9410-2.doc

Course: Introduction to Sociology: Culture and Society (9410)
Semester: Spring, 2021
ASSIGNMENT No. 2
Q. 1 Define social Interaction. Discuss how interaction varies from time to time and area to area.
The definition of interaction is an action which is influenced by other actions. An example of interaction is
when you have a conversation.
The time-space continuum
After Einstein's theory of special relativity time and space can never again be regarded as separate concepts.
Instead we now see them as different views of a single time-space continuum. In fact, one could argue that this
is not so much a revelation of the 20th century, but a re-evaluation of the supposed objective nature of time born
out of the age of clocks and the ensuing mechanistic models of the universe. In day-to-day life we continually
experience the coupling of time and space as we travel or send letters.
In preparing my talk for AVI this was brought home to me as I considered the different world views engendered
by different senses which each take a different 'cut' through the time-space continuum: vision - spatial, smell -
temporal and sonar a mixture between the two.
In measuring the real world we often cannot get a 'snapshot' of time and space simultaneously (in fact the very
word snapshot suggests measurement at only one time!). In my first job I worked on the mathematical
modelling of agricultural sprays. One of the aspects of our work involved measuring the sizes of water droplets
produced by different kinds of spray nozzle. The results obtained by our group were consistently different from
those produced by another group. It turned out that their equipment obtained a spatial sample of the droplets in a
given volume whereas ours used a temporal sample of the droplets passing through a surface. Small droplets
slow down and hence they measured more small drops than we did.
Similar issues arise in measuring the statistical properties of air movements: one can obtain equivalent results
by using simultaneous readings from several instruments at different locations or by looking at a temporal
record of readings at a single location. Indeed, my desktop scanner works by moving a scan head under the
document being scanned - it builds a two-dimensional image from a time series of one-dimensional scans.
Representing time in space
As the traditional medium of communication (paper) is static and two-dimensional, we are used to seeing
representations of time mapped into space. In comic books and also technical manuals we see sequences of
images laid out giving an idea of temporal progression. Single comic book images may use various forms of
blurring, streamlines or other ways of giving an impression of movement (even multiple images of the same
object in the same frame). These visual cues to movement are increasingly being recognised by the computer
graphics and HCI communities. In the scientific community the most prevalent example of embedding time into
space is the graph where time is mapped directly onto one of the spatial dimensions. It is important to note that
although this representation is to some extent a technological artefact of the nature of paper, it also serves an

important perceptual role, it is easier to perceive trends in a spatial representation of the data than if the same
data were animated (with no graphical trace).
Using time
In a dynamic visualisation we can use time itself as part of the representation.
 First time can represent the passage of time itself. For example, we may see an animation of the
movement of an object. The mapping between visualisation time and real time may not be one to one,
just as spatial representations may be at various scales. For example, we may see a video sequence of
continental drift which both scales the surface of the earth to fit onto our TV screen, and runs at 10
million years per second!
 Second time can represent the change in some other parameter, in effect allowing us to 'visualise' an
extra dimension. An example of this are the movies generated from the 'digital human body' images.
One is shown successive 2D images of different cross-sections across the body and time represents
distance along the body.
 Finally time may map onto interaction - the users' own subjective time as they manipulate various
parameters themselves. Both the above categories may be used in traditional pre-recorded media, but
interaction adds different aspect. In fact interactive visualisation can be used with either of the previous
two categories.
We'll return to interactive visualisation later.
3D visualisation?
Forgetting time for the moment (!), let's think about space. Ignoring superstring theory, we live in three-
dimensional approximately Euclidean world. Many of the exciting visualisation techniques seen over recent
years take advantage of this and use 3D visualisations to increase attractiveness and (debatably) utility. Of
course, when we say 3D in this context we really mean (what is conventionally called) 2 1/2 D. Occlusion
means that we can at best see one thing in any direction and only the surface of things. Sight is literally a
superficial sense.
Why can we only see in 2.5 D? Let's unpack the answer. All we really see from an individual eye is 2D. Each
eye gives us (in low-level terms) a mapping from positions in a 2D space to some attributes (colour, intensity,
perhaps texture). That is each eye gives us:
D x D -> A.
With stereoscopic vision and other depth cues, we can do a bit better and get an estimate of the distance of any
object in any direction. That is we can see:
D x D -> (A x D)
Notice however, that one of 'D's sits on the 'wrong' side of the function arrow!

