Deck 6: Groups, networks, and Organizations

Question 1

Reference groups provide us:

A) the ability to be concerned with accomplishing a task
B) the strict conformity to rigid organizational structures
C) the impersonal anonymity of modern life
D) a standard for judging one's attitudes and behaviors
E) an organizational system by which to judge the behaviors of others

Answer 1

D

Question 2

People milling around in crowds,waiting for a bus,or strolling on a beach make up a social:

A) group
B) triad
C) aggregate
D) category
E) network

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Which is more likely to be an in-group?

A) primary group
B) secondary group
C) reference group
D) social category
E) social aggregate

Answer 3

A

Question 4

A person might want to be part of a secondary group to

A) accomplish a specific goal, such as graduating from college
B) have a sense of closeness and camaraderie
C) associate with people who care about you and your future
D) appreciate the importance of sacrificing individual needs for the group's goals
E) understand why members of that group get along so well

Question 5

At Jamie's high school,the "jocks" made fun of the drama club members.This increased the bonding and sense of loyalty among the jocks; therefore,we could consider the jocks:

A) an out-group
B) an in-group
C) a network
D) a social category
E) antisocial

Question 6

Which of the following is a social aggregate?

A) an unmarried couple who have been living together for less than one year
B) middle-class Asian American women
C) people waiting at Terminal C for flight 181
D) your family
E) all of the above

Question 7

A racist skinhead group whose members consider themselves part of a brotherhood that illustrates disdain and prejudicial attitudes toward Jewish and African American people could be classified as a(n):

A) in-group
B) out-group
C) dyad
D) triad
E) aggregate

Question 8

People sharing a common characteristic,such as gender,occupation,or ethnicity,but not necessarily interacting with each other are called a social:

A) triad
B) group
C) aggregate
D) category
E) network

Question 9

Psychologists study the emotions and behaviors of one person.Sociologists,on the other hand,study the patterns within groups.What is the smallest size that can make up a social group?

A) an ego and an alter ego
B) a dyad
C) a triad
D) a family
E) a bureaucracy

Question 10

for a reference group to be effective,it must meet which of the following criteria?

A) have active members
B) be considered a primary group
C) have members who interact
D) have members who spend 5 to 10 hours a month with group leaders
E) have members who identify with each other or the group's goal

Question 11

Which of the following arrangements facilitate(s)relationships and social interaction?

A) the economic homogeneity of gated communities where like-minded people relate to one another
B) the universal planning architecture of the workplace environments in the 1980s and early 1990s
C) diverse and multifunction communities with extensive street traffic
D) workplace situations where different activities and workers are segregated, building camaraderie among similar employees
E) communities in which the activities are directed toward the backyard rather than the street

Question 12

Which of the following is true?

A) A person measures his or her own worth by the standards of a reference group.
B) One must belong to a group for it to be one's reference group.
C) Reference groups are always primary groups.
D) All of the above.
E) None of the above.

Question 13

Which of the following is an example of a primary group?

A) a student and her professor
B) a customer and the salesclerk
C) the student council president and the president of the university
D) a high school girl's clique
E) two estranged brothers

Question 14

People who share common characteristics make up a:

A) social network
B) social group
C) social category
D) social aggregate
E) society

Question 15

Which of the following is a social group?

A) a couple married less than one year
B) everyone in your sociology class who has brown hair
C) people waiting at Terminal C for flight 181
D) passengers on flight 181
E) Microsoft stockholders

Question 16

The rich and varied group life of societies reflects:

A) how we conform to the wishes of transformative leaders
B) our need to congregate and belong
C) how we resist governments
D) our natural tendency to exclude others
E) the fact that most people do not have a self-identity

Question 17

Which of the following best describes the relationship between group size,intimacy,and stability?

A) Larger groups, such as families with more than three children, are more intimate than small families-with one child-because everyone must look after everyone else.
B) Larger groups, such as fraternities, are less intimate than small cliques, but the fraternities are a more stable group.
C) Dyads are the most stable and enduring of all social groups.
D) Triads are more intimate than dyads because members are working to keep the group together.
E) Larger groups are more fragile and less stable than groups of two.

