Backman
SOCY1000
Big Picture
SOCY1000 is a Liberal Arts course
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Liberal arts?
Various characteristics
• Especially important for this course:
Broadening perspectives;
Helping overcome parochialism
Parochial Parochialism
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Parochialism: limited
understanding of how the world does
or could operate due to actors’
limited experiences in the world
parochial: limited in understanding
due to a narrow range of social
experiences
• We are all, to a degree, parochial
Ethnocentrism
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Ethnocentrism: the belief that your
culture’s ways of doing things are
the best and that other cultures and
cultural features are inferior to the
extent they differ from yours
• Very common
Cultural Relativism
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Cultural relativism: the belief that
cultures should not be compared
with each other and that cultural
features should be evaluated on the
basis of how they contribute to the
success of the society
Compare “A” and “B”
When Backman asks, “Compare A and
B,” he wants
1. Define A
2. Define B
3. Tell how A and B are alike
4. Tell how A and B differ
Compare Ethnocentrism and
Cultural Relativism
1.
2.
3.
4.
Define ethnocentrism as above
Define cultural relativism as above
Alike because both are approaches to the
evaluation of cultures and cultural
features
Differ because cultural relativism rejects
comparisons with other cultures, while
ethnocentrism is all about comparisons
and even offers one standard for
comparison, the evaluator’s own culture
Course Objectives
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Bottom line: Make you more
competent in making sense of what
is going around you
• Make you a “better” citizen
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See syllabus for more
Warning: Course Pains
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Some thing we talk about this
semester will make you feel creepy
• If not, some would say I’m not doing
my job
• One of the messages of this course is
that what seems normal and natural
to some people may seem creepy to
others
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The creepy thing won’t be the same
for everyone
General Topics 1
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Context of behavior
• Culture
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Predictable patterns of behavior
• Social structure
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Learning what to do
• Socialization
General Topics 2
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Population size and structure
• Demography
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Distribution of “goodies”
• Stratification
• Race and ethnicity
• Gender
THEME I:
The Thomas Theorem
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People decide what to do next on the
basis of what they think is going on
now
• Above is my simplified version of W.I.
Thomas’s original. The original is …
If men define situations as
real they are real in their
consequences
W. I. Thomas
THEME II:
The Uncertainty Principle

Uncertainty Is a Powerful Factor in
Social Behavior and Social Structure
• Much of what we do is an attempt to
reduce uncertainty
• Much of what we do generates
uncertainty
• Institutions and structures reduce and
generate uncertainty
THEME III:
Why Do People Follow Rules?

Most of the time, most people do
what they are supposed to do
WHY ???
(Part of the answer has to do with
uncertainty)
Rules and Sociology
“The central task of sociology is to
understand
how rules generate their effects,
 how people respond to the rules
under which they live, and
 how the rules change over time,”
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according to Erik Olin Wright, 2012
President of the American Sociological
Association
THEME IV:
The Creaming Principle
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People with greater appropriate
resources are better able to take
advantage of opportunities
• Helps explain why the rich get richer
• Resources include money,
attractiveness, family name, popularity,
fame, power, access to powerful people,
college degree, test taking ability,
working car, …
Review Definitions
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Parochial
Ethnocentrism
Cultural Relativism
Thomas Theorem
Uncertainty Principle
Creaming Principle