In the real world there is something (or perhaps nothing) at every point of space. That is at every point in a 3D
space there are some physical attributes (let's say P). A reductionist view of the world is therefore
D x D x D -> P.
The problem of vision is that this world must be mapped onto
D x D -> (A x D)
They don't fit! The fact that one of the 'D's of vision is on the wrong side means that we can see at most one
thing in each direction. In the physical world this is the closest object. In a computer visualisation this could be
objects at a fixed distance, objects with certain attributes, or even the furthest objects. However, all will be 2.5D
in one way or another. In fact the extra 1/2 D is so minimal it might be more accurate to regard vision as really
being 2.000001 D!
Some of the most successful 3D visualisation tools have been various forms of molecular models. These are
composed of lots of point objects, so the chances of having more than one thing in the same direction is small
and hence, for this case 2.5D is effectively 3D. VR techniques can win us an extra bit of dimension by allowing
us to look around objects, see what is behind and even perhaps go inside buildings etc. However, even this only
allows us to see the surfaces of objects, not full 3D vector fields, such as internal temperatures, fluid densities or
flows. VR is perhaps 2.000002D. In fact, one way in which flows are shown is by using tracers which give you
a sparse sample of the full 3D field. Because they are sparse, like molecules, they are 'open' enough to see
inside.
Time can be used to give the full extra dimension. This is precisely what is happening in the videos of the
digital human body mentioned previously. In this case the data is of the form:
L x L x L -> A'
(using L for the length dimension and T for time as in traditional dimensional analysis in physics) and the
screen is of the form:
L x L -> A
However, we view the screen through time leading to a view of the form:
L x L x T -> A
Which can map directly onto the dimensions of the data. As well as half (or 0.000001) spatial dimensions, one
can also get partial time dimensions in visual representations of time. This is precisely the case when we look at
footsteps in the sand. Footsteps can occur anywhere on the sand, but there can only be one footstep at any place
(further footsteps obliterate what is below). Furthermore, on a breezy day older footsteps are partly blown away,
so by the sharpness of a footstep we can tell how old it is. The view we get is therefore of the form:
L x L -> (A x T)
The real history of the beach is that at various times people trod in different places. That is, the real footstep
history is of the form:

L x L x T -> A
Just as with normal vision this just doesn't fit. There is just too little of the time dimension and all we see is the
most recent footstep. Just as we normally see only the closest object. Footsteps in the sand are a 2L+1/2T
visualisation!
Temporal fusion
The temporal dimension can be very important in bringing together different aspects of data - that is data fusion.
(i) Successive images (discrete time multiplexed)
Seeing two images of different data sets one after (rapidly) can show up similarities/differences and
show up significant points. This is especially likely where there is a common 2D/3D representation
domain, whether from the physical nature of the data or from some standard representation (e.g. phase
space). Such successive images make use of the user's haptic memory. I have seen an illuminated globe
which when turned off gives you a political view of the world and when on you see the physical view. It
is hard to see the political boundaries clearly when the light is one, but by turning the light on and off
you can relate the two viewpoints.
(ii) Moving images (continuous time multiplexed)
Imagine seeing the layers of rock gradually peeled away, or navigating through 3D cross sections of a
multi-dimensional function space. In each case, the visual continuity allows one to make sense of a
complex domain. The simplest example of this is where time is used to map onto one dimension of a 3D
representation and each frame is a particular 2D cross-section (as in the digital human body example).
(iii) Simultaneous change (time connected, space multiplexed)
Here we imagine several simultaneous displays of different aspects of some data set. Moving through
time we experience the change in those data sets as some parameter changes. The simultaneous change
enables us to see patterns. For example, in Control Theory one uses Nyquist diagrams to plot the locus
of the complex (i.e., x+iy) transfer function where the path parameter is frequency. However, this does
not tell us the value for any particular frequency. On the other hand, Bode diagrams show us phase
advance and log(gain) as a function of frequency along the x axis. Each representation has its own
advantages and disadvantages. If we simultaneously plotted the movement of a point over each curve
this would allow the user to view them coherently and gain an understanding deeper than each can give.
It is probably (ii) which immediately springs to mind when one considers time, but it is not necessarily the most
important or prevalent.
Note that (iii) is often used in existing audio-visual teaching material, especially where one part of the display
represents an animation of a physical system and the other a graph of its temporal behaviour. Also (i) is used
semi-statically with transparency/tracing paper overlays. Temporary ghosting in temporal displays may aid
feature detection.