Question 18

When three best friends-Jose,Martin,and George-get together every friday night,Jose usually decides what the group will do.However,one night when Jose said he wanted to go bowling,Martin and George told Jose that they had decided that the group was going to the movies.This is known as:

A) transformative leadership
B) negative alliance
C) dyad coalition
D) revolutionary coalitions
E) a threat to group stability

Question 19

Dyads are fragile social groups because:

A) if one person leaves, the group disappears
B) one member can brainwash another
C) they keep individuals from forming other relationships
D) the relationships are too intense
E) members have a hard time identifying with the group

Question 20

A mother and daughter enrolled in a large introductory sociology class would be considered a:

A) triad
B) primary group
C) secondary group
D) social category
E) aggregate group

Question 21

What term do sociologists use to refer to a group with an identifiable membership that engages in concerted collective actions to achieve a common purpose?

A) primary group
B) secondary group
C) in-group
D) out-group
E) organization

Question 22

Which of the following is an example of an organization?

A) a hospital
B) the phone company
C) the utility company
D) a prison
E) all of the above

Question 23

formal organizations:

A) are rationally designed to achieve their objectives
B) often employ explicit rules, regulations, and procedures
C) have risen to prominence in modern societies largely because of their legal stature
D) all of the above
E) none of the above

Question 24

The relations between people as stated in the rules of an organization are:

A) formal relations
B) informal relations
C) primary groups
D) surveillance
E) flexible

Question 25

What did we learn about students' willingness to obey authority in the Stanley Milgram study?

A) People will follow an authority figure's orders regardless of the pain they might be inflicting on others.
B) People will organize and establish their own rules, eliminating the expert.
C) People will establish relationships among themselves, creating an in-group and an out-group.
D) No one will obey orders that have negative consequences for other people.
E) All of the above.

Question 26

In general,women tend to have _______________ ties within job market networks than men.

A) weaker
B) more familial
C) more consistent
D) more social
E) stronger

Question 27

Soloman Asch's experiment illustrated that:

A) primary groups are the most influential groups in our lives
B) people stammered and fidgeted before speaking out against group conformity
C) many people are willing to discount their own perceptions rather than go against group consensus
D) the last person to answer did not feel the need to conform or bow to group pressure
E) most people will express their own beliefs without considering the group opinion

Question 28

The first systematic interpretation of modern organizations was developed by:

A) Émile Durkheim
B) Karl Marx
C) Max Weber
D) Michel foucault
E) Alexis de Tocqueville

Question 29

All large organizations tend to be _______________ according to Max Weber.

A) bureaucracies
B) primary groups
C) inefficient
D) rational
E) Weberian

Question 30

Stanley Milgram's study on authority and obedience demonstrated that even in extraordinary situations,ordinary people will:

A) conform to the expectations that they have for themselves
B) resist authority
C) obey those in positions of power
D) exclude others
E) conform to the directives of transactional leaders

Question 31

Stanley Milgram's experiment on obedience to authority occurred more than 40 years ago.Scientists do not replicate his experiment and update the findings because:

A) more students are working away from campus and would not be available to participate
B) universities are increasingly under pressure to reduce costs on lab and experiment work
C) once the findings of a study are published, duplicating the research is a waste of time and money
D) universities have installed increased research protocols to protect subjects
E) the findings were so conclusive that there is no need to replicate the experiment

Question 32

Recent sociological studies on the relationship between social networks and health outcomes such as obesity demonstrate that:

A) people develop their ideas about what is acceptable behavior by looking at those in their social groups
B) health outcomes such as obesity are purely biological
C) health outcomes such as obesity are purely social
D) people develop their ideas about what is acceptable behavior from television
E) health care professionals are ignoring the obesity epidemic in the United States

Question 33

The Internet fosters the creation of relationships that often do not come with the emotional and social baggage or constraints that are involved in traditional face-to-face interactions.This allows participants to:

A) offer and receive support that people may not be able to find in their communities
B) participate in impersonal and fleeting relationships
C) participate in off-limits or intimate encounters that could be deemed inappropriate in face-to-face contexts
D) find information or answers to questions that people may be too embarrassed to ask their teachers, parents, and/or friends
E) all of the above

Question 34

Introductory sociology classes tend to have fairly large enrollments,perhaps more than 100 students.In contrast,graduate seminars have small enrollments,usually fewer than 15 students.How does this difference in enrollment influence the dynamics of the different classes?

A) Students in the introductory classes are less likely to skip class because they want to spend time with all of their friends.
B) It is more acceptable and less noticeable to skip a graduate seminar because graduate students have many other responsibilities.
C) If a student skips the introductory class, it will have little or no effect on the class, whereas if a student skips the seminar, it will influence the class more.
D) In the larger class, the professor makes a point to learn the students' names because attendance is more important for freshmen than graduate students.
E) Enrollments do not influence classroom dynamics; only the professor can have such an impact.

