Sociological Analysis
Paper details:
Week 11 Advanced Submission
Week 11 Advanced Portfolio Submission
Instruction: Imagine you are a sociologist working with another researcher (Jacob) who is interested in the ways in which workers in various fields interact with one another and their superiors. In particular, Jacob is interested if workers in various jobs use different strategies for coping with the daily on-the-job stress that often occur between workers and their superiors. For your response, you are to first create a set of initial questions (no less than 4) and subsequent probing questions that can be used to gather data on this topic. Your questions need to meet the following criteria: a.) Your questions must not be answerable in only a single word or sentence; b.) Your questions allow for additional probing for information; c.) Your questions clearly flow from one to another. For the second part of your response, you are to answer your own questions (which will allow you to assess how well your questions allow for good data collection). Your final part of this submission should be a paragraph reflection on the activity.
*If you have a way of recording your responses other than a paper, you are free to submit them in that fashion.
Example:
Question/Probe 1: How do you feel when you are interacting with your boss? Probe: Why do you feel that way?
Response 1: I feel a little bit uneasy, just because I know that this person has the power to end my career if he wanted. I suppose I feel that way because I have seen his temper flare before and so I know it is in my best interest to keep my head down.
Question/Probe 2: How do you feel when you are interacting with your co-workers? Probe: Can you tell me about the different interactions
Response 2: It all depends on who you consider to be a coworker. When it comes to folks that are at my level in terms of operational duties and power, I enjoy interacting with them and enjoy it very much. When it comes to folks that I have direct supervisory power over, I dont like it much at all. When I am interacting with the former, I am able to tell small jokes or we can complain about various minor job annoyances. When it comes to the latter, I basically dont say anything outside of official duties for fear that any sort of joking will come back to bite me.
Question/Probe 3: How do you cope with the stresses that come from workplace interactions? Why do you believe this coping is effective?
Response 3: Honestly, I cope by putting headphones in any time that I step out of my office door and I leave my door shut. This way, I dont have to worry about folks trying to interact when I am not ready, especially with headphones. Among younger generations, there is this understanding that headphones mean I am signaling to you all that I am not interested in casual conversation right now, please no interaction.