Interaction
All of the techniques for using time can be used in delivered media such as television or videos, whether
produced by computers or more traditional animation techniques. In such pseudo-static (static in the sense that
any dynamic aspects are fixed into the product) one may be able to interact with the media itself (turn the pages
of a book, or operate the controls on a VCR), but not with the data being represented or the style of
presentation. The real gain in using computer visualisation is the ability to interact through the media, acting on
the data themselves and also with the parameters of the representation of the data.
In fact interaction is central to our visual system itself. Many of the hard cases for computer vision are those
which are in some way boundary cases. If one is allowed to change the viewing angle only slightly the
ambiguity is often resolved. Similarly, the strange camera angles used in the 'can you guess what this is'
photographs are only confusing because we cannot move backwards and see the context of the photograph.
In fact, even our 2.5D vision is built only partly upon stereoscopic cues. We use some other static cues such as
the colour and clarity of images (early Smalltalk systems half-toned the inactive windows, perhaps on colour
displays inactive windows ought to have reduced contrast and be transformed to the blue end of the spectrum?).
However, we also rely strongly on parallax effects from our own movement to determine distance. Furthermore,
we don't simply look at things, but examine them, look behind them, open them, walk inside them. To the
extent that we sense a 3D world it is not that we simply 'see' it, but that by interacting with it we experience it.
This is of course the case in the electronic world also. VR systems are only really immersive when they are
interactive. Even fixed animations are often most useful if one has VCR-style controls to move backwards and
forwards through the images. Also, compare a fixed video of the digital human body, with an interface which
allows you to select which direction and cross-section to view using sliders. It is like the difference between a
medical student looking at cut-away pictures in an anatomy textbook and actually dissecting a cadaver, or like
an archaeologist looking at a site plan compared to actually scrapping away around the artefacts during the
excavation. Of course the great thing about the electronic world is that one doesn't just get to do this once, but
one can explore into an object, then 'put the bits back' and start again form a different viewpoint.
Q. 2 Write a detailed note on development of “SELF”.
Personal development is a lifelong process that helps you assess your life goals and upskill to fulfill your
potential. It allows you to be proactive and take charge of your actions. You may not always reach your
objective but you lead a more fulfilling life because your purpose is defined. Personal development contributes
to both satisfaction and success in life.
You can work on your personal development by embracing certain self-improvement skills. These are traits and
qualities that you already have or gain through education and training. Some common personal
development skills are:
 Good communication allows you to convey your thoughts with clarity and confidence

 Interpersonal skills that help you build relationships and make an impression on others in social
situations
 Problem-solving skills that enable you to find the best solutions when you encounter obstacles
 Adaptability skills that let you adjust to new things quickly and easily in addition to staying calm during
unanticipated situations
 Leadership skills that help you guide others; boost morale and builds confidence
There’s a common misconception that personal development is reserved for those who need to work harder to
achieve their goals. In reality, even the most successful people constantly strive for improvement. Your brain
needs new information so that you can continue to flourish. Learning is a continuous process and doesn’t stop
unless you want to. Personal development may be time-consuming but there are many advantages to this
process.
1. Provides Clarity To Personal Vision
Personal development helps you define your personal vision and life goals more clearly. When you establish
targets for yourself, it becomes easier to create a plan and work towards those objectives.
2. Improves Existing Skills
Learning and personal growth are the hallmarks of personal development. You learn from your past mistakes
and overcome challenges through education, training and guidance.
3. Helps Identify True Potential
The more you work on your skills and abilities, the more you discover your hidden potential. You learn to push
your boundaries and explore new things because you know how to best utilize your knowledge.
4. Drives Motivation And Satisfaction
Personal development is empowering as it lets you take control of things. Since there is constant improvement,
you feel more confident and motivated. Your productivity increases and your performance gives you
satisfaction.
5. Helps Focus On The Bigger Picture
When you acknowledge your shortcomings, you hold yourself accountable for your mistakes. This level of self-
awareness helps you look at the bigger picture and not beat yourself up about things that are beyond your
control.
‘Personal development’ is often used interchangeably with ‘self-development’, but they’re two different
approaches to life. The former focuses on developing new capabilities and adding a new direction to life. The
latter focuses on ways to improve things that are already a part of one’s life. Both processes deal with personal
development and complement each other but shouldn’t be confused with each other.

