Deck 5: Groups, Networks, and Organizations

Question 1

Which of the following is an example of a primary group?

A)a professor and the president of the university
B)a bus driver and passenger
C)a tutor and her student
D)three best friends in high school
E)two stepbrothers that rarely speak

Answer 1

D

Question 2

According to sociologists,what is the smallest size that can make up a social group?

A)a dyad
B)an ego and an alter ego
C)a triad
D)a family
E)a bureaucracy

Answer 2

A

Question 3

People milling around in crowds,waiting for a bus,or strolling on a beach make up a:

A)social group
B)social triad
C)social aggregate
D)social category
E)social network

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Triads are generally more stable than dyads because:

A)three are always better than two
B)the third person relieves some of the pressures on the other two
C)the third person makes the relationship more intense
D)the third person can get jealous
E)the more people in a group, the more fun people have together

Question 5

A new group recently emerged calling itself the "Real Americans." This group's activities reflect disdain and prejudicial attitudes toward recent immigrants to the United States.In relation to this group,recent immigrants could be classified as a(n):

A)in-group
B)out-group
C)dyad
D)triad
E)aggregate

Question 6

Shelley spends most of her time at school and work,which leaves her with little time to socialize with her family and friends.Lately,Shelley is feeling socially isolated because she:

A)is working too hard
B)has friends and family who do not understand her time commitments
C)does not like the people at school and work
D)is interacting mostly with people in secondary groups, which tend to be large and produce impersonal relationships
E)is neglecting her most important relationships

Question 7

When a group of people share common characteristics such as gender or ethnicity,the group is labeled a:

A)social network
B)social group
C)social category
D)social aggregate
E)society

Question 8

Which of the following would be an example of why a person would want to be part of a secondary group?

A)to find his or her soul mate
B)to have a sense of closeness and camaraderie
C)to associate with people who care about the person and his or her future
D)to appreciate the importance of sacrificing individual needs for the group's goals
E)to accomplish a specific goal, such as graduating from college

Question 9

Which of the following is more likely to be an in-group?

A)a family
B)a sociology class
C)the people in line at a supermarket
D)Asian Americans
E)the audience at a music concert

Question 10

Which of the following is a social group?

A)a brother and sister
B)everyone in your sociology class who has blond hair
C)people waiting at Terminal C for Flight 181
D)passengers on a cruise ship
E)Apple stockholders

Question 11

A brother and sister enrolled in a large chemistry class would be considered a(n):

A)triad
B)primary group
C)secondary group
D)social category
E)aggregate group

Question 12

Every Sunday,Janet,Laneitha,and Margaret get together for lunch,and Janet usually decides which restaurant they will eat at.However,one Sunday,Laneitha and Margaret told Janet they wanted to try a new restaurant in town.Laneitha and Margaret formed a:

A)rift between the triad
B)negative relationship
C)dyad
D)coalition or alliance
E)threat to group stability

Question 13

Which of the following is a social aggregate?

A)your family
B)middle-class Asian American women
C)people waiting at Terminal C for Flight 205
D)Facebook friends
E)a couple who have been dating for a year

Question 14

The rich and varied group life of societies reflects:

A)how dependent we are on transactional leaders
B)our need to congregate and belong
C)how we tend to live in social isolation
D)our natural tendency to exclude others
E)that most people do not have a self-identity

Question 15

Juan and Sally got divorced after three years of marriage and both moved on to establish new relationships.Their divorce demonstrates that dyads are fragile social groups because:

A)if one person leaves, the group disappears
B)one member can hurt the other
C)they do not require individuals to stay in the relationship
D)the relationships are too intense
E)they do not last if they do not get support from others outside the relationship

Question 16

The group a person uses to measure his or her own social worth is called:

A)a reference group
B)a social aggregate
C)a peer group
D)a secondary group
E)a family

Question 17

Reference groups provide us with:

A)the ability to be concerned with accomplishing a task
B)strict conformity to rigid organizational structures
C)the impersonal anonymity of modern life
D)a standard for judging our attitudes and behaviors
E)an organizational system by which to judge the behaviors of others

Question 18

Most advertisements today try to associate a product with a specific reference group.For this marketing strategy to be effective,which of the following must be true?

