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Higher Education

Sociology: A Canadian Perspective, Third Edition — Chapter 5

Instructions: For each question, click on the radio button beside your answer. When you have completed the entire quiz, click the 'Submit my answers' button at the bottom of the page to receive your results.

Question 1:


a) Social institutions are integrated to make up and stabilize society.
b) Children learn what is expected of them from parents, relatives, peers, teachers, and the media.
c) Throughout their lives, people act in ways that are socially approved.
d) As people enter social institutions, such as universities, corporations, or organizations, they learn new roles.
e) Statuses and roles are independent of norms.

Question 2:


a) behavioural expectations attached to one role interfere or conflict with one’s ability to meet the expectations of another role
b) women have to juggle motherhood with a career
c) competing demands are built into a single role, causing tension and stress
d) lawyers who have to balance a twelve-hour work day and the responsibilities of parenting
e) a doctor who is trying to run a business as well as attend to all of her patients

Question 3:


a) lawyers balancing their duty to represent their clients to the best of their ability, at the same time, as being expected to mentor young lawyers and generate new clients
b) children learning what is expected of them from parents, peers, and teachers, and then later in life, being expected to act in ways that are socially approved
c) a single person who becomes a spouse after marriage, while a wife becomes a widow upon the death of her spouse
d) members of a sports team expecting training opportunities, expertise, and support from their coach, and a coach having the responsibility to provide that expertise and leadership
e) coaches having the right to expect commitment and effort from their players, and players being obliged to display the required level of dedication to the team

Question 4:


a) People who are sick are excused from their social responsibilities.
b) If you claim that you are sick and your claim is recognized as legitimate, you are exempted from your usual roles and duties.
c) People who are sick can choose to be treated by an allopathic or a naturopathic doctor.
d) People who are sick have the right to expect the understanding, sympathy, and support of others.
e) People who are sick must do whatever it takes to get better.

Question 5:


a) Individuals carry around a repertoire of roles and determine which of them to use.
b) Role-taking is the process by which we co-ordinate our actions with those of others.
c) Role-taking involves looking at others from our own point of view and trying to anticipate the consequences of our own plan of action.
d) The construction of a role is impossible without an ability to view oneself from the vantage point of another.
e) There is considerable variability in how students choose to play their student role.

Question 6:


a) Role-making
b) Role construction
c) Role-taking
d) Performance management
e) Role-playing

Question 7:


a) The meaning we attach to our selves is constantly changing as we interact with others.
b) The self is a process, continuously created and recreated in each social situation that one enters.
c) Once we develop a self-image, it remains fairly stable throughout our lives.
d) We acquire our sense of self by imagining how we appear to others.
e) People with whom we interact are the mirror that reflects back an image of who we are.

Question 8:


a) takes the significant and generalized other into account
b) asks itself what norms govern the situation, given one’s role, the image one wants to protect, others’ expectations, and how one wants to be seen
c) responds to the attitude of the generalized other
d) and the ‘I’ make up the self
e) all of the above

Question 9:


a) A ‘core self’ is a stable set of meanings that one attaches to oneself.
b) We carry our core self into all of our interactions.
c) We show our core self only to the people to whom we are most close.
d) The core self shapes our interactions, giving them continuity and predictability.
e) It is possible to develop a set of general propositions about the self from which hypotheses could be deduced and tested.

Question 10:


a) Role performance refers to a person’s conduct if he or she did only what the norms attached to the particular position directed.
b) Role performance reflects the actual behaviour of an individual while acting out the role.
c) People try not only to see with others’ eyes but also to manage how others define the situation.
d) In the front-stage, social actors manage presentations of themselves they project to others in the hope of creating a positive impression so that others respond in a desired manner.
e) Our back-stage behaviour is displayed among those with whom we share close social bonds and whom we trust.

