Sociology Chapter 1 Veterans Mortality And Health Effects

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Hutchison, Dimensions of Human Behavior, 6e

SAGE Publishing, 2019

Lecture Notes

Chapter 1: A Life Course Perspective

Learning Objectives

1.1: Compare one’s own emotional and cognitive reactions to three case studies.

1.2: Summarize the relevance of the life course perspective for social work

competencies.

1.3: Identify some of the theoretical roots of the life course perspective.

Hutchison, Dimensions of Human Behavior, 6e

SAGE Publishing, 2019

Chapter Summary

As you read this chapter, take note of these central ideas:

2. The life course perspective recognizes the influence of historical changes on human behavior.

4. The life course perspective emphasizes the ways in which humans are interdependent and gives

5. The life course perspective sees humans as capable of making choices and constructing their own

life journeys within systems of opportunities and constraints.

Annotated Chapter Outline

I. Introduction

A. Case Studies 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3

i. 1.1 Maria Suarez, September 11, 2001 and resulting family trauma

II. The Life Course Perspective and Social Work Practice

a. Life course perspective as a mode of looking at the unfolding

of human lives over time and generation, which may provide a

better understanding of an individual and their behavior to

others

a. Life course perspective: considers how biological,

b. The life course path is rhizomatic rather than straightforward,

may be entwined with the lives of family members, and is

shaped by social and cultural factors

Hutchison, Dimensions of Human Behavior, 6e

SAGE Publishing, 2019

c. The person-in-environment component of human behavior is

III. Theoretical Roots of the Life Course Perspective

i. The LCP was developed recently and is used collaboratively by

IV. Basic Concepts of the Life Course Perspective

A. Cohorts

i. Cohort: group of persons born during the same time period who

experience particular social changes within a given culture in the same

sequence and at the same age

B. Transitions

i. Transition: change in roles and statuses that represents a distinct

departure from prior roles and statuses

C. Trajectories

i. Trajectory: relatively stable, long-term processes and patterns of

events, involving multiple transitions

Hutchison, Dimensions of Human Behavior, 6e

SAGE Publishing, 2019

D. Life Events

i. Life event: significant occurrence in a person’s life that may produce

serious and long-lasting effects

ii. Life events are the cause rather than the aftereffect

E. Turning Points

i. Turning point: life event or transition that produces a major change

and/or lasting shift in the life course trajectory

iv. Three types of life events that can become turning points:

a. Life events that either close or open opportunities

v. A transition can become a turning point under five conditions:

a. When the transition occurs simultaneously with a crisis or is

followed by a crisis

b. When the transition involves family conflict over the needs and

V. Major Themes of the Life Course Perspective

A. Interplay of Human Lives and Historical Time

i. Cohort effects: distinctive formative experiences shared at the same

point in the life course which have a lasting impact on the birth cohort

ii. Veterans’ mortality and health effects (nonwar, wartime, and

nonveterans)

Hutchison, Dimensions of Human Behavior, 6e

iii. Demographic transitions

B. Timing of Lives

i. Age is a tool of societal organization and predicting/understanding

C. Dimensions of Age

i. Spiritual, psychological, and social processes result in “age–graded”

differences that are not simply chronological

iv. Social age: the age-graded roles and behaviors expected by society—in

other words, the socially constructed meaning of various ages

a. Age norm: indicates the behaviors expected of people of a

specific age in a given society at a particular point in time

D. Standardization in Timing of Lives

i. Age structuring: standardizing ages at which social role transitions

occur, by developing policies and laws that regulate the timing of these

transitions (e.g., age for working, driving, marrying, etc.)

E. Linked or Independent Lives

i. Social support: help rendered by others that benefits an individual or

collectivity

Hutchison, Dimensions of Human Behavior, 6e

SAGE Publishing, 2019

ii. Relationships control behavior through punishment, expectations, and

rewards

F. Links With Family Members

i. Genetic diseases in a family unit, for example, may effect an

individual’s life differently depending on their present stage in the life

G. Links With the Wider World

i. Life course for young adults’ trajectories is linked to systemic forces

affecting the timing of departure from their parents’ homes

a. Labor markets

H. Human Agency in Making Choices

i. Human agency: the use of personal power to achieve one’s goals

ii. The self-possibility incentives:

a. What we might become

iii. Bandura’s concepts of self-efficacy (sense of personal competence) and

self-expectation (expectation that one can personally accomplish a

goal):

a. Personal agency: exercised individually, using personal

influence to shape environmental events or one’s own behavior

Hutchison, Dimensions of Human Behavior, 6e

SAGE Publishing, 2019

I. Diversity in Life Course Trajectories

i. There is variability in life course trajectories within cohorts

ii. Intersectionality theory: all of us are jointly and simultaneously

J. Development and Risk Protection

i. The life course perspective recognizes the links between transitions in

childhood, adolescence, and adulthood

a. (e.g., health disparities based on race)

iv. Privilege: the trajectory of unearned advantage

v. Oppression: the intentional or unintentional act or process of placing

restrictions on an individual, group, or institution (overt, covert) for the

purpose of exclusion and inequalities over time

viii. Ecobiodevelopmental research seeks to understand how toxic stress

disrupts healthy development of the brain and other bodily systems

ix. The cumulative advantage/disadvantage finds that cumulative processes

are sometimes reversible when proper resources, agency, and

VI. Strengths and Limitations of the Life Course Perspective

A. Strengths: pays attention to sociocultural and historical change impacting

human behavior, sheds light on linkages between generation that

Hutchison, Dimensions of Human Behavior, 6e

SAGE Publishing, 2019

B. Weaknesses: heterogeneity hinders the study of patterns in human behavior,

VII. Integration With a Multidimensional, Multitheoretical Approach

A. The life course perspective aligns with social work’s pillar of merging

empirical research with theory to engage a multidisciplinary approach to the

practice