A)The product must be important to the person viewing the advertisement.
B)The product must be a good price.
C)The person viewing the advertisement must have interacted with the person or people in the advertisement.
D)The person viewing the advertisement needs to recognize the person or people in the advertisement.
E)The person viewing the advertisement must identify with the person or people in the advertisement.

Question 19

Which of the following would be considered a social category?

A)African Americans
B)a group of soldiers who recently returned from war
C)neighbors that are both Mexican-American
D)two friends who are freshmen at the same college
E)two sisters

Question 20

At the University of California,the Alpha Gamma Gamma fraternity always made fun of its rival fraternity,Alpha Sigma Sigma,during rush week when the brothers were recruiting new members.This increased the bonding and sense of loyalty among the members of Alpha Gamma Gamma and therefore we could consider these members:

A)an out-group
B)an in-group
C)a network
D)a social category
E)anti-social

Question 21

Which of the following is true regarding large groups?

A)Relationships in the group are more intense.
B)They tend to be informal.
C)They are unstable.
D)They tend to be more exclusive.
E)They tend to be inclusive.

Question 22

The Internet often increases the diversity of one's social networks beyond face-to-face interactions,which tend to limit social networks due to race,gender,and social status.However,the Internet can also limit the diversity of social networks for some people because:

A)it is easy to find out someone's gender, race, or social status on the Internet
B)there is a "digital divide" in which low-income and ethnic minorities are less likely to have access to the Internet
C)there are many racist and sexist groups that use the Internet to organize
D)studies show that people tend to form networks on the Internet based on race, gender, and class instead of shared interests
E)all of the above

Question 23

Groupthink takes place when:

A)group members discuss strategies to increase group harmony
B)group members work together to carefully weigh all the options presented to them
C)group members revolt against the leader of the group.
D)group members are all in agreement
E)group members ignore the actions, plans, or ideas that go against group consensus

Question 24

Solomon Asch's experiment illustrated that:

A)even if it makes them feel uncomfortable, many people are willing to discount their own perceptions rather than go against group consensus
B)people stammered and fidgeted before speaking out against group conformity
C)people can easily be bullied into changing their minds
D)the last person to answer did not feel the need to conform or bow to group pressure
E)most people will express their own beliefs without considering the group opinion

Question 25

In general,nonwhites tend to have ________ ties within networks than whites.

A)weaker
B)more familial
C)more consistent
D)more social
E)stronger

Question 26

The football team at Three Rivers High School wanted to steal the mascot-a horse-of the opposing team before the big homecoming game.Even though the captain of the football team knew the players would likely get caught and suspended by the principal,he agreed to steal the mascot.Why did the captain of the team agree to steal the mascot?

A)The football captain was a transformational leader and convinced the players it would work even when common sense told them it would not.
B)The groupthink of the football team made him uncomfortable, but he felt it was more important that there not be dissension before the homecoming game.
C)The team captain feared that he would no longer be accepted in his social group for breaking expectations.
D)The team captain and the players were part of the same primary group and wanted to think and play as a "we."
E)As a nonconformist, the team captain rejected the authority of the school principal.

Question 27

Nelson Mandela directed the dissolution of apartheid in South Africa.What kind of leader was he?

A)Mandela was a transformational leader.
B)Mandela was a transactional leader.
C)Mandela was a despot.
D)Mandela was an autocratic leader.
E)Mandela was a religious leader.

