Sociology is the systematic study of human society, social relationships, and the complex institutions that shape human behavior. By examining how social structures, culture, and power dynamics influence individuals, sociology bridges private troubles and public issues. Core areas of study include socialization, social stratification, deviance, cultural norms, and major theoretical paradigms like functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism. Engaging with sociological inquiry fosters deep critical thinking regarding systemic inequality and cultural dynamics. Mastering these concepts is essential for academic examinations in social sciences, civil service tests, and public policy analysis.
1. Who is widely considered the founding father of sociology and coined the term 'sociology' in 1838?
Correct Answer: b) Auguste Comte
Explanation:
Auguste Comte formulated the doctrine of positivism and is credited with coining the term 'sociology' to describe the scientific study of society.
2. Which sociological perspective views society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability?
Correct Answer: c) Structural Functionalism
Explanation:
Structural functionalism, associated with theorists like Emile Durkheim and Talcott Parsons, emphasizes social order, consensus, and systemic integration.
3. In Emile Durkheim's classic study on suicide, what term did he use to describe a state of normlessness or social instability?
Correct Answer: a) Anomie
Explanation:
Anomie refers to a condition of instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values, which Durkheim linked to rates of anomic suicide.
4. What is the primary focus of Karl Marx's conflict theory?
Correct Answer: b) The struggle between economic classes over scarce resources and power
Explanation:
Marx argued that history is driven by class struggle between the bourgeoisie (owners of the means of production) and the proletariat (wage laborers).
5. Which German sociologist introduced the concept of 'Verstehen' (empathetic understanding) as a methodological tool for studying social action?
Correct Answer: a) Max Weber
Explanation:
Max Weber advocated for 'Verstehen', meaning interpretive understanding, to comprehend the subjective meanings actors give to their own behavior.
6. What term did C. Wright Mills coin to describe the ability to grasp the interplay between individual biographies and broader historical forces?
Correct Answer: b) The Sociological Imagination
Explanation:
The sociological imagination enables individuals to see how personal troubles are often public issues rooted in social structure and history.
7. Which micro-level theoretical perspective focuses on everyday social interactions and the subjective meanings of symbols?
Correct Answer: b) Symbolic Interactionism
Explanation:
Symbolic interactionism examines how humans interact through shared symbols, language, and gestures in face-to-face settings.
8. Who developed the concept of the 'looking-glass self', suggesting that our self-image develops from how we think others perceive us?
Correct Answer: b) Charles Horton Cooley
Explanation:
Charles Horton Cooley proposed the looking-glass self, asserting that self-identity is a reflection of our perception of other people's reactions.
9. What does Erving Goffman's dramaturgical analysis compare social interaction to?
Correct Answer: b) A theatrical performance on a stage
Explanation:
Goffman used dramaturgical analysis, viewing social life as a stage where individuals manage impressions through front-stage and back-stage behavior.
10. What is 'socialization'?
Correct Answer: a) The process by which individuals learn and internalize the culture, values, and norms of their society
Explanation:
Socialization is the lifelong lifelong learning process through which humans acquire social competence and cultural membership.
11. Which term refers to the lifelong process of learning new norms, values, and behaviors when entering a drastically different social environment or institution?
Correct Answer: b) Resocialization
Explanation:
Resocialization occurs in total institutions (e.g., prisons, military boot camps) where previous socialization is stripped away to build a new identity.
12. What distinguishes a 'primary group' from a 'secondary group'?
Correct Answer: b) Primary groups are characterized by intimate, face-to-face association and cooperation; secondary groups are formal, impersonal, and task-oriented.
Explanation:
Cooley defined primary groups (like family and close friends) by deep emotional ties, whereas secondary groups (like coworkers or study groups) are instrumental and goal-driven.
13. According to Max Weber, what are the key characteristics of an ideal-type 'bureaucracy'?
Correct Answer: b) Hierarchy of authority, division of labor, written rules, impersonality, and technical competence
Explanation:
Weber's ideal-type bureaucracy represents an efficient, rationalized organizational structure based on formal rules and meritocratic principles.
14. What term did George Ritzer use to describe the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant come to dominate American society and the world?
Correct Answer: a) MacDonalization
Explanation:
McDonaldization refers to the spread of efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control characteristic of fast-food chains across institutional spheres.
