4.2.3.1 The social construction of health, illness and the body Quiz: AQA Sociology, Unit 2

The 20 questions

1. Which model of health and illness treats illness mainly as a physical malfunction of the body that medical science can diagnose and treat?

   • The labelling model, which treats illness as a status conferred on a person by the reactions of others
   • The sick role model, which treats illness as a temporary exemption from normal social duties
   • The social model of health, which locates ill health mainly in social conditions such as housing and income
   • The biomedical model of health and illness

2. Which sociologist argued that medicalisation extends medical control over ordinary life, so that normal conditions such as childbirth or grief become treated as illnesses?

   • Talcott Parsons
   • Emile Durkheim
   • Karl Marx
   • Ivan Illich

3. In sociology, what does the 'social construction' of illness mean?

   • Doctors deliberately invent new diseases in every society in order to increase the income of the medical profession
   • What counts as illness, and how a condition is defined and treated, varies with the meanings a society gives to bodily states
   • Illness is caused entirely by genetic inheritance, with social meanings playing no part in how it is defined
   • Illness rates are the same in every society because the human body is biologically identical everywhere

4. Which model of disability argues that disability is created mainly by social barriers and an unaccommodating environment, rather than by the impairment itself?

   • The functionalist model, which treats disability as a deviation from the normal social role
   • The social model of disability, associated with Mike Oliver
   • The medical model of disability, which treats disability as an individual tragedy to be cured
   • The biomedical model of health, which treats disability as a malfunction of the body

5. According to Michel Foucault, what is the 'medical gaze'?

   • A government policy of inspecting hospitals and clinics to check standards of hygiene and staffing
   • Clinical observation that classifies bodies as cases, producing medical knowledge and forms of power over patients
   • A nurse's trained habit of ignoring emotional symptoms so that only physical signs are recorded
   • A patient's unconscious belief that doctors can cure all forms of illness through personal reassurance and a caring manner

6. In Talcott Parsons' sick role, what does a sick person gain and what is expected of them?

   • Permanent release from all social roles, in return for an obligation to accept a lifelong care home placement
   • Exemption from normal duties and blame, in return for an obligation to want to recover and seek competent medical help
   • Exemption from taxation only, in return for an obligation to attend a support group for three months
   • Full continuation of normal duties and responsibilities, in return for an obligation to report every symptom to employers immediately

7. Which definition of health sees it as complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease?

   • The holistic definition used by the World Health Organization in its 1948 constitution
   • Illich's definition, which equates health with the individual's ability to self-diagnose without professionals
   • The biomedical definition, which equates health with the absence of measurable disease or abnormal test results
   • Parsons' sick role definition, which equates health with the ability to carry out normal social duties

8. A sociologist notes that the same bodily condition is called a 'disease' in one society and a 'normal stage of life' in another. Which explanation best fits this evidence?

   • Doctors in the second society are less skilled at diagnosis, so they mistakenly treat a disease as normal ageing
   • The condition has different biological causes in each society, so the two labels are both correct for their populations
   • Biomedical science has proved that the first society's label is wrong, so the second society's view is simply more accurate
   • Health and illness are socially defined, so the meaning given to a condition varies across cultures and times

9. A woman's grief after bereavement is classed as a clinical depressive illness and treated with medication. Which concept best describes this process?

   • Secularisation, where religious institutions lose influence over social life and everyday decisions
   • Medicalisation, where ordinary social experiences come to be defined and treated as medical problems
   • Hegemony, where a dominant group secures consent to its ideas through shared cultural assumptions
   • De-skilling, where workers lose control over their tasks because of technology or management

10. A wheelchair user cannot enter a shop because it has steps, and cannot travel because the buses are inaccessible. Using the social model, which change would most reduce this person's disability?

    • Developing a surgical treatment to cure the paralysis so that the person no longer needs a wheelchair at all
    • Encouraging the person to accept the impairment as a personal tragedy and to adjust their expectations accordingly
    • Providing more doctors to diagnose the impairment in greater detail and monitor it through regular checks
    • Installing ramps and providing accessible transport so that the person can enter buildings and travel independently

11. Which of the following is the best example of the body being socially constructed?

    • The blood group a person inherits at birth, which is determined entirely by their parents' genetic material
    • Ideal body shapes and weights that change considerably over a few decades within the same society
    • The fixed number of bones in the adult human skeleton, which is the same in all cultures and periods
    • The boiling point of water at sea level, which is determined by physical laws rather than human meanings

12. Which concept from sociology refers to the body as shaped, experienced and given meaning through social processes, not only through biology?

