Thinks sociology is common sense reasoning. Fails first test on sociological imagination.

This is what happens when a sociologist takes a wrong turn on her way to the restroom and stumbles across a panel discussion for aspiring business leaders. -------------- Featured slide from a "leadership" panel for undergraduates in a pre-business program. I hope that $55K/yr in tuition provides more than $55 of self-help advice worthy of an airport bookstore, including basic instruction on survivor bias, sampling [on the dependent variable], and attribution errors. ~ @WeedenKim

Photo credit: Philip N. Cohen / National Digest of Educational Statistics

What is Sociology? 1. Broadly speaking, Sociology is the study of society; 2. It is a social science involving the study of the social lives of people, groups, and societies; 3. An overarching unification of all the studies of humankind, including History, Psychology, and Economics. What do Sociologists do? -Sociologists use a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods to understand their areas of study... Source: chawije (www.designcrowd.com/design/1568928)

Source: The Autopoiesis of Memes

The longest bull market in history began shortly after Obama entered office and continued well into Trump’s presidency. Investors welcomed Trump’s corporate tax cuts in 2017, and although the trade war with China put them on edge, stocks enjoyed a record-breaking run all the way up to 2020. At the start of the pandemic in 2020, the S&P 500 plunged 34% in about a month, before recovering later in the summer. As of October 28, the index was up 44% in Trump’s presidency, overall... Source: CNN

The widest measure of economic activity — gross domestic product — measures the value of the goods and services produced in the country. It typically grows between 2% to 3% per year after adjusting for inflation. Trump’s first three years were all within that range, but 2020 saw a deep decline. We don’t have a full year of data yet, but the second quarter was the worst in records going back to 1947. Third-quarter data, which was released on Thursday, showed a partial recovery. Many…

The federal government’s debt burden hasn’t been this high relative to the size of the economy since World War II, but it didn’t get there during Trump’s presidency alone. The debt grew under Reagan, who ushered in massive tax cuts, and it surged under Obama, who used federal stimulus funds to aid the economy during the Great Recession. At the time Trump took office, the debt totaled around 76% of GDP.... Source: CNN

Source: Eurostat and other national statistics

The Society Pages (TSP) is an open-access social science project headquartered in the Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota

Stark partisan divide on proposed tariff increases on imports of steel and aluminum Source: Pew Research Center

% economic growth expected in EU member states in 2019 (as of Feb 7, 2019) Source: European Commission

United Nations of Debt - In nominal terms, the U.S. leads the world with roughly $20 trillion of government debt Source: IMF

"Hey I know we have dedicated our whole lives to this, but this guy's comment on Facebook raises some interesting questions." Artist: M. Reuter

I have a joke about senior faculty asking questions at seminars but it's actually more of a comment. ~ @Caroline_Bartma

I'm thrilled to announce that I have accepted a position on the third cushion of my couch, closest to the arm. ~ @lrkhazem

Study 3 years for degree. Study 3 more for PhD. Join lab, start working. Spend years studying problem. Form hypothesis, gather evidence. Test hypothesis, form conclusions. Report findings, clear peer review. Findings published, reported in press. Guy on internet: "Bullshit." ~ @SciencePunk

Source: Service Employees International Union (SEIU)

Academic journals: - don't fund research; - don't pay authors - don't pay peer reviewers - charge libraries & the public for access to research that is publicly funded - issue copyright violations to researchers Why do we put up with this? ~ @clairlemon

1. The Cleaner 2. The Panicker 3. The List Maker 4. The Napper 5. The Sidetracker 6. The Social Sharer Artist: Twenty Pixels

[BLUE ARROW FROM 'SOCIAL MEDIA' TO 'AUDIENCE'] Package your research and ideas into a format that can be readily shared on social media. This packaging typically involves communicating your big idea as a brief but interesting story with vivid characters. Your work may be grounded in empiricism, but anecdotes grab people's attention more than regression coefficients. Source: Lester Andrist, www.thesociologicalcinema.com

Academia: wher people publish world-changing ideas in little booklets the people of the world cannot access. ~ @TheSocyCinema

I'm not a big fan of the commonly seen *, **, *** system for denoting p-values on graphs. Let's embrace 21st century symbology and do better: p < 0.1 :) p < 0.05 :) :) p < 0.01 :) :) :) p < 0.001 :) :) :) :) p < 0.000000001 :) :) :) :) :) ~ @nelson_lab

The Sweet Spot is at the nexus of narration, visuals, and data

Deep thinking: wouldn't it be oool if academic conferences somehow engaged in service projects with the hosting community, connecting conference expertise with community-generated questions/orpportunities? ~ @DrMeghanNorris

BELIEFS - spiritual - moral - social - intellectual - economic - political VALUES - Values are global, abstract principles that serve as guiding principles in people's lives (e.g., freedom, honesty, equality, beauty, harmony, competitiveness, happiness, order and wisdom). ATTITUDES - Three components: 1) Cognitive (what we believe); 2) Affective (our feelings); 3) Behavioral (learned associations)... Source: Mohan Kumar

"Postmodernity is said to be a culture of fragmentary sensations, eclectic nostalgia, disposable simulacra, and promiscuous superficiality, in which the traditionally valued qualities of depth, coherence, meaning, originality, and authenticity are evacuated or dissolved amid the random swirl of empty signals." ~ Jean Baudrillard

Social murder is a term coined by Friedrich Engels in 1845 and used to describe murder committed by the political and social elite where they knowingly permit conditions to exist where the poorest and most vulnerable in society are deprived of the necessities of life and are placed in a position in which they cannot reasonably be expected to live and will inevitably meet an early and unnatural death.

Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; They do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. ~ Karl Marx

Sociologists! If forced to choose, which of the following theoretical perspective should be dropped from the curriculum? (Structural functionalism / Conflict theory / Symbolic interactionism) ~ The Sociological Cinema

Value theory encompasses a range of approaches to understanding how, why and to what degree people value things; whether the thing is a person, idea, object, or anything else. This investigation began in ancient philosophy, where it is called axiology or ethics. Early philosophical investigations sought to understand good and evil and the concept of "the good." Today much of value theory is scientifically empirical... Source: World Heritage Encyclopedia

Source: Social Capital Research

Desire (Stoic Acceptance) - derived from Physics - Virtues: Courage, Temperance - "Don't hope that the events will turn out the way you want, welcome events in whichever way they happen: this is the path to peace." (Epictetus, Enchiridion, 8) Action (Stoic Philanthropy) - derived from Ethics - Virtue: Justice - "Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them." (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, VIII, 59) Assent (Stoic Mindfulness) - derived from Logic - Virtue: (Practic

Kantian Philosophy (Immanuel Kant, Germany, 1724-1804) - Deontological (from Greek for duty); non-consequentialist - Says: do it because it is the right thing to do, on principle. - People are ends in themselves, must not be treated as means to ends, 'respect for persons' - Motives are what counts, having a 'good will,' a sense of duty, makes an action right. - Linked to Natural Law (Thomas Locke, 1632-1714); precursor to 'universal human rights'...

The Sophists held that all thought rests solely on the apprehensions of the senses and on subjective impression, and that therefore we have no other standards of action than convention for the individual. Specializing in rhetoric, the Sophists were more professional educators than philosophers. They flourished as a result of a special need at that time for Greek education...

Pre-Socratic philosophy is Greek philosophy before Socrates (and includes schools contemporary with Socrates that were not influenced by him)....

Relativism is the concept that points of view have no absolute truth or validity, having only relative, subjective valuue according to differences in perception and consideration. As moral relativism, the term is often used in the context of moral principles, where principles and ethics are regarded as applicable in only limited context. There are many forms of relativsm which vary in their degree of controversy. The term often refers to truth relativism, whic is the doctrine that there are…

Deontological ethics, in philosophy, ethical theories that place special emphasis on the relationship between duty and the morality of human actions. Deontology (Greek deon, "duty," and logos, "science") consequently focuses on logic and ethics. No attempt is made in such theories to explicate specific moral obligations. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica

#philosophy #concept #ethics Teleological ethics, (teleological from Greek telos, "end"; logos, "science"), theory of morality that drives duty or moral obligation from what is good or desirable as an end to be achieved. Also known as consequentialist ethics, it is opposed to deontological ethics (from the Greek deon, "duty"), which holds that the basic standards for an action's being morally right are independent of the good or evil generated. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica

Source: Gallup World Poll / OECD

Source: United Nations World Happiness Report, 2013

Source: World Happiness Report

"Trauma in a person, decontextualized over time, looks like personality. Trauma in a family, decontextualized over time, looks like family traits. Trauma in a people, decontextualized over time, looks like culture." ~ Resmaa Menakem

Source: Pew Research Center

Source: Pew Research Center

Princeton psychologists recently showed that certain faces, even when expressionless, strike people as trustworthy or untrustworthy. Features like the shape of the eyebrow are part of an unconscious language of trust that powerfully affects human interaction. According to recent work by Nikolaas Oosterhof and Alexander Todorov of Princeton's psychology department, we form our first opinions of someone's trustworthiness through a quick physiognomic snapshot...

Source: PRRI / MTV 2017 National Youth Survey

Source: PRRI / MTV 2017 National Youth Survey

Pretty soon they discovered their first impressions were correct. JamMaster WAS much younger than they were - only 10 years old. They also discovered that it was his birthday in the morning. The boys realized that JamMaster had been hanging out by himself all night, on the eve of his 11th birthday, which he would be spending by himself in quarantine. CLEARLY SOMETHING HAD TO BE DONE. YA'LL, THEY THREW HIM AN 11TH BIRTHDAY PARTY...

My 15 yo son has spent every second of his free time during this pandemic hanging out online, playing video games with his friends. He started by ranking up to the elite tiers of Apex Legends. I am told this is quite a feat. Honestly I believe it because it took him and his friend 6 hours a day for a week to rank that high. After that came Sea of Thieves. He joined up with more friends and sailed the digital oceans until piracy lost it's shine...

Source: Pew Research Center