Question 35

The word bureaucracy,as coined by Monsieur de Gournay,literally means:

A) terrible organization
B) the rule of officials
C) large table
D) people are furniture
E) rule by pipsqueaks

Question 36

A large group of people that engages in concerted collective actions to achieve specific objectives is called:

A) an oligarchy
B) an organization
C) a primary group
D) a peer group
E) globalization

Question 37

Which of the following is true regarding social networks?

A) It's not what you know but who you know.
B) Not all networks are social groups.
C) People depend on social networks to gain advantage.
D) All of the above.
E) None of the above.

Question 38

The music market study demonstrated that groups have the influence to shape:

A) how we think about others' musical choices
B) our personal taste and decisions regarding music
C) how music companies limit our music choices
D) how the Internet has hurt small bands
E) what music is played on radio stations

Question 39

People in modern societies depend on _______________ to take care of everything from how we are born,to our daily supply of running water,and even to the way we die.

A) nature
B) organizations
C) the spiritual world
D) tradition
E) primary groups

Question 40

A person who has the ability to influence other members of a group is called:

A) a nonconformist
B) a leader
C) the head of the group
D) a revolutionary
E) a network node

Question 41

Research by John Meyer and Brian Rowan found that the _______________ in a bureaucracy are often ceremonial or ritual,serving mainly to justify the way things are really done.

A) formal procedures
B) informal relations
C) primary groups
D) traditions
E) surveillance systems

Question 42

According to Michel foucault,organizations "efficiently distribute bodies" and activities through the use of:

A) democracy
B) timetables
C) the clan model
D) the hierarchy of authority
E) discriminatory surveillance of women and people of color

Question 43

Regarding bureaucracies,Max Weber concluded that the closer they were to the ideal type,the more they would become:

A) ineffective in achieving their objectives
B) effective in achieving their objectives
C) loose and informal
D) like a feudal estate
E) like a democracy

Question 44

Michel foucault's term for the supervision of activities in organizations is:

A) power
B) bureaucracy
C) democracy
D) surveillance
E) the clan model

Question 45

Which of the following is problematic in a rigid bureaucratic organization?

A) efficiency
B) rationality
C) overt discrimination
D) innovation
E) all of the above

Question 46

Which of the following is among the characteristics of Max Weber's ideal type of bureaucracy?

A) Ownership is not in the hands of the workers.
B) There is a complete separation between work and home life.
C) Each job has a definite and fixed salary attached to it.
D) A set of rules governs the conduct of officials at all levels of the organization.
E) All of the above.

Question 47

Which of the following resemble prisons in their use of physical separation and surveillance to maximize control over individuals according to Michel foucault?

A) factories
B) schools
C) hospitals
D) all of the above
E) none of the above

Question 48

Robert Michels saw that in large-scale organizations and in societies dominated by such organizations,power is inevitably concentrated at the top.He called this the:

A) clan model
B) iron law of oligarchy
C) panopticon
D) surveillance society
E) insane asylum

Question 49

According to Michel foucault,timetables:

A) efficiently distribute paychecks
B) regulate activities across space and time
C) allow workers to organize according to their managers
D) allow managers to monitor the behavior of employees when they are not working
E) efficiently and equally distribute duties among managers and employees

Question 50

Max Weber believed that _______________ was the only way to cope with the administrative needs of large social systems.

A) tradition
B) bureaucracy
C) surveillance
D) emotion
E) charismatic authority

Question 51

Michel foucault showed that the physical architecture occupied by an organization reflects its:

A) level of debt
B) age
C) system of authority
D) gender distribution of its employees
E) location within a city or rural setting

Question 52

Peter Blau studied _______________ in a government agency that allowed more flexibility than was possible within the formal structure of the bureaucracy.

A) formal relations
B) informal relations
C) secondary groups
D) official rules
E) surveillance

Question 53

Some analysts conclude that we now live in a(n)_______________ in which information about our lives is gathered by all kinds of organizations.

A) clan model
B) iron law of oligarchy
C) observer society
D) surveillance society
E) insane asylum

Question 54

The increasing use of "high tech" in the workplace is leading to the development of _______________ of workers.

