intro_sociology v1.0.0

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.