WHAT IS SOCIOLOGY?

Sociology Defined

According to David Dressler, sociology is "[T]he scientific study of human interaction. It is also the body of knowledge about human interaction resulting from such study." Society, according to sociologists, is the largest group. It is millions of interactions among people occupying a common territory, such as a country.

The primary subject matter of sociology is human interaction. But what is interaction? A person sending a meaningful or understandable message and another responding in a like manner constitute interaction. A sociologist observes and identifies interaction, looking for patterns. He or she then examines how these patterned responses affect interaction among people.

There are verbal and nonverbal interactions. Thus, a sociologist might wonder if nice words spoken between people generate interaction different from (or the same as) harsh words exchanged. For instance, consider that one's persistent message to another person is, "You're such a great person. I admire everything about you." While the other's persistent response is, "Thank you. I think highly of you too." Now consider that one's persistent message to another person is, "You are the meanest, most vile person I've ever met." While the other's persistent response is, "You are the most uncaring, self-centered person that has ever existed." Do these nice and harsh words generate the same or different responses from these people in interaction?

Although interactions are most often verbal, they can be nonverbal. For instance, do facial expressions like frowns generate the same responses from others as smiles do? Similarly, does placing one's index finger and middle finger in a V shape receive the same response as raising only one's middle finger?

The following is a familiar but uncommonly studied aspect of human interaction. It is presented to illustrate how sociology might study a social phenomenon. Everyone smells! People give out odors, and they smell them. Focusing on the part where people give off odors, imagine one person is nine months old and the other is sixteen months old. They are playing together in a playpen. They are smiling at one another as they play. Further imagine the nine-month-old lets go "a load" in his or her diaper. What happens between the two after "the event" as compared to before it? Probably nothing changes; they just keep playing together.

But what happens when the age of people in interaction changes? Does their behavior alter in the same situation? For example, if the two people playing together are nine months old and sixteen years old. Imagine what happens when the nine-month-old lets go "a load" in his or her diaper now. Does this action change the interaction going on between them? The answer is yes. The sixteen-year-old probably says, "Ugh! You stink!" And then the teenager takes the baby to change his or her diaper. They move from playing together to engaging in an act of hygiene.

Clearly, in the first case, age makes no difference in the interaction between people, but in the second situation it does.

Sociology studies the interaction going on among people in an effort to understand what it is and how it affects people's behavior toward one another. As variables like age, sex, race, and social class change, sociologists see if these variables affect how people act toward one another. For example, a sociologist might ask, "Does the age of a person affect how that individual tolerates TV violence?" This might lead to a more specific question, such as, "Do people under twenty-one years old tolerate it more than those over sixty-five?"

What Is the Sociological Perspective?

When we look at the world sociologically, we look at it through sociological concepts. These concepts function as a frame of reference, enabling holders of the perspective to see elements of the social world that are invisible to those without this perspective. Sociologists call this way of viewing the sociological imagination, sociological consciousness, or, more simply, the sociological perspective.

Peter Berger describes the sociological imagination as the ability to penetrate the "official level of meaning or reality" in order to see other levels, which he refers to as the "unofficial levels of meaning or reality." Using sociology as a form of consciousness, a person can penetrate what most people, most of the time, understand about the social world. They can then see other levels of meaning and reality. For instance, if asked what the purpose of babysitting is, most parents say, "It is to provide adult supervision for children when the parents are not home." This explanation represents Berger's official level of meaning or reality. The sociological perspective allows one to see things differently.

Using such sociological concepts as, exploitation, power, and minority group, one understands babysitting in a new way. It becomes a social activity where powerful figures (i.e., parents) exploit the work of a minority group (i.e., young babysitters) by paying them low wages. Why? Because it enables parents to get away from their "little barbarians" in order to save their marriages. However, one never hears parents describe babysitting this way; they always explain it in the "official" manner.

Take note here: sociologists do not claim that people are lying when they describe the social world in the official way. The sociological imagination merely permits other ways of understanding the familiar. As such, it provides one with insight into those things usually taken for granted.