Self-development is a conscious process of improving oneself in various aspects of life. It’s a constant pursuit
of growth by developing skills, competencies and knowledge. The ultimate goal for self-development is to be a
self-fulfilled person. The process includes three key components:
 Skill Enhancement:
There are two skill enhancement processes, personal and interpersonal effectiveness. Interpersonal skills focus
on how you interact with others and develop relationships. Personal effectiveness skills like goal-setting, time
management, decision-making and stress management benefit you personally.
 Mental Conditioning:
The process of building and strengthening our minds is known as mental conditioning. We’re able to focus on
our objectives by visualizing what we want to achieve. This helps maintain a positive focus, improving self-
image and self-confidence. Some mental conditioning techniques like meditation, breathing exercises and
relaxation activities have proved useful in boosting concentration and bettering performance.
 Habit Creation:
A habit often refers to routine behaviors or tendencies that are automatic and without intention. It’s difficult to
break out of habits but it’s not impossible. To make our lives more enriching we can also create new habits and
bring about positive changes.
Q. 3 Write a note on Charles Horton Cooley: Looking Glass Self and George Herbert Mead: Role Taking.
“Socialization” is a term used by sociologists, social psychologists, anthropologists, political scientists, and
educationalists to refer to the lifelong process of inheriting and disseminating norms, customs, and ideologies,
providing an individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within his or her own society.
Socialization is thus “the means by which social and cultural continuity are attained.”
Socialization is the means by which human infants begin to acquire the skills necessary to perform as a
functioning member of their society and is the most influential learning process one can experience. Unlike
other living species, whose behavior is biologically set, humans need social experiences to learn their culture
and to survive. Although cultural variability manifests in the actions, customs, and behaviors of whole social
groups, the most fundamental expression of culture is found at the individual level. This expression can only
occur after an individual has been socialized by his or her parents, family, extended family, and extended social
networks.
The looking-glass self is a social psychological concept, created by Charles Horton Cooley in 1902, stating that
a person’s self grows out of society’s interpersonal interactions and the perceptions of others. The term refers to
people shaping themselves based on other people’s perception, which leads people to reinforce other people’s