15. What is 'deviance' in sociological terms?
Correct Answer: b) Any violation of norms, rules, or expectations within a given society
Explanation:
Deviance is socially constructed; what is considered deviant varies across cultures, time periods, and social contexts.
16. Which sociological theory of deviance, associated with Robert K. Merton, argues that deviance occurs when culturally approved goals cannot be attained through legitimate institutional means?
Correct Answer: b) Strain Theory (Anomie Theory of Deviance)
Explanation:
Merton's strain theory suggests that structural gaps between cultural goals and institutionalized means generate strain, leading to adaptive deviant behaviors.
17. What does Edwin Sutherland's 'Differential Association Theory' propose about deviant behavior?
Correct Answer: b) It is learned through interaction and communication within intimate primary groups.
Explanation:
Differential association posits that individuals learn criminal values, techniques, and attitudes through social interaction with significant others.
18. Which theory of deviance emphasizes that no act is inherently deviant until powerful groups label it as such?
Correct Answer: a) Labeling Theory (Social Reaction Theory)
Explanation:
Labeling theory, associated with Howard Becker and Edwin Lemert, focuses on how the application of deviant labels shapes secondary deviance and identity.
19. What is the distinction between 'primary deviance' and 'secondary deviance' according to labeling theory?
Correct Answer: b) Primary deviance involves initial norm violations that go largely unnoticed; secondary deviance occurs when an individual accepts the deviant label and organizes behavior around it.
Explanation:
Lemert distinguished between isolated rule-breaking (primary deviance) and deviant identity adoption following societal reaction (secondary deviance).
20. What is 'social stratification'?
Correct Answer: b) A system by which a society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy based on wealth, power, and prestige
Explanation:
Social stratification is a structural system of inequality dividing populations into hierarchical layers or strata.
21. How did Max Weber expand upon Karl Marx's view of social stratification?
Correct Answer: b) He proposed a three-component theory of stratification: class (economic position), status (social prestige), and party (political power).
Explanation:
Weber's multidimensional approach introduced status and power alongside economic class as distinct dimensions of stratification.
22. What is the difference between 'intergenerational mobility' and 'intragenerational mobility'?
Correct Answer: b) Intergenerational mobility compares children's social standing with their parents'; intragenerational mobility occurs within a single individual's lifetime.
Explanation:
Intergenerational mobility tracks class shifts across generations, whereas intragenerational mobility measures career shifts within one person's life.
23. What is 'cultural capital', a concept introduced by Pierre Bourdieu?
Correct Answer: b) Non-financial social assets (such as education, style of speech, tastes, and credentials) that promote social mobility
Explanation:
Bourdieu used cultural capital to explain how class advantages are transmitted across generations through embodied knowledge and educational credentials.
24. What does the term 'gender' signify in sociology, as distinct from 'sex'?
Correct Answer: b) Sex refers to biological and physiological differences; gender refers to the socially constructed behaviors, roles, and expectations associated with being male or female.
Explanation:
Sociologists distinguish between biological sex characteristics and gender as a cultural construct and set of social roles.
25. What is 'patriarchy'?
Correct Answer: b) A social system in which men hold primary power and dominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege, and control of property
Explanation:
Patriarchy is a structural system of male dominance and institutionalized gender inequality.
26. What is 'race' from a sociological perspective?
Correct Answer: b) A socially constructed category of people who share biologically transmitted traits that members of a society consider important
Explanation:
Sociologists view race as a social construct because physical traits carry no inherent genetic hierarchy, yet racial categories have profound social consequences.
27. What distinguishes 'ethnicity' from 'race'?
Correct Answer: a) Ethnicity refers to shared cultural heritage, language, and ancestry; race refers to socially defined physical characteristics.
Explanation:
Ethnicity is grounded in shared cultural identity, traditions, and historical origin, whereas race is linked to perceived physical phenotypes.
28. What is 'institutional racism' (systemic racism)?
Correct Answer: b) Systemic bias and discrimination built into the operational policies, practices, and structures of societal institutions (e.g., schools, criminal justice, housing)
Explanation:
Institutional racism operates through normal, established organizational routines that produce racially disparate outcomes regardless of individual intent.
29. What is the primary function of the family according to structural functionalist theory?
Correct Answer: b) To socialize children, regulate sexual behavior, provide social placement, and offer material/emotional security
Explanation:
Functionalists view the family as vital for societal survival, fulfilling essential tasks like reproduction, socialization, and emotional support.
