Sociology as a Perspective

After a careful study and a deeper research on an introduction to sociology, I have come to understand that no problem can be solved well enough if one does not have the sociological perspective which is defined as a way of looking at the world through a sociological lens. In fact, there is the need of the lens that will help one to view situations and have the eye to emerge through different views to solve that problem. This mirror has become a doorway that will help one to have a beginner’s mind to approach problems.

These are the details of the three most common suicides. Egoistic suicide is committed by people who are weak and supported by membership in a cohesive social group. They start to depend a huge amount on themselves than on group goals and rules of conduct to sustain them in their lives. When stressful times are around they feel isolated and helpless. Altruistic suicide is committed by people who are extremely committed to group norms and objectives and who notice their own lives as insignificant. These suicides involved dying for some type of cause. Anomic

C. Wright Mills defined sociological perspective as the ability to “think yourself away from the familiar routines of everyday life” and “the vivid awareness of the relationship between experience and the wider society.”

The sociological imagination gives a reflective view, of what is happening in society and explains the relationship of an individual in a society. It adds value to the study of social life by being able to critique taken for granted assumptions and asks questions to view these assumptions in a new way. The use of applying sociological imagination can be seen in the study of everyday life and increases the understanding of an individual's placement in society.

Sociology consists of studying the behavior of humans in their daily interactions with others by use of the scientific method. However, the scientific method alone can only tell you what you are looking for in the selected data, omitting the possible bigger picture. With combination of C. Wright Mills’s concept of sociological imagination, we are able to step out of our mindset and attempt to view social problems and/ or issues in the most unbiased way possible.

A lot of social factors can influence a person’s behavior and that person’s behavior contributes to large scale social issues. Take obesity for example. In the U.S. society obesity is a huge problem and the NCHS states that “more than one-third of the adults in the United States are obese.” Obesity can lead to an abundance of health problems as well, which is why many people exercise to avoid it. Therefore, obesity is a large force in society that encourages people to exercise. With more and more people

Symbolic interactionism is the first of the three theoretical perspectives in Sociology. This avenue of examining sociological factors looks at more personal interactions than the other two perspectives. Sociologist observe patterns and behaviors of these smaller interactions to define, or redefine, the use and evolution of symbols in society. Some sociologist see this approach as being too focused on one person’s view and take on society rather than trying to understand society as a functioning whole (Turner, "Symbolic Interaction Theory”). One example of symbolic interactionism put forth by Erving Goffman (1974) uses Roger, an engineer, as an example. Even though he and his parents believe that Roger is an amazing engineer, their perspective would not take into account that Roger’s boss found his skills to be insufficient and fired him. Without combining these two perspectives, that of Roger and his parents and of his boss, there is not a complete understanding of Roger and his skills, or lack there of. The following two perspectives in Sociology examine society at a larger scale.

Sociology is a study of social behavior and human groups, mainly focuses on social relationships; such as, how it influences people's behavior, society, and how the relationship either develops or changes. Sociology helps explain what sociological imagination it. Therefore, in explanation C. Wright Mills is a sociologist and he described sociological imagination as an awareness of an relationship between an individual and society, for both today and in the past (Mills [1959] 2000a). Sociological Imagination lets people see links between immediate, personal social settings and remote, impersonal social world that surrounds and helps shape who we are. In addition, sociological imagination is basically looking at things in a different perspective;

The sociological imagination is the practice of being able to “think ourselves away” from the familiar routines of our daily lives in order to look at them with fresh, critical eyes. It is a different way to look at the things and look outside from the box”. To understand one’s own self, we must understand the relationship between a self and the society. This concept was created by C. Wright Mills. He also stated that the sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society that is its task and it promises.

In “The Promise of Sociology”, C. Wright Mills introduces the concept know as the Sociological Imagination (Elwell, 2013). According to Mills, sociological imagination is all about determining the relationship between ordinary lives of people and the wider social forces. In other words, sociological Imagination differentiates between a “personal trouble” and a “public issue”. It helps us identify the relationship between our own individual troubles and problems that are on a larger scale (Elwell, 2013).

Sociologically you can break the way we view this world down into three major categories. Those categories include structural functionalism, conflict theory and symbolic interactionism. These terms may seem intimidating when you first see them but they are fairly easy to understand. Let’s take a step back and understand what a theory is before we jump into the explanations of the three sociological viewpoints. A theory, according to the text is a set of ideas that tries to explain the known facts of a subject in a way that almost everyone can understand. A way to test a theory is to determine whether it explains all known facts in a sensible and reasonable way.

In chapter one of our book it is talking about the sociological perspective. Sociology is defined as the systematic study of human society. It is explained that sociological perspective is seeing the common in the specific. Sociologists look for common patterns in the behavior of certain people. I found it very interesting in chapter one where it states that higher class white men are more likely to commit suicide than any other population and that between genders; men are more likely to commit suicide. This is interesting because I would have thought the roles were reversed. I would have thought that women are more likely to commit suicide because women are more emotional than men. Later on in the chapter it goes on to talk about how to apply sociological perspective. It can be applied in three different ways. It can be applied in one’s life, one’s work, and in studying sociology. When we apply sociological perspective to our lives we are more likely to become active and more aware. After applying sociological perspective we begin to think more critically in our everyday lives. There are three major theoretical approaches. The structural-functional approach is the basic layout for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work simultaneously to stimulate harmony and strength. The social-conflict approach sees society as a place of inequality that produces struggle and change. Lastly is the symbolic-interaction approach. This approach sees that

As conceived by C. Wright Mills, sociological imagination is the mental ability to establish intelligible relations among social structure and personal biography that is observing and seeing the impact of society over our private lives. Sociological imagination helps an individual to understand on a much larger scale the meaning and effect of society on of one’s daily life experience. People blame themselves for their own personal problems and they themselves are responsible for their personal issues. Whether they fail or succeed, rich or poor, whatever the outcome, they find themselves responsible. C, Wright Mills allows us to see that sometimes that the problems we have are structural and that we are not the sole contributors to some problems we face. The structure and society at large play a very important role also in contributing to some of the issues we deem personal and private.

Sociology is a science which study on relationship between the self and the society and their influences on each other. In order to survive we need each other. We cannot live by our own, so we are not independent individuals in the sociological world. Sociology also helps us to recognize our position in the society by our “sociological imagination.” An American sociologist C. Wright Mills created the term sociological imagination to know our interdependent relationship between who we are as individual and the influences around us that shape our lives. By imagining how our actions might look to another person, we can have a better understanding on ourselves and our social worlds.

Egoistic suicide is a result of a lack of integration; altruistic suicide is a result of too much integration; anomic suicide is a result of too little regulation; and fatalistic suicide is a result of too much regulation (MGH, 2004)