SOCIOLOGY 1301 TEST PAPER 2025/2026 QUESTIONS AND
ANSWERS RATED A+
✔✔Independent Variable - ✔✔a variable that causes a change in a dependent variable
✔✔dependent variable - ✔✔a variable changed by other variables
✔✔population - ✔✔a defined group serving as the subject of a study
✔✔sample - ✔✔a small, manageable number of subjects that represent the population
✔✔ASA's ethical guidelines for research - ✔✔First and foremost guarantee the safety of
their participants, ensure that they have been fully informed before consenting to be a
part of a study. They address conducting studies, properly using existing sources,
accepting funding, and publishing results. Participant safety must also be considered
and research should stop immediately should safety be in question. Required to protect
the privacy of research participants whenever possible as well, even if pressured by
authorities. Results must be made available to other sociologists, sources of financial
support must be made public, and funding must not be accepted from any organization
that might cause a conflict of interest or seek to influence the research results for its
own purposes. Researchers must establish value neutrality (practice of remaining
impartial, without bias or judgment, during the course of a study)
✔✔Major research methods discussed in class - ✔✔1. Surveys - different formats,
paper, interview, open ended and closed questions. Targets a population, studies a
sample
2. Field Work - participant observation (join subjects in their routine), personal, direct,
qualitative. Hawthorne Effect a potential, observation changes people's behavior
Case studies (study of a single event using secondary sources. Ethnography (extended
observation of the social perspective and cultural values of an entire social setting)
3. Unobtrusive Measures - secondary sources (data that has already been gathered.
Content Analysis (txt docs, themes, commonalities, movies/media, receipts
4. Experiments - to investigate the relationships to test a hypothesis, a scientific
approach
✔✔Culture - ✔✔The shared behaviors and beliefs of society, and includes material and
nonmaterial elements.
✔✔Material Culture - ✔✔the objects or belongings of a group of people
✔✔NonMaterial Culture - ✔✔the ideas, attitudes, and beliefs of a society
✔✔Society - ✔✔people who live in a definable community and who share a common
culture
,✔✔Culture Shock - ✔✔an experience of personal disorientation when confronted with
an unfamiliar way of life
✔✔Elements of Culture (name and define) - ✔✔Values and Beliefs.
Values are a culture's standard for discerning what is good and just in society.
Beliefs are the tenets or convictions that people hold to be true.
Sanctions are a form of social control. People sanction certain behaviors by giving their
support, approval, or permission, or by instilling formal actions of disapproval and
nonsupport.
Norms define how to behave in accordance with what a society has defined as good,
right, and important. Formal Norms are established written rules, like laws, employee
manuals, and "no running" signs. Informal Norms are casual behaviors that are
generally and widely conformed to. They dictate appropriate behaviors without the need
of written rules.
✔✔Most common language spoken worldwide? - ✔✔Chinese
✔✔Mores - ✔✔norms that embody the moral views and principles of a group. Violating
them have serious consequences. Often offenders are seen as shameful, and shunned
or banned.
✔✔Folkways - ✔✔norms without any moral underpinnings. they direct appropriate
behavior in the day to day practices and expressions of a culture. shake hands or kiss
on the cheek, wear a tie and blazer or tshirt and sandals.
✔✔Sapir-Worf Thesis - ✔✔we interpret our world through language, and that they
therefore understand their world through the culture embedded in their language.
✔✔Sociocultural Evolution/Societies?/Traits? - ✔✔concept developed by Lenski,
describes how societies change and evolve over time and are defined by their level of
technological sophistication.
Pre-Industrial Societies:
Hunter/Gatherer
Pastoral
Horticultural
Agricultural
Feudal
, Industrial Societies: Inventions, steam power, automation, gas lights, rise of urban
centers, focus on acquiring wealth and achieving upward mobility. Birth of sociology.
Power moved from aristocracy to business savvy "nouveaux" riche
Postindustrial Society: Information societies or digital societies. Economies are driven
by knowledge instead of material goods. Members are likely to be employed as sellers
of services - software programmers or business consultants, instead of producers of
goods.
✔✔Material surplus - ✔✔
✔✔Subculture - ✔✔groups that share a specific identification, apart from a society's
majority, even as the members exist within a larger society.
✔✔Ethnocentrism - ✔✔the practice of evaluating another culture according to the
standards of one's own culture.
✔✔Xenocentrism - ✔✔a belief that another culture is superior to one's own
✔✔Counterculture - ✔✔groups that reject and oppose society's widely accepted cultural
patterns.
✔✔Culture lag - ✔✔the gap of time between the introduction of meterial culture and
nonmaterial culture's acceptance of it.
✔✔Ways in which cultural change is set in motion? - ✔✔Innovation: an object or
concept's initial appearance in society. There are two ways to innovate: discover or
invent it.
Globalization and Diffusion. Diffusion is the spread of material and nonmaterial culture.
✔✔Cultural universal - ✔✔patterns or traits that are globally common to all societies
✔✔Globalization - ✔✔the integration of international trade and finance markets.
✔✔Innovation - ✔✔An object or concept's initial appearance in society.
✔✔Discoveries - ✔✔to make known previously unknown but existing aspects of reality.
✔✔Inventions - ✔✔when something new is formed from existing objects or concepts,
when things are put together in an entirely new manner.
✔✔Cultural relativism - ✔✔the practice of assessing a culture by its own standards, and
not in comparison to another culture.