30. What is 'secularization' in the sociology of religion?
Correct Answer: b) The historical decline in the social significance, influence, and institutional power of religion in society
Explanation:
Secularization thesis posits that as societies modernize and rationalize, religious institutions lose authority over public life and personal values.
31. Which sociologist argued that religion is the 'opium of the people', serving to dull the pain of oppression while maintaining capitalist inequality?
Correct Answer: c) Karl Marx
Explanation:
Marx viewed religion as an ideological tool that pacifies the working class with promises of heavenly rewards, distracting them from earthly exploitation.
32. How did Emile Durkheim define 'religion' in his functionalist study 'The Elementary Forms of Religious Life'?
Correct Answer: b) A unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things which unite into one single moral community called a church
Explanation:
Durkheim focused on the social function of religion, separating the sacred from the profane and emphasizing its role in building collective solidarity.
33. What is 'education' viewed as from a conflict theory perspective?
Correct Answer: b) An apparatus that reproduces social inequality and maintains class stratification across generations through the hidden curriculum
Explanation:
Conflict theorists argue that schools sort students by class background, reinforcing existing economic hierarchies rather than acting as pure meritocracies.
34. What does the term 'hidden curriculum' refer to in sociology of education?
Correct Answer: b) The unwritten, unofficial lessons, values, and behavioral norms transmitted in schools alongside academic subjects
Explanation:
The hidden curriculum teaches obedience, punctuality, conformity, and capitalist work discipline as implicit norms.
35. What is 'medicalization' in medical sociology?
Correct Answer: b) The process by which non-medical problems, human conditions, and behaviors come to be defined and treated as medical illnesses or disorders
Explanation:
Medicalization expands medical jurisdiction over aspects of life previously viewed as moral, legal, or normal variations (e.g., ADHD, alcoholism, aging).
36. What concept did Talcott Parsons introduce to describe the societal expectations and rights associated with being sick?
Correct Answer: b) The Sick Role
Explanation:
Parsons' sick role outlines temporary exemptions from normal social responsibilities coupled with the obligation to seek medical help and try to get well.
37. What is 'demography'?
Correct Answer: b) The scientific study of human populations, including size, composition, distribution, and changes through birth, death, and migration
Explanation:
Demography analyzes population dynamics using statistical measures like fertility rates, mortality rates, and migration patterns.
38. What does Demographic Transition Theory describe?
Correct Answer: b) The historical shift of populations from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates as a society industrializes
Explanation:
Demographic transition theory explains population growth patterns across four stages of economic and technological modernization.
39. What is 'gentrification' in urban sociology?
Correct Answer: b) The process of urban renewal and real estate reinvestment where middle- and upper-class people move into lower-income neighborhoods, displacing original residents
Explanation:
Gentrification transforms urban neighborhoods economically and culturally, often raising property values while causing residential displacement.
40. What theory, associated with Immanuel Wallerstein, views global economic inequality through a core, semi-periphery, and periphery division?
Correct Answer: b) World-Systems Theory
Explanation:
World-systems theory argues that the global capitalist economy is structured as a single system where core nations exploit peripheral nations for labor and raw materials.
41. What does Modernization Theory assert regarding global inequality?
Correct Answer: b) Global inequality is due to poor nations lagging behind in cultural values, technology, and economic institutions, which can be overcome through industrial development.
Explanation:
Modernization theory posits that low-income countries can develop economically by adopting Western industrial practices, capital investment, and cultural values.
42. What is 'social movement'?
Correct Answer: b) An organized, sustained collective action by groups of people aiming to promote or resist social, political, or cultural change
Explanation:
Social movements are collective, purposeful efforts outside formal institutions to transform or defend societal norms and power structures.
43. What does Resource Mobilization Theory emphasize in the study of social movements?
Correct Answer: b) That the success of social movements depends on their ability to acquire and mobilize resources such as money, labor, media access, and organizational leadership
Explanation:
Resource mobilization theory shifts focus from grievances alone to rational organizational strategies, funding, and structural resources.
44. What is 'collective behavior' in sociology?
Correct Answer: b) Relatively spontaneous, unstructured, and often short-lived social actions by groups of people responding to ambiguous situations (e.g., crowds, panics, fads)
Explanation:
Collective behavior contrasts with structured social movements, representing fluid group phenomena driven by emergent norms and mass contagion.
