Sociology for Psychology Students (Lecture notes)

SOCIOLOGY FOR PSYCHOLOGY STUDENTS

LECTURE 1
1. Why sociology?
 people do not operate in a vacuum
 sociology is about context: everything people do is driven by
their surroundings
 sociology pays attention to the societal level of functioning
 individual motivations that are the result of people’s
interactions with others
 importance of social embeddedness
- more integration leads to less deviant behavior
- people conform to what is considered normal in their
community
 sociology can influence relationships between individual
characteristics and adverse outcomes
 difference between psychology and sociology: suicide studies
- strongly influenced by integration and regulation
- perceived as an individualistic act but it is driven by social
factors
- more individualism, less integration  higher rates of
suicide
 everyone wants to belong to a social group
 sociology systematically explores how human society works
 pros of sociology:
- debunking
- understanding
- empowering/ mobilizing for minorities
- recognition
 cons of sociology:
- everything always changes
- sociologists are people too
* want to be close to people but they should keep their
distance
- sociology becomes part of the public debate
 Durkheim: people consist of an individual and a social being
2. What is sociology?
 looks at interactions between people
 looks for general elements in social behavior

, social policy: the idea of understanding society and human
culture
- improvement of society and social interaction
 definition: “science of society”
- social problems vs personal troubles
- Mills: “the Sociological Imagination”
- sociological vs social problems
 sociology vs common sense (Bauman)
 sociology is/in human language
 sociology has 3 levels:
- micro level (proximal environment)
- meso level
* gym, sports, office, university
- macro level
 3 key questions of sociology:
1) social inequality
2) social cohesion
3) rationalization (or culture)
- how has society become modern?
- how are we capable of organizing the world in a rational
way?
3. Genesis of sociology
 social philosophers used to not test their idealistic views
 changes in structures of societies:
- transition from agriculture to industrialization (invention of
the steam machine)
- classification based on technology
* technology produces new problems as well
 societal changes
- growth of politics
- economic changes (capitalism/ industrial revolution)
- freedom, equality, solidarity
- church/ religion have become less powerful
- growth of cities
 discovery of society
- start of modern science
- society is discovered and it can be studied
- science has to do with looking for practical solutions
 Auguste Comte:

, - coined the term sociology
- three stages of the development of the world/ thinking
about society
 Herbert Spencer:
- he came up with the term “survival of the fittest”
* seen as what is best for society
- rise of social-darwinistic thinking
- organisms are simply adapting to what is happening around
them (random according to Darwin, whereas Spencer says
that if we know what is good for society, we have a goal we
need to attain)
 19th century landmarks:
- civilization labor
- discipline
- education of the masses
- trust in science
- the “social question”
* situation of the laborers which was the result of capitalism/
the question whether people should get voting rights
 research themes in the 19th century:
- poverty
- division of labor
- class relations
* upper and lower class
* people should do good for the poor because it is good for
the latter but it also serves the richer (well-understood self-
interest)
ex. lack of sanitation in poor neighborhoods/ if not taken care
of, the diseases could get to the richer neighborhoods
4. Paradigm
 the Kuhn cycle
- in social sciences, there is no all-encompassing paradigm
 4 main paradigms in sociology:
- structural-functionalistic paradigm
- conflict paradigm
- symbolic interactionist paradigm
- rational choice paradigm
 theories are part of paradigms
 sociological approaches:

, - positivistic
* seeing is believing
* deductive science
- humanistic
* what motivates people
* putting yourself in the shoes of others
- critical
* activist/ political stance
* focus on changing the world
* facts are not neutral (they are made and discussed by
scientists)

LECTURE 2
1. 3 key questions
 Marx: how is social inequality possible?
- perspective and paradigm: conflict
- Marx never talked about the conflict paradigm himself (it
was developed based on his work)
 3 founding fathers of sociology
- transition from agriculture to industrialized/ capitalist
society
- interested in change
- quarrel about scarce resources which leads to social change
 state socialists = communists (according to Marx)
- socialism is the step between capitalism and communism
- socialism deprives people of private property
2. Marx & Engels
 part of Marx’s writings were published by Engels
 best-known work: “Das Kapital”
 lived in the 19th century: low form of capitalism
- no social security system
- no protection from the state
- capitalism causes poverty
 Engels: “the condition of the working class in England”
- groups have different life expectancies depending on their
living conditions
 ideas of Marx & Engels
- conflict between classes
* in means of production (working class and upper class)