MCQs on Sociology

Social life overwhelmingly regulates the Behaviour of humans, largely because humans lack the instincts that guide most Animal behavior. Humans, therefore, depend on social institutions and organizations to inform their decisions and actions. Given the important role organizations play in influencing human action, it is sociology’s task to discover how organizations affect the behavior of persons, how they are established, how organizations interact with one another, how they decay, and, ultimately, how they disappear. Among the most basic organizational structures are economic, religious, educational, and political institutions, as well as more specialized institutions such as the family, the community, the military, peer groups, clubs, and volunteer associations.

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Sociology, as a generalizing social science, is surpassed in its breadth only by anthropology—a discipline that encompasses archaeology, physical anthropology, and linguistics. The broad nature of sociological inquiry causes it to overlap with other social sciences such as economics, political science, psychology, geography, education, and law. Sociology’s distinguishing feature is its practice of drawing on a larger societal context to explain social phenomena.

Multiple Choice Questions:

1. The system under which boys and girls are allowed to mix with each other and are given maximum permissible mixing facility by society before marriage is known as:

1. 1.  probationary marriage
   2.  experimental marriage
   3.  companionate marriage
   4.  none of these

Ans. (A)

In Probationary marriage, a tribal youth lives in the house of his sweetheart for weeks or months together. Thereafter, if both the boy and the girl like each other, they may enter into wedlock or in case of dislike they may be separated.

2. Who said, “Man is a Social Animal”?

1. 1. Aristotle
   2. Comte
   3.  Plato
   4.  Socrates

Ans Option (A) 

Man is a social animal and that, he loves to live in a society with other human beings, is a general conception of his basic behavioral pattern. Almost all sociological thinkers agree that there is a very close relationship between the individual and society. Whether any particular individual could have been nurtured under conditions in which there did not exist any society is a different question; but the fact remains that without a social environment, be it his home, his community, or his state, no stability would be brought to his status as an individual.

3. When did the term sociology coined?

1. 1. 1838
   2. 1732
   3. 1835 
   4. 1650

Ans. Auguste Comte is considered one of the founders of sociology. He coined the term “sociology” in 1838 by combining the Latin term socius (companion, associate) and the Greek term logia (study of, speech). Comte hoped to unify all the sciences under sociology. He believed sociology held the potential to improve society and direct human activity, including the other sciences.

4. What is the meaning of logos in the term sociology?

1. 1. Science/Study 
   2. social
   3. Society 
   4. Companion

Ans. Option A, The word Sociology originates from two words: ‘Socius’ of the Latin language and ‘Logos’ of the Greek language. ‘Socius’ means ‘companion’ and ‘logos’ means science or study. Thus, Sociology is the science of human society.

5. Wright Mills was a ……………..sociologist. 

1. 1. American 
   2. British
   3. Russian
   4. French

Ans. Option A, Charles Wright Mills (August 28, 1916 – March 20, 1962) was an American sociologist, and a professor of sociology at Columbia University from 1946 until his death in 1962. Mills was published widely in popular and intellectual journals.

6. Who authored the book ‘Social Organization: A Study of the Larger Mind’? 

1. 1. Charles Cooley 
   2. E. B. Tylor 
   3. F. Tonnies 
   4. F D Saussure

Ans. Option A, This classic text has set a standard for American sociology. Cooley provides analysis without empiricism, applying psychological insight to his study of the individual and collective self. First published in 1909, this work attempts to motivate man and society to be more responsive to each other.”The style of his book is clear and attractive, the text abounding in happy quotation.”–Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

7. What is the type of control organized through bureaucracy? 

1. 1. officials 
   2. informal 
   3. Formal
   4. Court

Ans. Option C, Bureaucratic control is the use of formal systems of rules, roles, records, and rewards to influence, monitor, and assess employee performance. Rules set the requirements for behavior and define work methods. Roles assign responsibilities and establish levels of authority.