45. What is 'culture' in sociological analysis?
Correct Answer: b) The values, beliefs, behaviors, language, norms, and physical artifacts shared by a group and passed from one generation to the next
Explanation:
Culture encompasses both non-material elements (values, beliefs, norms) and material elements (objects, technology) that constitute a way of life.
46. What is the difference between 'folkways' and 'mores'?
Correct Answer: a) Folkways are minor norms for routine social interaction; mores are strict moral norms whose violation threatens societal well-being.
Explanation:
William Graham Sumner distinguished folkways (customs and etiquette) from mores (moral obligations carrying strong ethical significance).
47. What is 'ethnocentrism'?
Correct Answer: b) The practice of judging another culture by the standards and values of one's own culture, often viewing one's own group as superior
Explanation:
Ethnocentrism involves using one's native culture as the yardstick for measuring all other cultural ways, often breeding prejudice.
48. What is 'cultural relativism'?
Correct Answer: b) The practice of understanding and evaluating a culture on its own terms rather than judging it by the standards of another
Explanation:
Cultural relativism is a methodological principle urging sociologists to suspend ethnocentric judgments and analyze practices within their cultural context.
49. What distinguishes a 'subculture' from a 'counterculture'?
Correct Answer: b) Subcultures have distinct values and norms while remaining part of mainstream culture; countercultures actively reject and oppose key values of mainstream culture.
Explanation:
Subcultures (e.g., gamers, ethnic enclaves) coexist with dominant culture, whereas countercultures (e.g., 1960s hippies) explicitly challenge core societal norms.
50. What is 'cultural lag', a term coined by William F. Ogburn?
Correct Answer: b) The notion that non-material culture (such as values and laws) adapts slowly to rapid technological innovations and material changes
Explanation:
Cultural lag occurs when material technology outpaces ethical, legal, and institutional frameworks, creating social friction.
51. What is the primary objective of sociological research methods?
Correct Answer: b) To systematically collect empirical data and test hypotheses to understand social life objectively and reliably
Explanation:
Sociological research employs rigorous scientific methods (surveys, experiments, observations, interviews) to investigate empirical social realities.
52. What is the difference between 'quantitative research' and 'qualitative research'?
Correct Answer: a) Quantitative research uses numerical data and statistical analysis; qualitative research uses non-numerical data like words, observations, and meanings to understand social processes.
Explanation:
Quantitative methods measure variables statistically, whereas qualitative methods capture rich, descriptive, interpretive insights into social behavior.
53. What is 'participant observation' in sociological fieldwork?
Correct Answer: b) A qualitative research method where the researcher joins a group and participates in daily activities while observing social interactions
Explanation:
Participant observation (ethnography) allows researchers to immerse themselves in a community to gain deep insider perspectives on social norms.
54. What is the Hawthorne Effect in sociological research?
Correct Answer: a) The distortion of research results caused by subjects altering their behavior because they know they are being studied
Explanation:
The Hawthorne effect highlights how human subjects often change their natural habits when conscious of being observed by researchers.
55. What is the difference between an 'independent variable' and a 'dependent variable'?
Correct Answer: a) The independent variable is the cause; the dependent variable is the effect or outcome being measured.
Explanation:
In causal research hypotheses, the independent variable exerts an effect on the dependent variable.
56. What is 'validity' in sociological research measurement?
Correct Answer: b) The extent to which a research instrument accurately measures what it is intended to measure
Explanation:
Validity ensures that a study's operational definitions genuinely capture the theoretical concept under investigation.
57. What is 'reliability' in research methodology?
Correct Answer: a) Whether research findings can be replicated consistently using the same measurement procedures under identical conditions
Explanation:
Reliability refers to the stability and consistency of research instruments and data collection procedures.
58. What is 'sample' in survey research?
Correct Answer: b) A smaller subset of individuals drawn from a larger target population to participate in a study
Explanation:
Researchers study a representative sample to generalize findings back to the broader target population.
59. What is 'stratified random sampling'?
Correct Answer: b) Dividing the population into relevant subgroups (strata) and drawing random samples proportionally from each subgroup
Explanation:
Stratified random sampling ensures that key demographic subgroups are accurately represented in the final study sample.
60. What is 'spurious correlation'?
Correct Answer: b) A mathematical relationship between two variables that appears to be causal but is actually caused by a third, confounding variable
Explanation:
A spurious correlation tricks researchers into assuming direct causation when an unmeasured third variable explains both.
