Intro to Sociology
Final Study Guide
Dr. Thea S. Alvarado
You final exam will cover everything learned over the course of the semester. Questions
may come from lecture, reading, group work, or movies. Your exam will consist of 50
multiple choice questions.
Please describe the important ideas from each of the following movies:
Milgram’s Obedience
The Secret of the Wild Child
The Alzheimer’s Project
Please define the following terms:
Agents of socialization
Assimilation
Cultural diffusion
Culture
Culture shock
Discrimination
Ethnocentrism
Folkways
Generalization
Gesture
Income
Language
Mores
Occupation
Peer group
Power
Prestige
Property
Reliability
Resocialization
Sanctions
Social class
Society
Stratification
Symbol
Taboo
Validity
Please answer the following questions in as much detail as possible:
1) What are the techniques of neutralization?
2) What are the measures of central tendency (“average”)?
3) What are the main theoretical perspectives in sociology?
4) What is the difference between qualitative and quantitative research?
5) How does your social location affect your ideas and behavior?
6) What is the nature vs. nurture argument?
7) Describe several research methods used in sociology.
8) What are some things that you must avoid if you want to ask neutral questions to
your respondents?
9) Who are the most important historical sociological theorists? What did each say?
10) What are the theories of Cooley, Mead, Piaget, Freud, Lareau, and Ekman?