Essay Questions
Please answer each question clearly and fully, using examples as appropriate.
1. What are the three theoretical perspectives that gerontologists use in their studies? Explain the advantages and disadvantages of each perspective. Give at least one example of a study that uses each perspective.
2. In your own words, explain how anthropologists utilize the scientific method in their studies? What are the limitations of the scientific method in anthropological studies?
3. What two agents of socialization have influenced you the most? Explain their influence on your attitudes, beliefs, values, or other orientations to life.
4. Compare and contrast the challenges facing the developed and developing nations as a result of the increase in the proportion and number of older people in their societies. Discuss some responses each type of society can make to these challenges.
5. Explain how a psychologist, a sociologist, and a social psychologist might approach an explanation of the mass shooting that occurred at Virginia Tech in 2007.
6. List the characteristics or elements of pure capitalism and explain each. Are any of these elements absent from the U.S. economy? Explain your reasoning why you think they are absent or not.