Question 11:


a) there is a gendered quality to identity work among punks
b) men and women in the punk scene dress similarly
c) owning the ‘right’ records serves to establish membership in the local punk scene and allows those who identify with it to ‘talk shop’
d) those who identify as punk have a specific look which they refer to as ‘the uniform’
e) communicating membership in the local punk scene includes publicizing the ownership of punk goods

Question 12:


a) medical students are under great pressure to come across as competent and trustworthy, since the occupational role to which they aspire demands these qualities
b) medical students organize a carefully managed presentation of self to create an aura of competence
c) in communicating competence, medical students used props, costumes, and language to demonstrate to their audiences that they possessed the special knowledge and trustworthiness demanded of their role
d) medical students willingly admit lack of knowledge or errors that they make
e) identity work reinforces the students’ identification with, and commitment to, medicine

Question 13:


a) men are undergoing plastic surgeries at an increasing rate because of the ‘crisis of masculinity’
b) there are very few men who undergo plastic surgeries because men are more secure about their bodies
c) women are undergoing plastic surgeries at an increasing rate because of the uncertainty of what it means to be a woman in the face of gender equity movements
d) women, unlike men, are willing to subject themselves to both invasive and non-invasive procedures
e) women’s experiences of their bodies are pivotal to their identities

Question 14:


a) identity management devices
b) a way of telling others who you are and what you care about
c) a way for youth to freely create and manage identity during social interaction
d) sometimes leading to performance blunders
e) all of the above

Question 15:


a) airline industry trains flight attendants to control their own feelings and expressions in order to shape passengers’ emotions, keeping them calm and satisfied
b) airline industry trains flight attendants to report unruly behaviour by passengers rather than dealing with it themselves politely
c) the acting by flight attendants, such as forced smiles, which she refers to as ‘emotional labour’, become divorced from their true feelings
d) employees that work in many jobs in the service sector require emotional labour both to present themselves and to control the response of the people they serve
e) even when flight attendants are confronted by obnoxious and unruly passengers, they can usually control their inner feelings and keep smiling

Question 16:


a) there is nothing inherent in blindness that makes those who are blind helpless, docile, and dependent
b) both agencies for the blind and the public tend to have stereotypical views of the blind
c) services and workplace opportunities created for the blind are based on stereotypical views of the blind
d) those with sight problems learn what society expects from them as a ‘blind person’ and feel pressured to play the role as others expect them to play it
e) those who embrace society’s definition of who they are as blind people, who Scott refers to as ‘true believers’ distance themselves from the role of ‘blind person’, bringing it out only when it is useful

Question 17:


a) standardized forms employed by people to explain and excuse their behaviour
b) drives, needs, or compulsions which create an impulse to act in a particular way
c) explanations for why we have acted in particular ways
d) how we explain our actions depending to whom we are talking
e) all of the above

Question 18:


a) used when we admit our behaviour is wrong but deny responsibility for it
b) verbal devices used by persons who want to ward off the potential negative implications of an impending act
c) verbal statements made by one social actor to another to explain behaviours that are unanticipated
d) used when after we have already committed the act and we are anticipating how others will respond to what we have done
e) aimed at what has already happened

Question 19:


a) physical abnormalities or deformities
b) membership in a discredited group
c) behaviour that deviates from a moral standard
d) situations in which individuals find themselves dealing with a spoiled identity because of their connection to an individual who has been labelled as deviant
e) all of the above

Question 20:


a) deviant labels are consequential because they generally become a master status
b) a person who is diagnosed as mentally ill can overcome the label once they are cured
c) a person who receives a criminal record can overcome the label by finding a legitimate job
d) a master status results only when primary deviance does not lead to secondary deviance
e) statuses such as gender, race, class, and age will always be more influential than a deviant status

Question 21:


a) denial of responsibility
b) denial of injury
c) denial of victim
d) condemning the victims
e) appealing to a higher loyalty

Question 22:


a) wife batterers use denial of responsibility when they claim that as a result of the violence they experienced themselves as children, they do not know how to deal non-violently with conflict in their relationships
b) pedophiles use denial of injury when they argue that their behaviours do not really hurt children
c) shoplifters use condemning the condemners when they say that department stores deserve it for charging such high prices
d) tax evaders use condemning the condemners when they argue that everybody cheats on their taxes, even judges and police officers
e) mothers who put their young children into beauty pageants where they are often presented in highly sexualized ways use appealing to a higher loyalty when they argue that the money their children earn is significant and may one day pay for their university

