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Question 1

Socialization is:

a) the formation of an attachment bond between an infant and its carer

b) a tendency of social theorists to explain everything in terms of social causes

c) the process of becoming part of a society by learning its norms and values

d) the historical process by which societies change from traditional to modern

Question 2

Role-learning theory suggests that…

a) we internalise and take on social roles from a pre-existing framework

b) we create and negotiate our roles through interaction with others

c) social roles are not fixed or stable but fluid and pluralistic

d) roles have to be learned to suppress unconscious motivations

Question 3

In Symbolic Interactionist theory, Mead defined the 'generalized other' as:

a) the group of structural theories of society that he was reacting against

b) the overall impression of ourselves that we try to give off to others

c) a significant figure in early childhood who teaches us the general values of society

d) an image of how people in the wider society might perceive our behaviour

Question 4

Freud's notion of the 'ego' referred to:

a) the unconscious mass of instinctive drives that may be repressed

b) the self as a whole: an unstable mix of conscious and unconscious elements

c) the conscious part of the mind that regulates emotional drives on a practical, rational level

d) the neurotic part of the mind that longs for belonging and may suffer an inferiority complex

Question 5

Bowlby's maternal deprivation thesis claimed that:

a) mothers who are living in poverty cannot afford to give their children the resources that other children enjoy

b) children deprived of an early, secure attachment to their mother are prone to suffer physically, intellectually and socially in later life

c) 'mothering' is a socially constructed activity identified in the narratives of new mothers

d) deprivation is something children inherit, usually through their mother's side

Question 6

Anti-psychiatrists like Laing & Esterson believed that:

a) Psychiatry was an out-moded form of treatment and should be replaced by alternative therapies like aromatherapy and kinesiology

b) Mental illnesses were biological in origin, so there was no point in studying 'the mind' as experienced by the patient

c) Psychiatrists were agents of capitalism who tried to instill ruling class ideology into their patients

d) Behaviour that seemed bizarre could be seen as a reasonable response to disturbed patterns of family interaction

Question 7

Margaret Mead suggested that:

a) adolescence and gender roles varied between societies and so were culturally determined

b) gender roles in three New Guinea societies were identical and so must be biologically determined

c) adolescence in the USA is a time of relative calm compared to the experience in Japan and Europe

d) anthropological fieldwork can be problematic because the researcher's values affect the way they interpret their observations

Question 8

When Berger & Luckmann said that reality is socially constructed, they meant:

a) scientists are guided in their work by social values and interests, so they define and measure phenomena that will support their theories

b) people negotiate shared definitions of their situation and live according to these, often forgetting that these social worlds are not fixed and external

c) sociologists decide what constitutes social reality and measure only that

d) terms like 'reality' have no deeper meaning beyond the level of discourse

Question 9

Allen's (2001) study of nurses showed that:

a) nurses perform a great deal of emotional labour for which they are not paid

b) the policies of Project 2000 had the effect of de-professionalising the career of nursing

c) more men were moving into nursing, which challenges some of the prevailing stereotypes about the occupation

d) the role of the nurse was ambiguous and had to be constantly redefined in the context of everyday interactions with other staff and patients

Question 10

The term 'emotion work' (Hochschild 1983) refers to:

a) the techniques used to consciously manage and present emotions that are deemed appropriate for public settings of interaction

b) the work done by psychologists, counselors and therapists to help clients with mental and emotional problems

c) experiences such as grieving and falling in love, which demand a lot of emotional energy from a person

d) the way in which increasing levels of risk and anxiety have made us think more reflexively about our self-identities

Oxford University Press, Online Resource Centre, Chapter 04.

Chapter 04

Instructions