61. What does Max Weber's concept of the 'Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism' argue?
Correct Answer: b) Ascetic Calvinist religious values, emphasizing hard work, thrift, and worldly success as signs of salvation, helped foster the rise of modern capitalism.
Explanation:
Weber demonstrated how religious ideologies unintentionally provided cultural foundations for rationalized capitalist economic behavior.
62. What is 'alienation' according to Karl Marx's analysis of capitalist labor?
Correct Answer: b) The separation of workers from the products of their labor, the productive process, their human nature, and their fellow workers
Explanation:
Marx argued that under capitalism, factory labor turns work into a degrading external force, alienating human beings from their creative potential.
63. What is the 'iron law of oligarchy', formulated by Robert Michels?
Correct Answer: a) All complex organizations, regardless of how democratic they are initially, inevitably degenerate into rule by a small elite group.
Explanation:
Michels asserted that organizational complexity requires specialized leadership, leading inevitably to oligarchic control by officials.
64. What does structural functionalism mean by 'manifest functions'?
Correct Answer: b) Recognized and intended consequences of any social pattern or institution
Explanation:
Robert Merton distinguished between manifest functions (intended, obvious purposes) and latent functions (unintended consequences).
65. What does structural functionalism mean by 'latent functions'?
Correct Answer: b) Unrecognized and unintended consequences of any social pattern or institution
Explanation:
Latent functions are hidden or unintended outcomes, such as schools acting as childcare facilities or marriage markets.
66. What is 'collective effervescence', a term coined by Emile Durkheim?
Correct Answer: b) A communal experience where individuals feel a shared sense of transcendent energy, unity, and connection to a sacred moral community during rituals
Explanation:
Durkheim used collective effervescence to describe how ritual gatherings reinforce social solidarity and religious feelings.
67. What is 'social capital', as theorized by scholars like Robert Putnam?
Correct Answer: b) The networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, enabling that society to function effectively through trust and reciprocity
Explanation:
Social capital emphasizes the value of social networks, civic engagement, and community trust in generating cooperative social action.
68. What is 'intersectional theory' (intersectionality), popularized by Kimberlé Crenshaw?
Correct Answer: b) An analytical framework that examines how various social identities (such as race, gender, class, and sexuality) overlap, intersect, and compound systems of oppression and privilege
Explanation:
Intersectionality highlights that social categories do not act independently; individuals experience compounded marginalization or privilege based on intersecting identities.
69. What is 'ageism'?
Correct Answer: b) Prejudice and discrimination directed against individuals or groups based on their age, particularly older adults
Explanation:
Ageism involves systemic stereotypes, institutional bias, and discrimination against people based on age cohorts.
70. What does the 'graying of society' refer to?
Correct Answer: b) A demographic trend where the proportion of older adults (aged 65 and older) in a population increases due to rising life expectancy and declining birth rates
Explanation:
The graying of society represents a major global demographic shift with profound implications for healthcare, pension systems, and family structures.
71. What is 'environmental sociology'?
Correct Answer: b) The sociological study of the reciprocal interactions between human societies and the physical environment
Explanation:
Environmental sociology examines how social structures, capitalism, and cultural values contribute to ecological crises like climate change and environmental injustice.
72. What is 'environmental racism'?
Correct Answer: b) The systemic placement of toxic waste facilities, polluting factories, and environmental hazards in low-income and racial minority communities
Explanation:
Environmental racism highlights how systemic inequalities expose marginalized racial communities disproportionately to environmental hazards.
73. What is 'globalization' in contemporary sociology?
Correct Answer: b) The worldwide integration and intensification of economic, political, social, and cultural interactions across national borders
Explanation:
Globalization reflects compressed time-space realities driven by telecommunications, transnational corporations, and global migration flows.
74. What is 'postindustrial society'?
Correct Answer: b) A stage of societal development where the economy shifts from manufacturing goods to providing information, services, and high technology
Explanation:
Postindustrial societies (as theorized by Daniel Bell) are centered around knowledge industries, digital technology, and service employment.
75. What does the term 'digital divide' refer to?
Correct Answer: b) The socioeconomic inequality between groups regarding access to, use of, and knowledge of information and communication technologies like the internet
Explanation:
The digital divide highlights disparities in technological access based on social class, geography, race, and national development.