A) one big class
B) two classes
C) three distinct classes
D) infinite classes
E) no classes

Question 55

Information about our lives is gathered by all types of organizations.This is called a:

A) Big Brother society
B) surveillance society
C) social network society
D) bureaucratic society
E) panopticon society

Question 56

Ideal bureaucratic systems that Weber describes tend to reinforce the:

A) rise of numerous unofficial ways of doing things because of the lack of flexibility in completing tasks in a bureaucracy
B) formal rules that legitimize and justify ways in which tasks are carried out
C) organizational tension between male authority figures and female subordinates
D) satisfaction at work thanks to emphasized organizational techniques
E) legitimate need for official scheduling and emphasis on task-based assignments

Question 57

Max Weber likened bureaucracies to _______________ operating on the principle of _______________.

A) machines; rationality
B) organisms; evolution
C) men; emotionalism
D) rivers; erosion
E) none of the above

Question 58

_______________ is changing the face of many organizations,enabling them to avoid layoffs by allowing workers to telecommute,or work from home as independent contractors.

A) Information technology
B) Bureaucracy
C) Surveillance
D) The clan system
E) None of the above; no one works from home anymore.

Question 59

Oligarchy means:

A) rule by the few
B) corporate resistance
C) specialization and expertise in bureaucracy
D) anarchy
E) rule by a single person

Question 60

Which of the following is a disadvantage of telecommuting?

A) Workers lose the casual interaction that occurs around watercoolers.
B) Women have to spend more time with domestic chores.
C) Workers can cheat on their time cards by saying they worked more hours than they really did.
D) It creates a two-strata employment system of technology experts and less autonomous clerical workers.
E) All of the above.

Question 61

A good example of alliances in triads can be illustrated in the television show Survivor when contestants form special relationships with each other to avoid being eliminated at the end of each week.

Question 62

Strategic alliances formed among the largest corporations for the purposes of planning production and managing problems are known as:

A) network enterprises
B) enterprise webs
C) the World Wide Web
D) corporate socialism
E) social corporatism

Question 63

The influence of organizations over our lives today is entirely beneficial.

Question 64

Which of the following is an advantage of networked organizations over traditional formal bureaucracies?

A) Networked organizations are more hierarchical, permitting more efficient decision making.
B) Networked organizations are more decentralized, allowing a freer flow of information.
C) Networked organizations stifle creativity in problem solving.
D) Networked organizations operate independently of other organizations.
E) All of the above.

Question 65

According to Manuel Castells,organizations and businesses are more likely to succeed if they compete against all other businesses and organizations.

Question 66

Compare the research findings of Soloman Asch and Stanley Milgram regarding conformity.Why did the subjects respond the way they did in each of these studies?

Question 67

Discuss how social networks facilitate the reproduction of existing inequalities.Pay particular attention to the position of women,lower socioeconomic classes,and minorities in networks.Be sure to discuss the impact of the Internet on these issues.

Question 68

Two people can be a social group.

Question 69

Stanley Milgram's research was prompted by the predominant philosophical question concerning Nazi Germany.The shock of thinking,"How could ordinary churchgoing citizens go along with and even participate in the mass extermination of Jews,Gypsies,gays and lesbians,and any other people who did not conform to group consensus?" prompted many social scientists to examine conforming to authority and group consensus.

Question 70

Telecommuting saves companies money and improves all employees' work satisfaction.

Question 71

Compare the dynamics of dyads,triads,and larger groups.In which groups are the relationships more intense? Which are more stable? Why?

Question 72

What is disintegrating in the globalized economy according to Manuel Castells?

A) traditional bureaucracy
B) networks
C) large corporations
D) gender relationships
E) mentoring

Question 73

formal relations in an organization are those that are determined by an official system of authority.

Question 74

Modern organizations tend to occupy buildings that share common architectural characteristics with buildings of other organizations,no matter what the type of organization.

Question 75

The higher a person's position in an organization,the more that person's behavior is under surveillance according to Michel foucault.

Question 76

Charles Horton Cooley worried about the loss of intimacy as secondary groups became more prominent and pervasive.Émile Durkheim and Georg Simmel saw some benefits to the development of more secondary groups.What do you think about the trend toward more secondary-group relationships in modern society?

Question 77

International organizations just recently emerged with communication and information technology.

Question 78

The McDonaldization of society refers to the:

A) obesity epidemic in American society
B) taking over of key authority positions by baby boomers
C) increased uniformity and rationality of society due to automation
D) phenomenal success of McDonald's restaurants as a model for other companies
E) increased number of gated communities in urban and suburban areas

Question 79

The maintenance of written and computerized records by modern organizations is a form of subtle surveillance.

Question 80

One of the chief functions of advertising is to create a set of imaginary reference groups that will influence our buying habits.