Question 28

Max Weber was the first to develop a systematic interpretation of:

A)conformity
B)primary groups
C)modern organizations
D)secondary groups
E)social capital

Question 29

In the absence of the physical and social cues involved in traditional face-to-face interactions,the Internet fosters the creation of relationships that:

A)are often misleading and lead to hurt feelings
B)are built on common interests rather than social characteristics such as race and gender
C)are lasting and enduring
D)are based on being members of the same social category
E)all of the above

Question 30

The members of the drama club at Suzie's high school had a disagreement about who should play the lead in the upcoming production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.Therefore,five of the twenty-five drama club members decided to leave the group,but this had little impact on the stability of the drama club,and it was able to go forward with the production because:

A)the drama club had a good leader who was able to address the instability in the group
B)larger groups are less exclusive, and it was easy to get new members
C)the five members who left were troublemakers
D)the club had a lot of money and was able to hire a good director
E)the withdrawal of members from larger groups has little impact on the survival of the group

Question 31

Tanya is the CEO of Digi-Corp,a corporation that specializes in computer software.The corporation has made a substantial profit since Tanya became CEO and hired new software designers.What type of leader is Tanya?

A)bureaucratic
B)transactional
C)transformational
D)network
E)mechanistic

Question 32

The Stanley Milgram study demonstrated that people are willing to obey authority:

A)regardless of the pain they might inflict on others
B)only when they feel that the authority figure is part of their primary group
C)when the authority figure is part of their reference group
D)if the orders do not have negative consequences for other people
E)only when they agree with what the authority figure is asking them to do

Question 33

A large grouping of people that engages in concerted collective actions to achieve specific objectives is called:

A)an oligarchy
B)an organization
C)a primary group
D)a peer group
E)a global group

Question 34

Stanley Milgram's study demonstrated that even in extraordinary situations,ordinary people will:

A)conform to the directives of transformative leaders
B)resist authority
C)obey those in positions of power
D)exclude others
E)conform to the directives of transactional leaders

Question 35

According to Georg Simmel,an important aspect of groups is:

A)as group size decreases, their intensity and exclusivity decrease
B)as group size increases, their stability and intensity increase
C)as group size increases, their intensity decreases, but their stability and exclusivity increase
D)group size has little impact on stability over time; what matters is the common goal of the group
E)group size has little impact on stability over time; what matters is the personality of group members

Question 36

The experiments by Solomon Asch and Stanley Milgram illustrate that:

A)conformity and authority have little influence on people when they are under pressure
B)people get nervous around authority figures and large groups
C)conformity and authority are powerful factors affecting people's actions
D)it is easy to persuade people to inflict pain on others
E)most people will express their own beliefs and speak up when they think something is wrong

Question 37

Which of the following is the best example of a transformational leader?

A)a student government president who motivated the students at her college to turn their campus into a "green campus"
B)a student government president who made sure the treasurer accounted for all the money spent by the student government at her college
C)a student government president who expanded the campus recycling program to include paper as well as metal
D)a student government president who most students really liked
E)a student government president who ignored what most of the students on campus wanted and did what she wanted

Question 38

What term do sociologists use to refer to a group with an identifiable membership that engages in concerted collective actions to achieve a common purpose?

A)primary group
B)secondary group
C)in-group
D)out-group
E)organization

Question 39

People in modern societies depend on organizations to:

A)tell us how to act and behave
B)make us feel connected to others
C)take care of everything, including how we are born, our daily supply of running water, and even the way we die
D)educate and employ us, but little else
E)all of the above

Question 40

James and Shannon both graduated from college with a high GPA and a good résumé in the field of accounting.A year after graduation,James was working as a waiter,and Shannon was working at an accounting firm that was headed by her father's best friend.Shannon most likely got this job because:

A)she had an advantage due to her father's social networks, even if she did not know her father's best friend well
B)she had a better résumé than James.
C)her father's best friend thought she was pretty
D)James was unmotivated and did not look for work very hard
E)she was a go-getter

Question 41

The imbalance of gender roles in organizations demonstrates that modern organizations have:

A)encouraged women to stay home
B)found men to be better at following written rules and procedures
C)have developed in a gendered way
D)found maternity to be too expensive
E)had a difficult time recruiting women

Question 42

According to Robert Michels's concept of the "iron law of oligarchy":

A)Societies dominated by large-scale organizations will turn us all into machines.
B)In large-scale organizations, power is inevitably concentrated at the top.
C)Power is concentrated at the bottom in large-scale organizations.
D)Large-scale organizations will become more concentrated until there are only a few organizations.
E)Power is evenly distributed in large-scale organizations.

