ЦТ Social Studies cheat sheet

Society is a self-reproducing system of relations among people; its key features are integrity, dynamism, and the presence of subsystems (spheres).

Four main spheres of social life: economic (production and distribution), political (power and management), social (groups, strata, interaction), spiritual (knowledge, values, art, religion).

Social institution = a historically established, stable set of norms and roles that satisfies a fundamental social need (family, state, school, church, production).

Functions of an institution: satisfying a social need, regulating behavior, socializing members, integrating them, and transmitting culture.

Types of society by development level: traditional (agrarian), industrial, post-industrial (informational); the criterion is the dominant technology and type of production.

Traditional society: land is the main resource, estate hierarchy, communal ties, tradition dominates innovation, low social mobility.

Industrial society: industry and capital dominate, urbanization, mass production, class structure, high mobility, secularization.

Post-industrial society: information and knowledge are the main resource, service sector dominates, individualization, education becomes continuous.

The individual is a single representative of the human species; individuality is the unique combination of biological and social traits of a person.

Personality is a subject of conscious activity and social relations, formed only in society through communication and activity.

Biological (natural) in man: temperament, instincts, needs for food and sleep; social in man: values, knowledge, moral qualities, social roles.

Needs hierarchy by A. Maslow (bottom to top): physiological, safety, social belonging, esteem, self-actualization.

Temperament types: sanguine (mobile, balanced), choleric (mobile, unbalanced), phlegmatic (inert, balanced), melancholic (inert, weak).

Temperament is innate and cannot be changed; character is formed in activity and can be changed through effort.

Abilities are individual psychological features that determine success in an activity; inclinations are their natural basis.

Freedom is the ability to choose an action while bearing responsibility for its consequences; responsibility is the reverse side of freedom.

Socialization is the assimilation of norms, values, and roles; primary socialization occurs in the family and childhood, secondary in institutions and adulthood.

Activity is a specifically human form of active relation to the world, aimed at transforming it and satisfying needs; its components are subject, object, motive, goal, means, actions, result.

Types of activity: play (focus on the process), learning (focus on acquiring knowledge), labor (focus on a socially useful result), communication.

Cognition has two levels: sensory (sensation, perception, representation) and rational (concept, judgment, inference).

Truth is correspondence of knowledge to reality; objective truth does not depend on the subject, absolute truth is exhaustive and final, relative truth is incomplete but objective.

Criteria of truth: practice (the main criterion), logical consistency, and verifiability.

Empirical level of scientific knowledge uses observation, description, and experiment; theoretical level uses hypothesis, model, and theory.

Forms of non-scientific knowledge: ordinary (everyday), artistic, religious, mythological, parascientific; they differ from science in methods and criteria of validity.

Social cognition differs from natural-science cognition: the object and subject coincide, values influence the result, and the object is changeable.

Spiritual life includes science, art, morality, religion, philosophy, education, and the corresponding institutions and relations.

Culture is the totality of all types of transformative activity and its results; material and spiritual culture are distinguished.

Functions of culture: humanization, transmission of social experience, cognitive, regulatory, communicative, and integrative.

Forms of culture by carrier: folk (anonymous, mass tradition), elite (created by professionals for a prepared audience), mass (commercial, standardized, wide audience).

Subculture is a culture of a separate group within society; counterculture rejects the dominant values.

Morality is regulated by public opinion and conscience; law is regulated by the state and formal sanctions; the difference lies in the mechanism of enforcement.

Religion includes faith, cult (rituals), organization, and doctrine; its functions include worldview, compensatory, regulatory, integrating, and educational.

Science as a system of knowledge is characterized by objectivity, verifiability, consistency, and special methods; its functions are cognitive, worldview, and productive.

Education functions: transmission of knowledge and culture, socialization, selection, and social mobility; the trend is toward continuous education.

Economics studies the production, distribution, exchange, and consumption of goods under conditions of limited resources and unlimited needs.

Factors of production: land (rent), labor (wages), capital (interest), entrepreneurial ability (profit), information.