perspectives on themselves. People shape themselves based on what other people perceive and confirm other
people’s opinion on themselves.
George Herbert Mead developed a theory of social behaviorism to explain how social experience develops an
individual’s personality. Mead’s central concept is the self: the part of an individual’s personality composed of
self-awareness and self-image. Mead claimed that the self is not there at birth, rather, it is developed with social
experience.
Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for
treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst. In his later work, Freud
proposed that the human psyche could be divided into three parts: Id, ego, and super-ego. The id is the
completely unconscious, impulsive, child-like portion of the psyche that operates on the “pleasure principle”
and is the source of basic impulses and drives; it seeks immediate pleasure and gratification. The ego acts
according to the reality principle (i.e., it seeks to please the id’s drive in realistic ways that will benefit in the
long term rather than bringing grief). Finally, the super-ego aims for perfection. It comprises that organized part
of the personality structure, mainly but not entirely unconscious that includes the individual’s ego ideals,
spiritual goals, and the psychic agency that criticizes and prohibits his or her drives, fantasies, feelings, and
actions.
Group socialization is the theory that an individual’s peer groups, rather than parental figures, influences his or
her personality and behavior in adulthood. Adolescents spend more time with peers than with parents.
Therefore, peer groups have stronger correlations with personality development than parental figures do. For
example, twin brothers, whose genetic makeup are identical, will differ in personality because they have
different groups of friends, not necessarily because their parents raised them differently.
Gender socialization Henslin (1999) contends that “an important part of socialization is the learning of
culturally defined gender roles ” (p. 76). Gender socialization refers to the learning of behavior and attitudes
considered appropriate for a given sex. Boys learn to be boys, and girls learn to be girls. This “learning”
happens by way of many different agents of socialization. The family is certainly important in reinforcing
gender roles, but so are one’s friends, school, work, and the mass media. Gender roles are reinforced through
“countless subtle and not so subtle ways,” said Henslin (1999, p. 76).
Cultural socialization refers to parenting practices that teach children about their racial history or heritage and,
sometimes, is referred to as “pride development. ” Preparation for bias refers to parenting practices focused on
preparing children to be aware of, and cope with, discrimination. Promotion of mistrust refers to the parenting
practices of socializing children to be wary of people from other races. Egalitarianism refers to socializing
children with the belief that all people are equal and should be treated with a common humanity.
The looking-glass self is a social psychological concept created by Charles Horton Cooley in 1902. It states that
a person’s self grows out of society’s interpersonal interactions and the perceptions of others. The term refers to

people shaping their identity based on the perception of others, which leads the people to reinforce other
people’s perspectives on themselves. People shape themselves based on what other people perceive and confirm
other people’s opinion of themselves.
There are three main components of the looking-glass self:
 First, we imagine how we must appear to others.
 Second, we imagine the judgment of that appearance.
 Finally, we develop our self through the judgments of others.
In hypothesizing the framework for the looking glass self, Cooley said, “the mind is mental” because “the
human mind is social. ” In other words, the mind’s mental ability is a direct result of human social interaction.
Beginning as children, humans begin to define themselves within the context of their socializations. The child
learns that the symbol of his/her crying will elicit a response from his/her parents, not only when they are in
need of necessities, such as food, but also as a symbol to receive their attention. George Herbert Mead described
the self as “taking the role of the other,” the premise for which the self is actualized. Through interaction with
others, we begin to develop an identity about who we are, as well as empathy for others.
An example of the looking-self concept is computer technology. Using computer technology, people can create
an avatar, a customized symbol that represents the computer user. For example, in the virtual world Second
Life, the computer-user can create a human-like avatar that reflects the user in regard to race, age, physical
makeup, status, and the like. By selecting certain physical characteristics or symbols, the avatar reflects how the
creator seeks to be perceived in the virtual world and how the symbols used in the creation of the avatar
influence others’ actions toward the computer user.
George Herbert Mead was an American philosopher, sociologist, and psychologist, primarily affiliated with the
University of Chicago, where he was one of several distinguished pragmatists. He is regarded as one of the
founders of social psychology and the American sociological tradition in general.
The two most important roots of Mead’s work, and of symbolic interactionism in general, are the philosophy of
pragmatism and social behaviorism. Pragmatism is a wide ranging philosophical position from which several
aspects of Mead’s influences can be identified. There are four main tenets of pragmatism: First, to pragmatists
true reality does not exist “out there” in the real world, it “is actively created as we act in and toward the world.
Second, people remember and base their knowledge of the world on what has been useful to them and are likely
to alter what no longer “works. ” Third, people define the social and physical “objects” they encounter in the
world according to their use for them. Lastly, if we want to understand actors, we must base that understanding
on what people actually do. In Pragmatism nothing practical or useful is held to be necessarily true, nor is
anything which helps to survive merely in the short term. For example, to believe my cheating spouse is faithful
may help me feel better now, but it is certainly not useful from a more long-term perspective because it doesn’t
align with the facts (and is therefore not true).