Question 43

At Digi-Corp,each employee receives an employee manual outlining the rules on how employees and managers should work together and interact.These rules are referred to as the __________ between employee and manager.

A)formal relations
B)informal relations
C)primary groups
D)surveillance
E)flexible rules

Question 44

Max Weber concluded that the closer bureaucracies were to the ideal type,the more __________ they would become.

A)ineffective in achieving their objectives
B)effective in achieving their objectives
C)loose and informal
D)like a feudal estate
E)like a democracy

Question 45

Which of the following best characterizes the place of women in bureaucratic organizations such as corporations?

A)Women are encouraged to climb the corporate ladder.
B)Due to strict rules and regulations, women and men are in equal positions.
C)Women are seen as playing supporting roles and perfoming routine tasks.
D)Women are in key decision-making roles.
E)Women are excluded.

Question 46

Max Weber believed the more an organization approaches the ideal type of bureaucracy,the more effective it will be in pursuing the objectives for which it was established.However,he also recognized that bureaucracies can create some negatives such as:

A)numerous unofficial ways of doing things because of the lack of flexibility in completing tasks in a bureaucracy
B)inefficiency because of the strict adherence to rules and regulations that make it difficult to respond to new issues
C)organizational tension between male authority figures and female subordinates
D)increasing employee salary costs
E)employees having difficulty separating family and work life

Question 47

Many of the organizations we see in modern society today have the hierarchical structure that Max Weber argued characterizes modern organizations.However,today many organizations are changing to a more __________ structure.

A)free-flowing
B)horizontal
C)formal
D)bottom-up
E)cyclical

Question 48

According to Max Weber's ideal type of bureaucracy:

A)There is a set of rules that govern the conduct of officials at all levels of the organization.
B)There is a lot of room for innovation.
C)Each job has a salary that is negotiable.
D)Ownership is in the hands of the workers.
E)All of the above are correct.

Question 49

Until the late twentieth century,organizational studies largely ignored:

A)organizational size
B)dysfunctions of bureaucracy
C)the physical setting of organizations
D)gender relations
E)surveillance

Question 50

All large organizations tend to be __________,according to Max Weber.

A)bureaucracies
B)primary groups
C)inefficient
D)rational
E)Weberian

Question 51

According to Max Weber,which of the following is difficult to achieve in a rigid bureaucratic organization?

A)efficiency
B)rationality
C)compliance
D)innovation
E)all of the above

Question 52

Every Friday,Google,Inc.,encourages all of its employees to attend a speaker series in which authors,athletes,and other famous and inspiring people speak.This weekly corporate event is an example of a management trend known as:

A)employee perks
B)human resources management
C)corporate culture
D)socialism
E)corporatism

Question 53

Formal organizations:

A)are organized in ways that allow power to be evenly distributed within the organization
B)are often flexible in the application of their rules, regulations, and procedures due to their size
C)have risen to prominence in modern societies largely because we do not spend much time with our families anymore
D)are rationally designed to achieve their objectives
E)none of the above

Question 54

Which of the following is an advantage of telecommuting?

A)Workers are not wasting time with the kind of casual interaction that occurs around water coolers.
B)Women have more time to devote to domestic chores.
C)Workers can cheat on their time cards and say they worked more hours than they really did.
D)It creates a two-strata employment system of technology experts and less autonomous clerical workers.
E)It eliminates the time spent commuting to and from work.

Question 55

According to the text,the use of information and communications technology in corporations has reduced the rigid hierarchical structure of corporations,but at the same time it has created:

A)a two-strata employment system of technology experts and less autonomous clerical workers
B)telecommuters who are totally disconnected from the corporate culture
C)a three-strata employment system of powerful managers, autonomous technology experts, and less autonomous clerical workers
D)unhappiness among employees who are telecommuters
E)a crisis in leadership at many corporations

Question 56

Max Weber argued that __________ is necessary in modern societies.