76. What is 'social change'?
Correct Answer: b) Significant alterations over time in behavior patterns, cultural values, social institutions, and social structure
Explanation:
Social change involves macro-level transformations in how societies are organized, governed, and culturally defined over historical time.
77. Which sociological perspective argues that social change occurs through dialectical class conflict leading to structural revolution?
Correct Answer: b) Conflict Theory
Explanation:
Conflict theorists view social change not as smooth evolutionary adaptation, but as the result of struggles between groups over power and resources.
78. What is 'rationalization', according to Max Weber's sociology?
Correct Answer: b) The historical process by which traditional, emotional, and superstitious worldviews are replaced by instrumental rationality, efficiency, and bureaucratic calculation
Explanation:
Weber argued that Western modernization was driven by rationalization, trapping individuals in what he called an 'iron cage' of bureaucracy.
79. What does the term 'total institution' refer to, as defined by Erving Goffman?
Correct Answer: b) An establishment where individuals are cut off from wider society for an appreciable period, leading an enclosed, socially managed life (e.g., prisons, mental hospitals)
Explanation:
Total institutions regulate all aspects of daily life under a single authority to resocialize or manage inmates.
80. What is 'social Darwinism'?
Correct Answer: b) The ideological application of Charles Darwin's theories of evolution and natural selection to human societies, arguing that social inequality is the result of natural survival of the fittest
Explanation:
Social Darwinism (championed by Herbert Spencer) was used to justify laissez-faire capitalism, imperialism, and social stratification as natural outcomes.
81. What is 'habitus', a key concept developed by Pierre Bourdieu?
Correct Answer: b) A system of embodied dispositions, habits, skills, and ways of perceiving the world acquired through one's social background and class position
Explanation:
Habitus explains how social structures become internalized as unconscious habits and tastes that guide individual action and reinforce class divides.
82. What is 'master status', a term coined by Everett Hughes?
Correct Answer: b) A status that has exceptional importance for social identity, often shaping a person's entire social life and how others perceive them (e.g., race, gender, disability)
Explanation:
A master status overrides other statuses, heavily influencing social interactions and personal identity.
83. What is the difference between 'ascribed status' and 'achieved status'?
Correct Answer: b) Ascribed status is social position received involuntarily at birth or assumed later in life; achieved status is social position earned largely through individual effort and ability.
Explanation:
Ascribed statuses (like race, sex, royal birth) are given, whereas achieved statuses (like doctor, felon, athlete) reflect accomplishments.
84. What is 'role strain'?
Correct Answer: b) Incompatibility among roles corresponding to a single status
Explanation:
Role strain occurs when a single social role contains conflicting demands (e.g., a professor needing to be both supportive and rigorously grading students).
85. What is 'role conflict'?
Correct Answer: a) Stress experienced when competing demands are placed on a person occupying two or more different statuses simultaneously
Explanation:
Role conflict arises when roles associated with multiple statuses clash, such as being both a mother and a corporate executive with overlapping deadlines.
86. What is 'groupthink', a concept coined by Irving Janis?
Correct Answer: b) A phenomenon where cohesive group members suppress critical dissent and independent evaluation in the interest of reaching consensus and harmony
Explanation:
Groupthink leads to poor decision-making because members conform to group pressure and avoid challenging flawed consensus.
87. What is 'stigma', as analyzed by Erving Goffman?
Correct Answer: b) A deeply discrediting attribute, social mark, or label that spoils a person's social identity and disqualifies them from full social acceptance
Explanation:
Goffman categorized stigmas into blemishes of character, physical deformities, and tribal stigmas of race, nation, or religion.
88. What does the 'Thomas Theorem' state in sociology?
Correct Answer: b) 'If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.'
Explanation:
Formulated by W.I. Thomas and Dorothy Swaine Thomas, this theorem emphasizes that subjective definitions of reality shape objective behavioral outcomes.
89. What is 'social integration'?
Correct Answer: c) The strength of ties that people have to their social groups, community, and society
Explanation:
Social integration measures how connected and bonded individuals feel to their wider social fabric, a key factor in Durkheim's suicide study.
90. What is the sociological significance of 'social institutions'?
Correct Answer: b) They are established, organized systems of social behavior and relationships (such as family, religion, education, economy, and politics) designed to meet basic societal needs.
Explanation:
Social institutions provide the structural backbone of society, channeling human behavior to fulfill enduring survival requirements.