    • Biological determinism, which holds that human behaviour and physical traits are fixed by inherited genes alone
    • Eugenics, which aims to improve the population by controlling which people are allowed to reproduce
    • Embodiment, the way social and cultural processes shape bodily experience and identity
    • Reductionism, which explains complex social phenomena by reducing them to their smallest biological parts

13. A patient with chronic back pain is seen by a doctor who considers physical, psychological and social factors such as stress at work. Which approach does this illustrate?

    • A purely interactionist approach, focusing only on how the patient's labels affect their self-image
    • A biopsychosocial approach, combining biological, psychological and social explanations of illness
    • A purely functionalist approach, focusing only on how the patient's illness affects social stability
    • A purely biomedical approach, focusing only on the measurable structure of the spine and its tissues

14. Which of these is a sociological point about how conditions come to be defined as medical problems?

    • Medical categories change only when new laboratory technology is invented, and never through social pressure or debate
    • Medical definitions of conditions are fixed by the discovery of a single biological cause, and social expectations have no role
    • Some conditions such as childhood hyperactivity have been medically defined partly in response to changing social expectations of behaviour
    • Conditions become medical problems only when the patient asks a doctor for treatment, with no social input at all

15. A hospital records patients only as numbered cases and classifications, ignoring each person's account of their experience. Which Foucauldian concept best describes this?

    • The social model, which describes disability as the product of barriers in the surrounding environment
    • The medical gaze, which reduces the patient to a classified body
    • Embodiment, which describes the way the body is shaped by social and cultural processes over time
    • The sick role, which describes the rights and obligations of people who are temporarily unwell

16. What is the key difference between the social model of disability and the medical model of disability?

    • The social model claims disability is always caused by a genetic mutation, whereas the medical model claims it is caused by environment
    • The social model locates disability in social barriers, whereas the medical model locates it in the individual's impairment
    • The social model says disability cannot be changed by any policy, whereas the medical model says it can be cured by any policy
    • The social model treats disability as a matter of personal choice, whereas the medical model treats it as a legal category

17. Which of the following is the strongest argument for the view that the body is never purely a biological object?

    • Bones and internal organs look broadly similar across all human populations, so biology is the only factor that matters
    • Medical imaging shows identical anatomy in every person, so social meanings of the body must be imaginary and unimportant
    • Bodily experience, care and meanings are shaped by culture, class, gender and institutions as well as by biology
    • Biological ageing happens at the same rate in every population, so differences in health between groups must be random

18. Which criticism is most often made of the social constructionist view of illness?

    • It assumes that every illness is caused by a single genetic mutation, which has been disproved by research
    • It relies too heavily on laboratory tests, which are not accepted as evidence in any sociological research
    • It denies that social structures such as class and gender have any influence on the distribution of health
    • It can understate the real physical pain and disease that occur whatever meanings a society attaches to them

19. A critic argues that medicalisation has expanded medical control over social life. Which evidence would best support this claim?

    • An increase in the number of hospital beds dedicated only to emergency surgery, with no change in other services
    • A fall in the number of patients visiting doctors for minor complaints, showing that medical control is shrinking over time
    • Normal life events such as menopause or ageing being treated as medical conditions that require routine drug treatment
    • A rise in the number of sociologists writing about health, which shows that medicine itself is becoming less influential

20. Which conclusion best follows from the view that health and illness are socially constructed?

    • Definitions of health and illness reflect power and values, so they can change over time and differ between societies
    • Illness is a purely subjective experience, so there is no role for medical diagnosis or evidence in any context
    • Only individuals can decide what counts as illness, so professional and institutional definitions have no real importance
    • Definitions of health are fixed by scientific evidence, so they are the same in every society and cannot change over time

Related quizzes

• Conceptions of culture Quiz · 4.2.1.1 · 20 questions
• Socialisation and the agencies of socialisation Quiz · 4.2.1.2 · 20 questions
• The self, identity and difference Quiz · 4.2.1.3 · 20 questions
• Identity and age, disability, ethnicity, gender, nationality, sexuality and class Quiz · 4.2.1.4 · 20 questions
• Identity, production, consumption and globalisation Quiz · 4.2.1.5 · 20 questions
• The family, social structure and social change Quiz · 4.2.2.1 · 20 questions
• Marriage, cohabitation, divorce and the life course Quiz · 4.2.2.2 · 20 questions
• Gender roles, domestic labour and power in the family Quiz · 4.2.2.3 · 20 questions
• The nature of childhood Quiz · 4.2.2.4 · 20 questions
• Demographic trends in the UK since 1900 Quiz · 4.2.2.5 · 20 questions