A)tradition
B)bureaucracy
C)surveillance
D)emotion
E)charismatic authority

Question 57

Robert Merton noted that bureaucrats are trained to:

A)develop new written rules and procedures
B)be flexible with the application of written rules and procedures
C)ask for input from others in the organization about the application of written rules and procedures
D)rely strictly on written rules and procedures
E)ignore written rules and procedures

Question 58

According to human resources management theory,which of the following is central to a company's competitiveness?

A)employee dedication to the company and its product
B)a company mascot
C)employee autonomy from the company
D)telecommuting
E)bottom-up decision making

Question 59

At the Symantec Corporation,a majority of the decisions were made by the CEO,the president,and the vice president,with little decision-making power given to upper-level managers or other employers.This type of concentration of power among a few people in an organization is called:

A)oligarchy
B)corporate concentration
C)capitalism
D)anarchy
E)bureaucracy

Question 60

John Meyer and Brian Rowan found that the formal procedures in a bureaucracy are often:

A)myths that people profess to follow but that have little basis in reality
B)outdated and need revision
C)identical to the practices adopted by members of the organization
D)understood to be the "right" way to do things
E)ignored by most members of the organization

Question 61

How do the studies conducted by Solomon Asch,Stanley Milgram,and Irving Janis help us understand conformity? Pick one of these studies and explain how you think you would have responded as a subject in the study.

Question 62

According to George Ritzer,what is the McDonaldization of society? Explain the four guiding principles of McDonaldization,using the example of one of the following: your college or university,the healthcare system,or the movie industry.

Question 63

According to Irving Janis,what is groupthink? Why can groupthink lead to bad decisions by otherwise smart and strong-willed individuals? Provide a historical example in your explanation of groupthink.

Question 64

The McDonaldization of society refers to:

A)the obesity epidemic in American society
B)the taking over of key authority positions by baby boomers
C)the increased uniformity and rationality of society due to automation
D)the phenomenal success of McDonald's restaurants as a model for other companies
E)the increased number of gated communities in urban and suburban areas

Question 65

According to Robert Putnam,television is the main cause of:

A)an increase in violence
B)an increase in sex among teenagers
C)declining civic participation
D)a declining attention span among young people
E)a decline in family interaction

Question 66

What are the benefits of social networks? Explain how social networks facilitate the reproduction of existing inequalities for women,lower socioeconomic classes,and minorities.Give an example.

Question 67

Everyday after school Maria goes to the local teen center.She is part of a group that is organizing a multicultural festival for the community.This activity is likely to produce:

A)bonding social capital
B)bridging social capital
C)community tension
D)reference groups
E)a transformational leader

Question 68

How can a decline in social capital have significant political implications?

A)Fewer people will exercise their right to vote.
B)More people feel removed from the political process.
C)Democratic ideals are jeopardized.
D)More people feel impotent to influence social, political, and economic change.
E)All of the above are correct.

Question 69

Give an example of a dyad,a triad,and a larger group.In which groups are the relationships more intense? In which are they more stable? Use your examples to explain why.

Question 70

List and explain the characteristics of the "ideal type of bureaucracy" that Max Weber described and how they are evident or not evident in your college or university.

Question 71

Explain how the Internet affects social relationships and social networks.Explain how it can have both a positive and a negative impact.

Question 72

Compare transformational leadership and transactional leadership.Give an example of each from your own experience or from your knowledge of history.

Question 73

Look at the organizations you belong to that may provide you with social capital.Describe one organization that provides you with bridging social capital and explain why.Describe another organization that provides you with bonding social capital and explain why.

Question 74

Today more of our social relationships are dominated by secondary groups instead of primary groups.Charles Horton Cooley worried about the loss of intimacy as secondary groups became more prominent and pervasive.Émile Durkheim and Georg Simmel saw some benefits to the development of more secondary groups.What do you think about the trend toward more secondary-group relationships in modern society?

Question 75

Of the following,which is NOT a principle of George Ritzer's theory of the McDonaldization of society?

A)efficiency
B)calculability
C)dependability
D)uniformity
E)control through automation