Mead was a very important figure in twentieth century social philosophy. One of his most influential ideas was
the emergence of mind and self from the communication process between organisms, discussed in the
book, Mind, Self and Society, also known as social behaviorism. For Mead, mind arises out of the social act of
communication. Mead’s concept of the social act is relevant, not only to his theory of mind, but also to all facets
of his social philosophy. His theory of “mind, self, and society” is, in effect, a philosophy of the act from the
standpoint of a social process involving the interaction of many individuals, just as his theory of knowledge and
value is a philosophy of the act from the standpoint of the experiencing individual in interaction with an
environment.
Mead is a major American philosopher by virtue of being, along with John Dewey, Charles Peirce, and William
James, one of the founders of pragmatism. He also made significant contributions to the philosophies of nature,
science, and history, to philosophical anthropology, and to process philosophy. Dewey and Alfred North
Whitehead considered Mead a thinker of the first rank. He is a classic example of a social theorist whose work
does not fit easily within conventional disciplinary boundaries.
Q. 4 write down brief notes on the following;
a) Physical Proximity
The physical proximity doctrine is a standard in criminal law for distinguishing between preparation and
attempt. "Physical" refers to the physical element of a criminal act (actus reus), as distinguished from the mental
element of a guilty mind (mens rea). When a person makes preparation to commit a crime, and one of the
preparatory acts is close or proximate to the completed crime, the preparation is considered to have merged into
being an actual attempt. The standard is not a clear bright line standard. The closer the preparatory act is to the
completed crime, the stronger the case for calling it an attempt. The determination as to whether the standard
has been met is a matter for the jury to determine.
b) Godden’s stages of Infant Development
In utero, the brain develops rapidly, and an infant is born with essentially all of the nerve cells it will ever have;
brain development is particularly rapid during the third trimester. However, after birth, neural connections must
form in order for the newborn ultimately to walk, talk, and remember. Mark Rosenweig and David Krech
conducted an experiment to demonstrate the importance of enriched environments during development. They
compared rats raised alone to those that were allowed to use a playground in the company of other rats. Those
in the impoverished (solitary) environment developed a thinner cortex with fewer glial cells, cells that support
and nourish the brain's neurons. Other studies have demonstrated that stimulation provided by touch or massage
benefits both premature babies and infant rats, a fact that argues for providing an enriched environment for a
developing organism. Infants are born with a surprising number of unlearned (innate) reflexes, that is,
unlearned responses to stimuli.

 The Moro reflex is an outstretching of the arms and legs in response to a loud noise or sudden
change in the environment. The infant's body tenses; arms are extended and then drawn inward as
if embracing.
 The Babinski reflex is an outward projection of the big toe and fanning of the others when the
sole of the foot is touched.
 The sucking reflex occurs when an object touches the lips.
 The rooting reflex is the turning of an infant's head toward a stimulus such as a breast or hand.
 The grasping reflex is the vigorous grasping of an object that touches the palm.
 The plantar reflex is the curling under of the toes when the ball of the foot is touched. Physicians
sometimes use these reflexes to assess the rate of development. Gradually, learned responses
replace the reflex actions as an infant becomes more responsive to the environment.
Although the rate of motor development can vary, the developmental sequence is the same. On average, an
infant will learn to roll over at 2-1/2 months, sit without support at 6 months, and walk alone at 12 months. The
growth and body development from infant to child occurs in a cephalocaudal direction; that is, the head and
upper trunk develop before the lower trunk and feet.
Sensory and perceptual development Newborn infants can and do respond to a wide range of environmental
stimuli. All human senses function to some degree at birth; touch is the most highly developed and vision is the
least developed sense. At the age of 3 months, however, most infants can recognize a photograph of their
mother. An infant's ability to perceive depth has been studied extensively with an apparatus called a visual cliff,
a box with a glass platform that extends over a drop of several feet. An adult (mother or experimenter) stands on
one side of the glass bridge and calls to the child, who is on the other. Eleanor Gibson and Richard Walk, in a
well‐ known study, found that at about 6 months babies balk at crawling over the edge of the “cliff.” Such a
response indicates that depth perception is present at this age.
Cognitive development. The term cognitive development refers to the development of the ability to think and
to mentally represent events and to manipulate symbols.
Jean Piaget, a pioneer in the study of children's thinking, was concerned with the way a child organizes
information from the environment and adapts to it. He believed that every behavioral act requires two dynamic
processes of adaptation: assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is the process of acquiring new
information about the world and fitting it to already acquired information. A child who calls all grown males
“daddy,” based on the child's perception that they and “daddy” are in some way similar, is practicing
assimilation. Accommodation is the process of creating a new concept to handle new information; for example,
children come to realize that all toys don't belong to them, that some belong to other children.
Piaget, who had a strong biological background, proposed four stages of development: sensorimotor,
preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. According to Piaget,