ANSWERS RATED A+
✔✔Independent Variable - ✔✔a variable that causes a change in a dependent variable
✔✔dependent variable - ✔✔a variable changed by other variables
✔✔population - ✔✔a defined group serving as the subject of a study
✔✔sample - ✔✔a small, manageable number of subjects that represent the population
✔✔ASA's ethical guidelines for research - ✔✔First and foremost guarantee the safety of
their participants, ensure that they have been fully informed before consenting to be a
part of a study. They address conducting studies, properly using existing sources,
accepting funding, and publishing results. Participant safety must also be considered
and research should stop immediately should safety be in question. Required to protect
the privacy of research participants whenever possible as well, even if pressured by
authorities. Results must be made available to other sociologists, sources of financial
support must be made public, and funding must not be accepted from any organization
that might cause a conflict of interest or seek to influence the research results for its
own purposes. Researchers must establish value neutrality (practice of remaining
impartial, without bias or judgment, during the course of a study)
✔✔Major research methods discussed in class - ✔✔1. Surveys - different formats,
paper, interview, open ended and closed questions. Targets a population, studies a
sample
2. Field Work - participant observation (join subjects in their routine), personal, direct,
qualitative. Hawthorne Effect a potential, observation changes people's behavior
Case studies (study of a single event using secondary sources. Ethnography (extended
observation of the social perspective and cultural values of an entire social setting)
3. Unobtrusive Measures - secondary sources (data that has already been gathered.
Content Analysis (txt docs, themes, commonalities, movies/media, receipts
4. Experiments - to investigate the relationships to test a hypothesis, a scientific
approach
✔✔Culture - ✔✔The shared behaviors and beliefs of society, and includes material and
nonmaterial elements.
✔✔Material Culture - ✔✔the objects or belongings of a group of people
✔✔NonMaterial Culture - ✔✔the ideas, attitudes, and beliefs of a society
✔✔Society - ✔✔people who live in a definable community and who share a common
culture
,✔✔Culture Shock - ✔✔an experience of personal disorientation when confronted with
an unfamiliar way of life
✔✔Elements of Culture (name and define) - ✔✔Values and Beliefs.
Values are a culture's standard for discerning what is good and just in society.
Beliefs are the tenets or convictions that people hold to be true.
Sanctions are a form of social control. People sanction certain behaviors by giving their
support, approval, or permission, or by instilling formal actions of disapproval and
nonsupport.
Norms define how to behave in accordance with what a society has defined as good,
right, and important. Formal Norms are established written rules, like laws, employee
manuals, and "no running" signs. Informal Norms are casual behaviors that are
generally and widely conformed to. They dictate appropriate behaviors without the need
of written rules.
✔✔Most common language spoken worldwide? - ✔✔Chinese
✔✔Mores - ✔✔norms that embody the moral views and principles of a group. Violating
them have serious consequences. Often offenders are seen as shameful, and shunned
or banned.
✔✔Folkways - ✔✔norms without any moral underpinnings. they direct appropriate
behavior in the day to day practices and expressions of a culture. shake hands or kiss
on the cheek, wear a tie and blazer or tshirt and sandals.
✔✔Sapir-Worf Thesis - ✔✔we interpret our world through language, and that they
therefore understand their world through the culture embedded in their language.
✔✔Sociocultural Evolution/Societies?/Traits? - ✔✔concept developed by Lenski,
describes how societies change and evolve over time and are defined by their level of
technological sophistication.
Pre-Industrial Societies:
Hunter/Gatherer
Pastoral
Horticultural
Agricultural
Feudal
, Industrial Societies: Inventions, steam power, automation, gas lights, rise of urban
centers, focus on acquiring wealth and achieving upward mobility. Birth of sociology.
Power moved from aristocracy to business savvy "nouveaux" riche
Postindustrial Society: Information societies or digital societies. Economies are driven
by knowledge instead of material goods. Members are likely to be employed as sellers
of services - software programmers or business consultants, instead of producers of
goods.
✔✔Material surplus - ✔✔
✔✔Subculture - ✔✔groups that share a specific identification, apart from a society's
majority, even as the members exist within a larger society.
✔✔Ethnocentrism - ✔✔the practice of evaluating another culture according to the
standards of one's own culture.
✔✔Xenocentrism - ✔✔a belief that another culture is superior to one's own
✔✔Counterculture - ✔✔groups that reject and oppose society's widely accepted cultural
patterns.
✔✔Culture lag - ✔✔the gap of time between the introduction of meterial culture and
nonmaterial culture's acceptance of it.
✔✔Ways in which cultural change is set in motion? - ✔✔Innovation: an object or
concept's initial appearance in society. There are two ways to innovate: discover or
invent it.
Globalization and Diffusion. Diffusion is the spread of material and nonmaterial culture.
✔✔Cultural universal - ✔✔patterns or traits that are globally common to all societies
✔✔Globalization - ✔✔the integration of international trade and finance markets.
✔✔Innovation - ✔✔An object or concept's initial appearance in society.
✔✔Discoveries - ✔✔to make known previously unknown but existing aspects of reality.
✔✔Inventions - ✔✔when something new is formed from existing objects or concepts,
when things are put together in an entirely new manner.
✔✔Cultural relativism - ✔✔the practice of assessing a culture by its own standards, and
not in comparison to another culture.
