the specific organizational characteristics that Max Weber associated with bureaucracies.

In a Peruvian campaign to improve public health in rural areas,one key challenge was to convince isolated villagers to boil their drinking water in order to kill parasites.In a pilot study,this effort largely failed.Government caseworkers lectured the villagers about germ theory,but villagers associated hot foods with illness and didn't like the taste of boiled water.The only families who adopted the practice were not well integrated into the village and had few connections to their neighbors.What does this example demonstrate?

One of the baristas at José's local coffee shop always greets him by name and usually notices his mood.Once when he was upset about something at school,he confided in her.She now asks how school is going and seems to care about his answer.How would we characterize her relationship with José?

What sort of group dynamic may have led officials at NASA to ignore warnings and launch the space shuttle Challenger,which exploded shortly after takeoff?

Why do people follow prescriptions and proscriptions?

What is the strongest type of conformity that can occur as a result of social influence or peer pressure?

What is the danger of too much group cohesion?

Robert Putnam's research can be exemplified by his description of a decline in bowling leagues.Which of the following might serve as evidence that Putnam's concerns about anomie are overblown?

When group members withhold their reservations and criticisms for the sake of consensus,they are engaging in:

Which of the following is an aggregate?

Imagine that you are in charge of a football team.Several of the players,including the quarterback and the running back,get most of the glory when the team succeeds.However,other players,like the linebackers,have to do a lot of very hard and highly skilled work in order for the team to win.Use the insights you have gained from Chapter 5 to describe what steps you would take to motivate the linebackers to work hard.

What percentage of the subjects in the Asch experiment were "independents" who refused to give the wrong answer?

How might strong identification with,and loyalty to,an in-group result in discrimination against members of an out-group?

What was the Asch experiment? What conclusions did Asch draw from it? What have researchers in recent decades found when trying to replicate Asch's results?