Thus, sociology is a social science discipline made up of concepts that enable viewers to see society. There are hundreds of sociological concepts, such as culture, folkways, and deviance. Their numbers are numbing. How does a novice grasp the sociological perspective with its myriad concepts? The following section offers a diagram that pulls significant sociological concepts together for easy application. The diagram (i.e., diagram-for-social-living) is in the form of a story. The story tells the origin of social living on Earth.

Adam and Eve in the Garden of Sociology: An Introduction to the Sociological Perspective

The Diagram-for-Social-Living

Imagine you are a traveler in a machine that propels you back in time. You go back into the twentieth century, speeding back in time through the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries. You pass the Industrial Revolution and Columbus boarding the Santa Maria for the Americas. You accelerate the machine, racing through eons of time. You flash past the invention of farming. You sojourn back even further in time, through the age of hunters and gatherers. The time machine slows down and stops at its destination. You find yourself among the first humans, and you wonder about their origin. You ponder the possibilities. Did God or evolution create these first people?

Having no current interest in this compelling question, as a time-traveling sociologist, you concentrate on what is happening to humans after their arrival on Earth. You seek an understanding of how humans organize themselves to meet their needs.

In the beginning, these first humans, through trial and error, learned that penis inserted into vagina was pleasurable. Further, they realized that this pleasurable activity produced offspring, providing humanity with a future. For those who did not make this connection, their line became extinct.

Emphasizing the significance of this activity and managing the pragmatics of it, human groups created words to describe this species-saving action. For example, they tagged the anatomical parts (i.e., penis and vagina) and they named the involving action (i.e., intercourse). They created customs (i.e., marriage ceremonies) to highlight the significance of this event, and they developed rules or norms to regulate the act of intercourse (e.g., it is a private act not to be done in public). These words, customs, and norms formed a framework for understanding, and this served as a strategy for engaging in intercourse.

Groups create this framework and pass it to future generations (via socialization) as answers to questions about reproduction. It becomes a diagram-for-social-living as it relates to sexual relations. Each group creates its own diagram. What may be on one group's diagram-for- social-living may not be on another. For instance, in some groups, having many wives or husbands at the same time is appropriate; in other groups it is totally inappropriate.

More broadly, the diagram-for-social-living is a socially created blueprint guiding group members as they seek ways of dealing with problems-in-living. This diagram designates out of all possible behaviors those which are appropriate, right, and normal. For each problem- in-living, a group creates another diagram-for-social-living. With the passage of time, these diagrams become background assumptions for behavior. Group members accept them as taken-for-granted beliefs about how things are and should be. For instance, for many, sex with other humans is normal, while intercourse with a dog is not.

Moving from prehistoric to contemporary times, we notice that there are only a few situations in today's society where a social situation is not already defined. Most situations have preexisting diagrams governing how people act toward one another. Take a few moments. Try to think of social situations that have no preexisting rules of conduct. You may think of one or two, but these are likely to be rare events. A riot comes to mind.

It is difficult to become aware of diagrams imbedded in us. We simply take them for granted. For instance, we do not wonder what side of the road to drive on when entering a car. We automatically go to the right side (unless in a country where driving is on the left side).

To get a perspective on these diagrams, we can go back in time when humans first created them. In other words, we shall seek the sociological beginning.

Discovering the Sociological Beginning

In the sociological beginning, there were two people. According to Western tradition, they were Adam and Eve. Both of them had needs, as individuals and together. They had physical and social needs. These needs were either real or perceived. As a result of their interaction, Adam and Eve found ways of satisfying their needs. Imagine the events outlined below.

Probably, the first human dilemma faced by Adam and Eve was how to initiate an exchange. That is, how to start a conversation between themselves. One may have smiled toward the other and said something. Surely, sometime later one of them invented a greeting like, "Hello!" or "How are you?" These words then became a mechanism for initiating an interaction. Eventually, the other responded, "Fine. How are you?" These expressions may be the first examples of social interaction.

Other problems-in-social-living were faced by Adam and Eve. For instance, after a few days of walking through the garden, undoubtedly they experienced pain in their stomachs. Eve may have grabbed her stomach and grimaced; as did Adam. In amazement, they realized they were feeling the same pain, and one said to other, "I'm hungry." Indicating agreement, the other smiled. These expressions of hunger between them may be the second example of social interaction.

