Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Manifest functions are the consequences that people see, observe or even expect. It is explicitly stated and understood by the participants in the relevant action. The manifest function of a rain dance, according to Merton in his 1957 Social Theory and Social Structure, is to produce rain, and this outcome is intended and desired by people participating in the ritual.
Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life.
Pure sociology is a theoretical paradigm, developed by Donald Black, that explains variation in social life through social geometry, meaning through locations in social space. A recent extension of this idea is that fluctuations in social space—i.e., social time —are the cause of social conflict.
Sociology as a scholarly discipline emerged, primarily out of Enlightenment thought, as a positivist science of society shortly after the French Revolution.Its genesis owed to various key movements in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of knowledge, arising in reaction to such issues as modernity, capitalism, urbanization, rationalization, secularization, colonization and imperialism.
An 'etic' account is a description of a behavior or belief by a social analyst or scientific observer (a student or scholar of anthropology or sociology, for example), in terms that can be applied across cultures; that is, an etic account attempts to be 'culturally neutral', limiting any ethnocentric, political or cultural bias or alienation by ...
Social constructionism is a term used in sociology, social ontology, and communication theory.The term can serve somewhat different functions in each field; however, the foundation of this theoretical framework suggests various facets of social reality—such as concepts, beliefs, norms, and values—are formed through continuous interactions and negotiations among society's members, rather ...
Causality, within sociology, has been the subject of epistemological debates, particularly concerning the external validity of research findings; one factor driving the tenuous nature of causation within social research is the wide variety of potential "causes" that can be attributed to a particular phenomena.
Human behavior is studied by the social sciences, which include psychology, sociology, ethology, and their various branches and schools of thought. [1] There are many different facets of human behavior, and no one definition or field study encompasses it in its entirety. [2]