---
name: "intro_sociology"
description: "Apply introductory sociology concepts to analyze social situations: norms, institutions, deviance, culture, and the three major theoretical lenses. Use when reasoning about group behavior, social research, or explaining how social forces shape individual lives."
---

# Introductory Sociology

## Purpose

Give an agent a working toolkit from intro-level sociology: the habit of thinking sociologically, the three theoretical lenses, the core vocabulary (norms, institutions, deviance, culture, socialization, roles), and basic literacy for reading social research. This is a workflow skill, not an essay generator: every answer runs the situation through the method below.

## Workflow

**1. Start with the sociological imagination.**
Restate the personal-level story in terms of public issues. C. Wright Mills's term (1959): the habit of connecting "personal troubles" to "public issues," biography to history. Ask: what social forces, institutions, or history could produce this pattern across many people, not just this one?

**2. Name the moving parts.**
Use the vocabulary from `references/glossary.md`: which norms are in play (formal or informal; folkways or mores), which institutions, which roles and statuses, is there deviance and what sanctions follow it, which agents of socialization are involved.

**3. Run at least two of the three theoretical lenses** (`references/theory-matrix.md` has the full matrix).
- Structural functionalism: what function does this serve for stability? Split manifest functions (intended, recognized) from latent functions (unintended, unrecognized). Robert K. Merton's distinction, 1949.
- Conflict theory: who has power and resources, who benefits, who pays the cost? Look for class, status, and coercion, open or quiet.
- Symbolic interactionism: what meanings do people attach to the situation? How do symbols, language, and everyday interaction build it up?

**4. If the task touches research, evaluate or design it properly.**
Pick the method that fits the question: survey, experiment, field research, or secondary data analysis. State each method's strengths and limits (see `references/research-checklist.md`). Check sampling, check ethics, name what the method cannot show.

**5. Deliver per the Output Contract.**

## Output Contract

- Define every technical term as you use it, in plain words. Never assume the reader knows jargon.
- Apply at least two lenses explicitly and say where they agree and where they disagree.
- Separate observation from interpretation. Name the evidence that would change your reading.
- If you cite research or statistics: name the method, the sample, and the limits. Never invent findings, numbers, dates, or quotes. Unverifiable = cut it or frame it as your read.
- Keep the analysis honest: boring and true beats smooth and impressive.

## Operating Rules

1. Deviance is descriptive, never moral. Describe the norm, the behavior, and the social response. Do not label a person or group as deviant as a judgment.
2. Norms are context-relative: they vary by place, audience, and time. Always say which context you mean.
3. Functions are claims, not facts: a latent function you propose needs reasoning behind it, not assertion.
4. Cite sources for factual claims about people, events, and studies (author, work, year).
5. Style: never use em dashes. Write plainly and directly. No "delve," no "tapestry," no "in today's fast-paced world," no "it's not X, it's Y" pivots, no "moreover/furthermore," no "game-changer" or "unlock" or "elevate," no rhetorical questions you answer yourself.

## Worked examples

**Example A: a school dress code, three lenses.**
Functionalism: manifest function is reducing distraction and keeping order; latent function is marking class lines (students who can afford the "right" look) and giving staff an easy authority ritual. Conflict: the rule concentrates power with administrators and lands harder on girls and poorer students, so the "neutral" rule reproduces inequality. Interactionism: students read the code as a symbol of institutional control; how they break it (rolled skirts, untucked shirts) becomes a language for negotiating status with peers.

**Example B: evaluating the headline "Study finds coffee drinkers are friendlier."**
Ask the research questions before believing it: what method? If a survey, who was sampled and how many responded? Self-report measures what people think of themselves, not how they act. Was there a control group? Does the study show correlation or claim cause? A friendly tone from interviewers or awareness of being studied can skew results (the Hawthorne effect: people change behavior when they know they are being watched, named for the 1924-1932 Western Electric studies led by Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger).

**Example C: classifying norms.**
"No running" posted at the pool: a formal norm, written and explicitly enforced. Raising your hand before speaking in class: a folkway, a routine custom with mild disapproval if broken. Not stealing from the register: a more, a moral norm tied to serious sanctions. Cheating on a final: violates a more and a formal rule at once.