 During the sensorimotor stage (birth to age 2) infants develop their ability to coordinate motor actions
with sensory activity. At the start of this stage, children's behavior is dominated by reflexes, but by the
end of it, they can use mental images. Also during this stage, children acquire the concept of object
permanence, realizing that objects still exist even when the objects are not present.
 During the preoperational stage (ages 2 to 7 years), children improve in the use of mental images and
symbolic thought. Most of the thinking of children of this age, however, is egocentric (self‐ centered).
 During the concrete operational stage (ages 7 to 11 years), children begin to develop many concepts
and to organize the concepts into classes and categories.
 During the formal operational stage (ages 11 years and beyond), children learn to use and to
manipulate abstract symbolic concepts, develop and mentally test hypotheses, and work mental
problems. That is, they can reason.
Although Piaget's theories are subject to some criticism, they are widely used and important in guiding research
in childhood cognitive development.
Language development. Language acquisition is one of the most important aspects of a child's development.
Moral development. Lawrence Kohlberg proposed that moral development occurs in three levels, with two
stages at each level.
 The preconventional level:
 At stage 1, punishment orientation, judgments are guided by the prospect of punishment.
 At stage 2, pleasure‐ seeking orientation, activities are undertaken primarily to satisfy one's
own needs; needs of others are important only as they relate to one's own needs.
 The conventional level:
 At stage 3, good girl/good boy orientation, behavior is engaged in that brings approval or
pleases others in a child's immediate group.
 At stage 4, authority orientation, behavior is influenced by respect for authority, performing
one's duty, and doing what is right.
 The postconventional level:
 At stage 5, contract and legal orientation, behavior is based on support of rules and regulations
because society's right to exact such support is accepted.
 At stage 6, ethical and moral principles orientation, behavior is directed by self‐ chosen ethical
and moral principles.
Kohlberg found that the first two stages are reached by most children, that stages 3 and 4 are reached by older
children and most adults, but that the stage 6 is reached by only 20% of the population.
Carol Gilligan examined certain differences between the moral development of males and that of females. In
younger children, she found that girls are more concerned with a morality based on caring and boys with a

morality based on justice. Gilligan proposed that this gender difference is in part due to children's relationship
with their mother.
c) Weber model of stratification.
Weber derived many of his key concepts on social stratification by examining the social structure of Germany.
He noted that contrary to Marx’s theories, stratification was based on more than simply ownership of capital.
Weber examined how many members of the aristocracy lacked economic wealth yet had strong political power.
Many wealthy families lacked prestige and power, for example, because they were Jewish. Weber introduced
three independent factors that form his theory of stratification hierarchy: class, status, and power: class is
person’s economic position in a society; status is a person’s prestige, social honor, or popularity in a society;
power is a person’s ability to get his way despite the resistance of others. While these three factors are often
connected, someone can have high status without immense wealth, or wealth without power.
The Common Three-Stratum Model
Contemporary sociological concepts of social class often assume three general categories: a very wealthy and
powerful upper class that owns and controls the means of production; a middle class of professional or salaried
workers, small business owners, and low-level managers; and a lower class, who rely on hourly wages for their
livelihood.
The upper class is the social class composed of those who are wealthy, well-born, or both. They usually wield
the greatest political power.
The middle class is the most contested of the three categories, consisting of the broad group of people in
contemporary society who fall socioeconomically between the lower class and upper class. One example of the
contestation of this term is that In the United States middle class is applied very broadly and includes people
who would elsewhere be considered lower class. Middle class workers are sometimes called white-collar
workers.
The lower or working class is sometimes separated into those who are employed as wage or hourly workers,
and an underclass—those who are long-term unemployed and/or homeless, especially those receiving welfare
from the state. Members of the working class are sometimes called blue-collar workers.
Consequences of Social Class
A person’s socioeconomic class has wide-ranging effects. It may determine the schools he is able to attend, the
jobs open to him, who he may marry, and his treatment by police and the courts. A person’s social class has a
significant impact on his physical health, his ability to receive adequate medical care and nutrition, and his life
expectancy.
Class mobility refers to movement from one class status to another–either upward or downward. Sociologists
who measure class in terms of socioeconomic status use statistical data measuring income, education, wealth
and other indexes to locate people on a continuum, typically divided into “quintiles” or segments of 20% each.

