What is social
science?
It is the study of human behavior & interactions with findings supported and verified through
the scientific method.
Sociology
Sociology focusing on how our humanity is shaped and constrained by social context within which we live our lives
society is the external, visible activities of people in cultural groups – our collective form of survival
culture is the internal rules and knowledge they have that enable them to behave in an organized fashion
social behavior includes relations, roles, and whatever people do, make, think, feel, and believe that is collective
Social groups: associations – a general term for organizations in society, such as age groups, guilds, clubs … (can be voluntary, ascribed … )
Status groups – class, caste, rank
Power – authority or ability to make decisions and control others/resources. power is the ability to influence or outright control the behavior of people.
Social Power - One's decision that affects the society.
Status – prestige; rank in a hierarchy. Status is about how you are viewed by society.
Family – not quite the same for all (examples of kinds of family)
Class - refers to a group in society who share common level of access to wealth, opportunity, possessions and power/authority. Class is a catogorization about economics and lifestyle.
Subfield
Social stratification is a society's categorization of people into socioeconomic strata, based upon their occupation and income, wealth and social status, or derived power (social and political).
Socialization the process of learning to behave in a way that is acceptable to society. Adapt to the environment of the society. For example, Tarzan live and born in the jungle, he does not interact with humans, instead he interact with animals. Therefore, he became and behave like them.
Political Sociology Contemporary political sociology involves, but is not limited to, the study of the relations between state, society, and citizens. For example, Where a typical research question in political sociology might have been "Why do so few American or European citizens choose to vote?" or even "What difference does it make if women get elected?", political sociologists also now ask: "How is the body a site of power?", "How are emotions relevant to global poverty?", or "What difference does knowledge make to democracy?".
Criminology (from Latin crīmen, "accusation"; and Greek -λογία, -logia) is the scientific study of the nature, extent, management, causes, control, consequences, and prevention of criminal behavior, both on the individual and social levels.
Demography is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings. As a very general science, it can analyse any kind of dynamic living population, i.e., one that changes over time or space (see population dynamics). Demography encompasses the study of the size, structure, and distribution of these populations, and spatial or temporal changes in them in response to birth, migration, ageing, and death. Based on the demographic research of the earth, earth's population up to the year 2050 and 2100 can be estimated by demographers. Demographics are quantifiable characteristics of a given population.
Anthropology
initially differentiated from sociology in its focus on pre-modern communities, but now more characterized by its research traditions of immersive fieldwork and symbolic meanings more broadly. Anthropology is the study of the human as at once an individual, a product of society, and a maker of history and culture. It’s the nature of the human condition to live within structures of symbol, belief, and power of our own fashioning: religion, art, gender, war, ecosystems, race relations, embodiment, kinship, science, colonialism, language, nations and states, play, subsistence strategies, mass media, illness, pain, and pleasure. In a word, culture. And anthropologists study all this and more. Anthropology is the scientific study of humans and their cultural, social, biological, and environmental aspects of life in the past and the present.
Subfields, Concept
Archaeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, and cultural landscapes.
Physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their related non-human primates and their extinct hominin ancestors. Study of human biological origins, involved today genetic studies, evolutionary studies.
Cultural Anthropology: Concerns itself
with all facets of human culture; kinship,
linguistics,
culture and peoples’ beliefs, practices, and the cognitive and social organization of human
groups.
Cultural anthropologists study how people who share a common cultural system organize
and shape the physical and social world around them, and are in turn shaped by those
ideas, behaviors, and physical environments.
Economics
Economics is a social science that seeks to analyze and describe the production, distribution, and
consumption of wealth. Economics is the social science that is concerned
with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
Economics aims to
explain how economies work and how economic agents interact.
Economists
focus on how people behave in markets,
how markets tend to behave, – labour
markets, markets
for goods and services, etc – and how human behavior
generates
market related phenomena like inflation, rates
of economic growth/decline, business cycles,
depressions,
etc.
Microeconomics (from Greek prefix mikro- meaning "small") is a branch of economics that
studies the
behavior of individuals and firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of scarce
resources and
the interactions among these individuals and firms. Microeconomics is the study of
economics at an individual, group or company level. This could mean studying
the supply and demand for a specific product, the production that an individual
or business is capable of, or the effects of regulations on a business.
socioeconomics (also known as social economics) is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes.
Political Science
Politics focusing on the way that power and influence is articulated, particularly within the governing institution of nation states.
Subfields
Political theory, is the study of topics such as politics, liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority . Political theorists tend to focus more on theoretical claims rather than empirical claims about the nature of the politics. Normative political theory is concerned with questions about such concepts as justice, equality, and rights. Historical political theory engages political philosophers from the past (e.g. Thucyides and Plato) to the present. Political philosophy has its beginnings in ethics: in questions such as what kind of life is the good life for human beings. how to deploy or limit public power so as to maintain the survival and enhance the quality of human life.
What they are, why (or even if) they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it should take and why, what the law is, and what duties citizens owe to a legitimate government, if any, and when it may be legitimately overthrown, if ever.
Political economy focusing on how human societies and the international order are shaped by its processes of material production and distribution. Political economy is a term used for studying production and trade, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth.
International relations is an academic and a public policy field, and so can be positive and normative, because it analyzes and formulates the foreign policy of a given State. International Relations is the study of political relations between nation-states. It includes the study of diplomacy, military conflict, and conflict resolution, as well as the international political economy, international organizations, and other processes that operate across the boundaries of nation-states.
Public Policy is a very broad field of study that explores substantive policy areas as well as the procedurs of policy making. Examples of substantive areas include social welfare policy, communications policy, and morality policy. Government policies that affect the whole population
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the
human (and animal) mind and how it affects behavior and physical processes
(what makes us blush, smile, become tense, etc)
Subfields
Biological
Psychology - studies how human behavior is related to physical-chemical-electrical
processes in the mind. It is the application of the principles of biology to the study of physiological, genetic, and developmental mechanisms of behavior in humans and other animals. Biological psychology is concerned primarily with the relationship between psychological processes and the underlying physiological events—or, in other words, the mind-body phenomenon. Its focus is the function of the brain and the rest of the nervous system in activities (e.g., thinking, learning, feeling, sensing, and perceiving) recognized as characteristic of humans and other animals. Behaviour (whether human or animal) is driven by genetics and a person’s biological / chemical composition. It assumes that the environment cannot change your behaviour and that your actions, decisions and the way you live can be traced back to stemming from your parents, from which you inherited your genes.
•Behavioral
Psychology,
studies the way people and animals respond to external stimulus. Behavioral psychology is the study of the connection between our minds and our behavior. Behavioral psychology is a branch of psychology that focuses on the study and alteration of people's behaviors, including their actions, emotions and thoughts. Assumes that our behaviour is a product of our interaction with the environment. Socialization.
•
•Social
Psychology,
studies human behavior in groups and how these influence an individual’s
behavior and the development of his/her belief system.
