Someone using the sociological imagination "thinks himself away" from the familiar routines of daily life.

To have a sociological imagination, a person must be able to pull away from the situation and think from an alternative point of view.

Mills believed in the power of the sociological imagination to connect "personal troubles to public issues."

The sociological imagination is the ability to see things socially and how they interact and influence each other.

Mills defined sociological imagination as "the vivid awareness of the relationship between experience and the wider society."

Basically, as an aspect of sociological imagination, what people do is shaped by all these things that result in some sort of outcome.

The three components that form the sociological imagination are:

The concept of memory work is part of a sociological imagination from a post-national point of view.

Another way of describing sociological imagination is the understanding that social outcomes are shaped by social context, actors, and social actions.

Thus, the Sociological Imagination is seen by many as a connection between Mills' life and work (Brewer, 2005, 668-671).