SSC 101 Introduction to Social Science Dr. D. Wills
Cal Poly Pomona Fall, 2005
Mid-Term Exam
Answer any eight (8) of the following questions in a few sentences or paragraphs, if necessary. This is an open-book, open-note test.
1. Identify and define the main approaches of political science.
2. What is ethnocentrism, and how does it relate to social science?
3. Why is instinct a tricky concept in psychology or the other social sciences?
4. Discuss at least one of the ethical problems that came up in Humphreys' "tea room" study and compare it to any of the studies in the chapter on experiments (e.g., electrocution).
5. What is scientific about the social sciences? What, if anything, is unscientific about them?
6. Philip K. Dick has written several stories that reflect on the theme of human abilities or characteristics in relation to technology and large institutions in society. Which stories have we read that most involve this theme, and what main points do they make?
7. What is meant by survey methodology? Describe and criticize the methodology developed for a class exercise.
8. Briefly describe what happens in the following film clip:
http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/crow/weirmovie.mov
Which of the social sciences we have studied might be interested in the content of the film you viewed? What might it mean to researchers in those fields?
9. Several foundational events and thinkers of the 19th century and earlier are mentioned in Part III and elsewhere in Zulke and Kirley. Choose one of them and say why that person or event is included in the lineage of social science.
10. In economics, what is the "law of diminishing return"? Do you think it is appropriate to apply this analysis to behavior other than investments, and why?
11. How do classifications such as the types of societies
Ch. 19 of Zulke help us to understand sociocultural evolution?
In what ways, if any, are they inadequate or incorrect?