Types of economic systems: traditional, command-administrative (planned), market, mixed; the criterion is the mechanism for coordinating decisions.

Market functions: intermediary, informational, regulatory, pricing, sanitizing (clearing out inefficient producers).

Demand law: as price rises, quantity demanded falls; supply law: as price rises, quantity supplied rises; equilibrium occurs where they intersect.

Competition types: perfect and imperfect (monopoly, oligopoly, monopolistic competition); monopoly is characterized by a single seller and barriers to entry.

State in the economy: legal regulation, production of public goods, redistribution of income, stabilization (taxes, spending, key rate).

Taxes: direct (on income, property) and indirect (VAT, excise); tax functions are fiscal, distributive, regulatory, and control.

Inflation is a sustained rise in the general price level; its causes are excess money supply and rising costs; consequences include depreciation of savings and reduced purchasing power.

GDP is the value of final goods and services produced within a country in a year; GNP counts the output of a country's residents regardless of location.

Social group: a set of people united by a common feature or activity; large and small, primary and secondary, formal and informal groups are distinguished.

A small group has direct personal contacts and a small number (family, class, team); a large group has indirect, mediated ties (nation, class).

Social stratification divides society by income, power, education, and prestige; the main strata are upper, middle, and lower.

Social mobility: vertical (upward and downward along the ladder) and horizontal (change of position without changing status); channels are education, marriage, army, church.

A social role is the expected behavior corresponding to a status; role conflict arises when the demands of different roles collide.

Social status: prescribed (given by birth: sex, age, estate) and achieved (obtained through effort: profession, education).

Social norms: customs, moral norms, legal norms, religious norms, aesthetic norms, and corporate norms; sanctions enforce them.

Deviant behavior violates social norms; it can be positive (innovation) or negative (crime); the causes are biological, psychological, and social.

A social conflict is a clash of interests; its stages are pre-conflict, open confrontation, resolution, and post-conflict; ways to resolve it are compromise, negotiation, and mediation.

Power is the ability to influence the behavior of others; political power relies on the state, law, and authority and extends to the whole society.

Forms of power by source: traditional (custom, tradition), charismatic (personal qualities of a leader), rational-legal (law, office).

The state is characterized by territory, sovereignty, public power, a legal system, and a monopoly on lawful coercion and taxation.

Functions of the state: internal (political, economic, social, cultural, protective) and external (defense, international cooperation).

Forms of state: monarchy and republic (form of government); unitary state, federation, confederation (territorial structure); democratic and anti-democratic regimes.

Signs of a democratic regime: popular sovereignty, separation of powers, rule of law, political pluralism, free elections, guaranteed rights and freedoms.

Separation of powers: legislative (parliament), executive (government, president), judicial (courts); a system of checks and balances prevents usurpation.

Political parties: mass and cadre; their functions are representation of interests, political socialization, selection of elites, and participation in elections.

Civil society is a sphere of voluntary associations independent of the state; a rule-of-law state is bound by law and guarantees rights.

A legal norm is a generally binding rule of behavior established by the state and secured by the possibility of state coercion; its structure is hypothesis, disposition, and sanction.

Sources of law: legal custom, judicial precedent, normative legal act, normative contract; in the Russian system the main source is the normative legal act.

Hierarchy of normative acts in Russia: Constitution, federal constitutional laws, federal laws, decrees of the President, resolutions of the Government, departmental acts.

A legal relation is a social relation regulated by law; its elements are subjects, content (rights and duties), and object; participants must have legal capacity and legal competence.

An offense is an unlawful guilty act; its elements are the object, objective side, subject, and subjective side; offenses are divided into crimes and misdemeanors.

Legal liability types: criminal (court, criminal punishment), administrative, civil-law, disciplinary, and material.

The Constitution has supreme legal force and direct effect; it enshrines the foundations of the constitutional system and the rights and freedoms of citizens.

Branches of law: constitutional, civil, criminal, administrative, labor, family; each has its own subject and method of regulation.

Human rights are inherent and inalienable from birth; personal, political, socio-economic, and cultural rights are distinguished.