1.1 The Sociological Perspective

Residents of the United States live in a free country. Unlike people living in many other nations in the world, we generally have the right to think and do what we want, as long as we do not hurt anyone else. We can choose to go to college or not to go; we can be conservative or liberal; we can believe in a higher deity or not hold this belief; and we can decide to have a romantic relationship with whomever will have us or not to have such a relationship. We make up our own minds on such issues as abortion, affirmative action, the death penalty, gun control, health care, and taxes. We are individuals, and no one has the right to tell us what to do (as long as our actions are legal) or how to think. (This sense of independence led many Americans to refuse to wear face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic that remained as this book went to press, but let’s put that issue aside for now.)

Most Americans probably agree that we enjoy much freedom of thought. And yet perhaps we have less freedom than we think, because society influences many of our choices in ways we do not even realize. Perhaps we are not as distinctively individualistic as we believe we are.

For example, take the right to vote. The secret ballot is one of the most cherished principles of American democracy. We vote in secret so that our choice of a candidate is made freely and without fear of punishment. That is all true, but it is also possible to guess the candidate for whom any one individual will vote if enough is known about the individual. This is because our choice of a candidate is affected by many aspects of our social backgrounds and, in this sense, is not made as freely as we might think.

To illustrate this point, consider national polls in the 2020 presidential election between Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump. These polls indicated which demographic groups were more or less likely to support each candidate. A finding in a June 2020 poll was especially striking: 89% of Black people said they would vote for Biden, while only 7% said they would vote for Trump (Pew Research Center 2020). Suppose when that poll was taken a large room was filled with 1,000 randomly selected Black people. Nothing is known about them except that they identified themselves as Black. Because of the polling data just cited, a prediction that each of these 1,000 individuals would say he or she would vote for Biden instead of Trump would have been correct about 890 times and incorrect only about 70 times. Someone betting $1 on each prediction would come out around $820 ahead ($890 – $70 = $820), even though the only thing known about the people in the room was their race. 

Now let’s suppose we had a room filled with 1,000 randomly selected Latinx. We know only one thing about them: their ethnicity. The same poll found that 66% of Latinx would vote for Biden and only 32% for Trump. In view of these findings, we could have accurately predicted that about two-thirds of Latinx in our room would vote for Biden. Someone betting $1 that each person in the room voted for Biden instead of Trump would have been right about 666 times and wrong only 320 times and would have come out $346 ahead ($666 – $320 = $346). Even though Latinx had every right and freedom under our democracy to prefer any candidate they wanted in 2020, they still tended to greatly prefer Biden because of the influence of their ethnicity.

The poll also found that 68% of people aged 18–29 would vote for Biden, compared to 28% for Trump. If we had bet that each person in a room filled with 1,000 randomly selected people in this age group would vote for Biden instead of Trump, we would have been correct about 680 times and wrong about 280 times, winning us $400, even though all we knew about them was their age. Similarly, because the poll found that 64% of college graduates would vote for Biden and only 36% for Trump, we would have won $280 by betting that each person in a room filled with college graduates would vote for Biden instead of Trump, even though all we knew about them was their level of education.  

Yes, Americans have freedom, but our freedom to think and act is constrained at least to some degree by society’s standards and expectations and by the many aspects of our social backgrounds. This is true for voting and other important behaviors and beliefs, and it is also true for less important examples. For instance, think back to the last class you attended in person. How many of the women wore evening gowns? How many of the men wore skirts? Students are allowed to dress any way they want in most colleges and universities, but notice how few students, if any, dress in the way just mentioned. They do not dress that way because of the strange looks and even negative reactions they would receive.

Think back to the last time you rode in an elevator. Why did you not face the back? Why did you not sit on the floor? Why did you not start singing? Children can do these things and “get away with it,” because they look cute doing so, but adults risk looking odd. Because of that, even though we are allowed to act strangely in an elevator, we do not.

The basic point is that society shapes our attitudes and behavior even if it does not determine them altogether. We still have freedom, but society’s expectations limit this freedom. Moreover, our views and behavior depend to some degree on our social locations in society—our gender, race, social class, sexual orientation and gender identity, religion, and so forth. Thus, society as a whole and our own social backgrounds affect our attitudes and behaviors. Our social backgrounds also affect one other important part of our lives, and that is our life chancesThe degree to which people succeed in life in such areas as education, income, and health.—our chances (whether we have a good chance or little chance) of being healthy, wealthy, and well educated and, more generally, of living good, happy lives.

The influence of our social environmentA general term for social backgrounds and other aspects of society. in all of these respects is the fundamental understanding that sociologyThe scientific study of social behavior and social institutions.—the scientific study of social behavior and social institutions—aims to present. At the heart of sociology is the sociological perspectiveThe belief that people’s social backgrounds influence their attitudes, behavior, and life chances., the view that our social backgrounds influence our attitudes, behavior, and life chances. In this regard, we are not just individuals but rather social beings deeply enmeshed in society. Although we all differ from one another in many respects, we share with many other people basic aspects of our social backgrounds, perhaps especially gender, race and ethnicity, and social class. These shared qualities make us more similar to each other than we would otherwise be.

Does societyA group of people who live within a defined territory and who share a culture. totally determine our beliefs, behavior, and life chances? No. Individual differences still matter, and disciplines such as psychology are certainly needed for the most complete understanding of human action and beliefs. But if individual differences matter, so do society and the social backgrounds from which we come. Even the most individual attitudes and behaviors, such as the voting decisions discussed earlier, reflect to some degree our social backgrounds and, more generally, the society to which we belong.

In this regard, consider what is perhaps the most personal decision one could make: the decision to commit suicide. What could be more personal and individualistic than this fatal decision? When individuals commit suicide, we usually assume that they were very unhappy and probably depressed. They may have been troubled by a crumbling romantic relationship, bleak job prospects, incurable illness, or chronic pain. But not all people in these circumstances commit suicide; in fact, few do. Perhaps various aspects of a depressed person’s social background affect the chances of committing suicide.

To illustrate this point, consider suicide rates—the rate of a particular group of people who commit suicide, usually taken as, say, 8 suicides for every 100,000 people in that group. Different groups have different suicide rates. As just one example, men are more likely than women to commit suicide (Figure 1.1). Why is this? Are men more depressed than women? No, the best evidence indicates that women are more depressed than men (Albert 2015) and that women try to commit suicide more often than men (American Foundation for Suicide Prevention 2020). If so, there must be something about being a man that makes it more likely that males’ suicide attempts will result in death. One of these “somethings” is that males are more likely than females to try to commit suicide with a firearm, a far more lethal method than, say, taking an overdose of sleeping pills (Harvard Injury Control Research Center 2020). If this is true, then it is fair to say that gender influences our chances of committing suicide, even if suicide is perhaps the most personal of all acts.

In the United States, suicide rates are generally higher west of the Mississippi River than east of it (Figure 1.2). Is that because people out west are more depressed than those back east? No, there is no evidence of this. Perhaps there is something else about the western states that helps lead to higher suicide rates (Barkan et al. 2013). For example, many of these states are sparsely populated compared to their eastern counterparts, with people in the western states living relatively far from one another. Because we know that social support networks help people deal with personal problems and deter possible suicides (Kleiman and Liu 2013), perhaps these networks are weaker in the western states, helping lead to higher suicide rates. Then too, membership in organized religion is lower out west than back east (Finke and Stark 2005). Because religious beliefs help us deal with personal problems, perhaps suicide rates are higher out west in part because religious networks are weaker. Thus, a depressed person out west is, all other things being equal, at least a little more likely than a depressed person back east to commit suicide.