8. Who defined “ joint family as a group of people who generally lives under one roof, who eat food cooked at one hearth, who hold property in common and who participate in common worship and are related to each other as some particular type of kindred?” 

1. 1. Nimcoff 
   2. Karve 
   3. Cooley
   4. Sriniva

Ans. Option B,  Iravati Karve defines a joint family as “a group of people who generally live under one roof, who eat food cooked at one hearth, who hold property in common and who participate in common family worship and are related to each other as some particular type of kindred.”

9. Who authored the book ‘The Psychology of Social Norms’? 

1. 1. Robert Bierstadt 
   2. M F Nimkoff 
   3. Muzafer Sherif
   4. W G Ogburn

Ans. Option C , Muzafer Sherif was a Turkish-American social psychologist. He helped develop social judgment theory and realistic conflict theory. Sherif was a founder of modern social psychology who developed several unique and powerful techniques for understanding social processes, particularly social norms, and social conflict.

10. Who wrote the book ‘Mind, Self and Society’? 

1. 1. Homans 
   2. Giddens 
   3. Mead
   4. Gramsci

Ans. Option C , George Herbert Mead was an American philosopher, sociologist, and psychologist, primarily affiliated with the University of Chicago, where he was one of several distinguished pragmatists. George H. Mead shows a psychological analysis through behavior and interaction of an individual’s self with reality.The behavior is mostly developed through sociological experiences and encounters. These experiences lead to individual behaviors that make up the social factors that create the communications in society. 

11. Who wrote the famous book ‘Folkways’?

1. 1. Merton 
   2. MacIver
   3. Sumner
   4. Albert

Ans. Option C , William Graham Sumner was an influential professor of sociology and politics at Yale College and president of the American Sociological Association from 1908 to 1909, and it was in this early classic textbook of sociology, first published in 1906, that he coined the term folkways, to denote the habits and customs of a society. He fully explores the concept here, examining their influence on: – the struggle for existence – labor and wealth – slavery – abortion, infanticide, and the killing of the elderly – cannibalism – sex and marriage – blood revenge and primitive justice – sacral harlotry and child sacrifice – popular sports and drama – education and history – and much more. American academic and author WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER (1840-1910) wrote numerous and varied books including Andrew Jackson as a Public Man (1882) and What Social Classes Owe to Each Other (1883).

12. Which theory analyzes the concepts like personal troubles of milieu and public issues of social structure? 

1. 1. Sociological Imagination 
   2. Chicago School 
   3. Synthetic School
   4. Formalistic School

Ans. Option A, The sociological imagination is making the connection between personal challenges and larger social issues. Mills identified “troubles” (personal challenges) and “issues” (larger social challenges), also known as biography, and history, respectively.

The “Sociological Imagination” was introduced by C. Wright Mills in 1959. This book was an insightful critique of the research enterprise in sociology. Mills left no stone unturned within sociology with respect to his critical examination of the discipline, including the works of the renowned sociologist Talcott Parsons as well as his own works. Throughout his career until his untimely death, Mills struggled with the question, “what is the nature of the social sciences.” He uniquely described the “promise” of sociology for a world of people trapped in a virtual maze of “private troubles.”

13. When did the book ‘The Sociological Imagination was published? 

1. 1. 1959 
   2. 1911 
   3. 1905 
   4. 1922

Ans. Option A , C. Wright Mills is best remembered for his highly acclaimed work The Sociological Imagination, in which he set forth his views on how social science should be pursued. Hailed upon publication as a cogent and hard-hitting critique, The Sociological Imagination took issue with the ascendant schools of sociology in the United States, calling for a humanist sociology connecting the social, personal, and historical dimensions of our lives. The sociological imagination Mills calls for is a sociological vision, a way of looking at the world that can see links between the apparently private problems of the individual and important social issues.
Leading sociologist Amitai Etzioni brings this fortieth anniversary edition up to date with a lucid introduction in which he considers the ways social analysis has progressed since Mills first published his study in 1959. A classic in the field, this book still provides rich food for our imagination.

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