Question 23:


a) Ex-politicians deal with the stigma of defeat by attributing their loss to their political party and unfair media coverage.
b) Make cheerleaders try to counter the stigma of being men in a ‘women’s’ sport by emphasizing the physical stamina required, displaying aggression, and sexually objectifying their female teammates.
c) Funeral directors who suffer the stigma connected to handling the dead respond by avoiding telling people what they do for a living in situations when they do not have to.
d) Students who work as strippers are upfront, rather than discreet about their jobs because they are not ashamed by what they do.
e) Pit bull owners who find themselves dealing with courtesy stigma by virtue of the changing attitudes towards pit bulls respond by passing their dogs off as a breed other than pit bull.

Question 24:


a) both involved a radical transformation in lifestyle, relationships with others, and self-definition
b) the baalei tshuvah changed their behaviours and presentation of self before completely redefining themselves
c) the baalei tshuvah quickly adopted the appropriate behavioural trappings of Orthodox Judaism
d) the baalei tshuvah left their community and took on a more secular lifestyle only after going through a process of questioning their authenticity as part of the baalei tshuvah community and undergoing attitudinal and emotional transformations
e) while outwardly displaying confidence in their behavioural commitment to Orthodox Judaism, the baalei tshuvah inwardly engaged at realigning their understanding of themselves and life’s meaning to fit the requirements of their new lifestyle

Question 25:


a) that it is a relatively quick process
b) that it is a gradual process that starts with initial confusion about one’s identity
c) that it involves discovering and applying the label
d) that it involves settling into the identity and signalling a more complete transition into self-labelling
e) that it involves continued uncertainty, created in part by the intolerance of the heterosexual world and social disapproval from the homosexual world

Question 26:


a) transsexuals typically feel that they are born into the wrong-sexed bodies and want to remedy the problem
b) it has become easier in our culture for those with male bodies to claim that they are truly women and for those with female bodies to claim that they are truly men
c) a transsexual identity is achieved by constructing a self-narrative, without the help of others, that supports a differently gendered ‘true self’
d) transsexuals in constructing self-stories try to forget what happened to them in childhood
e) all of the above

Question 27:


a) The initial stage, first doubts, is a period through which individuals start to question roles and identities that they have taken for granted
b) The second stage, seeking and weighing alternatives, is a period when individuals are ready to inform others that they have left an old role behind.
c) The third stage, turning point, is reached when the individual decided that there is no turning back.
d) The final stage, creating an ex-role, involves adjusting to the new self-definition, including how to manage the new presentation of self and dealing with one’s own and others’ expectations attached to the identity.
e) The fourth stage, announcing to the world, involves telling others that you have left the old role.

Question 28:


a) In making sense of the world, we are constructing the world in particular ways.
b) If we see children as a separate category with certain identifiable characteristics, this is because we construct children this way.
c) When our constructions shift, these shifts are due to the activities of claims-makers.
d) People categories are the slots we create to describe different types of people that exist in the world.
e) If attitudes toward homosexuality and the rights of homosexuals is different today, it is because of the claims-making activities of the gay rights movement.

Question 29:


a) as the result of claims-making on the part of pediatric radiologists who drew attention to the problem of ‘beaten children’
b) when child abuse was constructed as a social problem
c) and two new people categories were created: ‘the abused child’ and ‘the child abuser’
d) and gave rise to categories such as ‘family violence counsellor’
e) all of the above

Question 30:


a) there are top-down forces associated with globalization that serve to colonize the self
b) globalization disrupts or erases traditional roles that are no longer needed when corporations shift production to regions with lower labour costs
c) corporations create new roles required for global consumption and production
d) those hurt by globalization create grassroots organizations and social movements that facilitate resistance
e) all of the above