This approach facilitates tracking people over time to measure relative class mobility. For example, the income
and education level of parents can be compared to that of their children to show inter-generational class
mobility.
Q. 5 discuss in detail any two major issues of Pakistani society.
The word agrarian means agriculture-related. And the society whose economy depends on the production of
food crops and farmlands an agrarian society. How much the nation’s population depends on agriculture
economically also define an agrarian society. It’s not that in this society all people engage themselves in
agricultural practices, but majorly it is practised and stressed upon while other means of livelihood exist too.
These societies trace their origin back to the time of hunters and gatherers which then shifted into the industrial
societies. These societies highly depend on the weather, climate and seasonal factors.
Societies can be broadly divided into tribal societies, agrarian society and industrial society. Agrarian society
can be defined as a society where a majority of its population derives its income from agriculture and related
activities. Two/third to three/fourth of the world constitutes of agrarian societies. Post Industrial Revolution, the
countries that are still primarily agrarian are the poorest.
Human society earlier constituted of hunter-gatherers. While the reasons are unknown, humans started shifting
from hunting-gathering to agriculture around 12000 years ago which also marked the end of the last ice age and
the start of the Holocene epoch. This is known as the Neolithic Revolution. Agriculture is believed to have
first begun in the Fertile Crescent which extends from Iraq to Egypt. Agriculture allowed people to settle
down and form communities which gave rise to new social structures and forms of human societal organisation.
The ancient Egyptian civilization, Indian civilization, Chinese civilization, and Mayan civilization were all
agrarian. The Industrial Revolution has been the next greatest revolution after the Neolithic Revolution. Over
the past two hundred years, many societies have turned into industrial societies and the percentage of world
population engaged in agriculture consistently grows smaller as machines replace human effort.
Agrarian society Characteristics:
 An agrarian society is identified by its occupational structure. People are involved in the domestication
of plants and animals and other related activities such as weaving, pottery and small occupations like
blacksmiths, sweepers, watchmen, etc.
 Land ownership is uneven. There are landlords, cultivators and sharecroppers or landless labourers.
Cultivators cultivate their land themselves while landlords hire landless labourers to work on their fields.
 There are very few specialised roles. Division of labour is not sophisticated and is usually based on age
and sex differences. The society is homogenous in terms of occupations, religious groups, values, culture,
etc.
 Life is centred around the village community system. Social hierarchies, life patterns, habits and
attitudes are rigid.

 Family as an institution is central to an agrarian society. It works not only as social support but also as
an economic unit since all individuals of the family are involved in agriculture.
The industrialisation has also had an impact on agrarian societies and many of their basic features have
changed. They are no longer unified social units that are not impacted by the outside world. Farmers have
become commercial farmers and sell their output to aid industrial societies. The social structures are not as
rigid. In sociology, societies are seen to naturally progress from tribal to agrarian and from agrarian to industrial
societies. As agricultural output increases, more people start engaging in trade and other activities. When more
than 50% of the people are engaged in non-agricultural activities, it is considered an industrial society. All
societies today are trying to reduce their dependence on agriculture and switch to industrialisation.
Agrarianism
Agrarianism is a social philosophy which considers the agrarian way of life to be superior to the industrial way
of life. It stresses the superiority of simple rural life over the complexity and chaos of urban industrial life. It
views the rural community as self-sufficient and associates working the land with morality and spirituality.
Industrial societies are seen as vulnerable and exploitative and associated with loss of independence and dignity.
Agrarian societies have inspired many such ideas and theories which try to understand the dynamics between
industrial and agrarian societies and seek to find the ideal way of life.

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