Adam and Eve walked into the garden in search of food. Out of all possible vegetative, animal, and fish life present, they learned through trial and error which of these life forms satisfied their hunger need. For example, if they ate little blue balls (i.e., blueberries) off bushes and these satisfied their hunger, they probably looked for blueberries the next and every subsequent time they experienced hunger pangs. Also, they repeated the way in which they collected these berries because this method of picking them satisfied their hunger.

Thus, berry-picking methods, once established, are regularized. One action follows another in the same sequence each time they went berry-picking. Simply stated, there was a pattern, or structure, to their berry-picking activity.

Elements of social structure include such notions as statuses, roles, norms, values, and groups. For instance, after several berry-picking trips into the garden, through their interaction with one another, Adam was established as the limb-bender, and Eve, the berry-picker (i.e., statuses). Adam and Eve picked out a bush, and Adam pushed it over while Eve picked the berries from it. The actions performed by Adam and Eve in their statuses are roles. At some point in time, Adam and Eve considered themselves as belonging together, and they became a group.

Adam and Eve probably got into a pattern of picking berries in the same way, and later they expected each other to behave in this manner. When one of them acted differently, probably the other scolded that person (i.e., gave a negative sanction). These expected ways of behaving became guidelines for the way limbs were to be bent, and berries picked. They became their norms. Norms are rules guiding people in their behavior. Moreover, since berries and the method by which to get them met their needs, this food and this approach became valued; that is, preferred.

Social structure, or the diagram-for-social-living, is visualized as shown in figure 1.1.

This diagram organizes people's behavior in any situation or place where two or more people are together (i.e., social situation). Therefore, out of all possible behavior (represented by the horizontal line in the diagram) some behaviors (found inside the vertical lines on the diagram) are specified by groups as appropriate, right, and normal. Behaviors found outside the vertical lines are seen as inappropriate, wrong, and abnormal or deviant. Hence, members of a nudist colony have a diagram establishing "wearing no clothes in public" as appropriate. However, most people living in Pennsylvania have a diagram informing them that such behavior is not only inappropriate but also abnormal, wrong, and deviant. Diagrammatically, this example looks like figure 1.2.

The Socialization Process

How did Adam and Eve's offspring understand how to satisfy their needs? How did they know how to behave correctly in a social situation? In this presentation, how did they grasp their group's diagram-for-social-living?

Pangs of hunger are natural or inborn, but the ways to satisfy them are learned. For instance, some people eat hamburgers when they are hungry, while others eat guinea pigs (in Peru). Humans are not born with knowledge of how to solve their problems-in-social-living. This knowledge is acquired through association with other humans, by means of a process called socialization.

A person (or a thing, such as a book or movie) teaching a diagram through socialization is a socializing agent. A learner in this process is a socializee. Therefore, Adam and Eve taught their sons what foods to eat. Similarly, they taught Cain and Abel how to bend bushes over to get the food that provided sustenance for them. However, if these boys ate apples instead of blueberries, their parents considered them deviant. Cain and Abel knew their parents got angry when they ate the wrong fruit, and they knew they would be punished (i.e., given a negative sanction). Conversely, when the boys ate the right fruit, they conformed to their parents' wishes. Cain and Abel knew their parents would be happy with them, and they might get a reward, such as extra blueberries for breakfast (i.e., receive a positive sanction).

Why did Adam and Eve exert so much energy to get Cain and Abel to behave? One reason has to do with power. Why were Adam and Eve interested in exercising power over their children? To understand what is gained by using power, one must examine the results of socialization for the group (e.g., Adam and Eve's family) and for the individual (i.e., Cain or Abel).

As previously stated, Adam and Eve had diagrams in their heads guiding them as they solved problems-in-social-living. For example, diagrams informed them how to gather food for satisfying their hunger. Furthermore, if their children followed their diagram for food-gathering, all of them would be doing it in the same way; consequently, at minimum, they did not get in each other's way. Clearly, there was order in the group (i.e., social order). Also, when Adam and Eve were not present, they still got their children to act as they wished. How? The diagrams in their children's heads directed them to act in their parents' way. For instance, if Adam directed Cain to cooperate with his brother and Cain did not do it, probably Cain felt bad or guilty. Why? He deviated from Adam's norms.