Sociology is one of the great fields of inquiry of the modern era. The idea of social relations or social forces, the idea that much of life is causally shaped by specific relations among large groups of people, belongs alongside the theory of gravity, evolution, the unconscious, and other seminal ideas that have transformed human life and consciousness in the last few centuries.
Have you ever talked about “role models" or “self-fulfilling prophecies?" Have you ever said to someone "it's not what you know, it's who you know?" Have you ever talked about "glass ceilings?" If you've used any of these ideas, you've used sociology. These are all concepts that originated in empirical sociological research and have since seeped into popular consciousness.