Transcript Human social behavior

Other Sciences of Behavior and
How They Relate to Sociology
The Province of Sociology:
Human Social Behavior
Human social behavior
Special Subsets of Human Social
Behavior
Group decision
making
Subsistence
and exchange
Human social behavior
Academic Disciplines and Human
Social Behavior
Group decision
making
Political
Science
Subsistence
and exchange
Economics
Sociology -Human social behavior
Political Science
• Political science: the science that studies the
distribution and use of power
– Social power, of course, not electricity 
• Political scientists are not as interested in
person-to-person power as in larger scale
power, particularly governments
Economics
• Economics: the science that studies the
distribution of scarce resources
• Only seems to be the study of money
– Money is fabulous invention now pre-eminent in
how we distribute resources
– Money also easy to do arithmetic and hairier math
with
• Some see modern economics as branch of applied
mathematics
Political Economy
• Political science and economics overlap
somewhat
– Note for instance attempts by politicians and
government office holders to develop programs to
affect the economy
• Area of overlap is called political economy
Human Behavior in General
Group decision
making
Political
Science
Subsistence
and exchange
Economics
Sociology - Human social behavior
Human behavior
Human Behavior Disciplines
Political economy
Political
Science
Economics
Sociology -Human social behavior
PSYCHOLOGY - Human behavior
Psychology
• The science of the mind
– Mind of the individual, not some collective
• Backman definition: the science of human
behavior
– In practice psychologists leave more complex
social behavior to other social scientists
Branches of Psychology
• BIOPSYCHOLOGY -- biological processes affecting the
mind
• LEARNING / COGNITION -- learning and thinking
• PERSONALITY and SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY -- effects of
society on the individual; group process
– Similar to microsociology
• DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY – psychological
changes throughout the life span
• CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY – mental illness and its
treatment
Human Behavior Disciplines
Political economy
Political
Science
Economics
Sociology -Human social behavior
PSYCHOLOGY - Human behavior
ANTHROPOLOGY – Human bhr
Anthropology
• The science of humankind
– Used to be the “Science of Man”
• Concerned with all human behavior
– In practice, in comparison with psychology more
concerned with large scale social behavior
Branches of Anthropology
• Biological Anthropology (Physical Anthropology)
– Study of structure and evolution of human body
• Cultural Anthropology (Social Anthropology)
– Study of human societies and social organization
• Linguistics
– Study of language, languages, language groups
• Archeology (aka Archaeology)
– Study of human societies on basis of physical residues they
leave behind
Cultural Anthropology and Sociology
• Anthropology tends to be more holistic
– Sociologists tend to be more willing to look at a small part
of society; anthropologists want to see how it all hangs
together
• Anthropologists tend to study smaller groups
– It is difficult to get a holistic view of large complex societies
like the United States
• Anthropologists less likely to generalize from N of 1
– Sociologists tend to know a lot about one society;
anthropologists know about many societies
N of 1 and Critical Thinking (1)
• “N” or sometimes “n” refers to the number of
observations a scientist made
– In a survey, the number who completed it
– In medical research, n of people/animals studied
• Old phrase: “One mouse equals no mouse” means
conclusions drawn from studying one mouse are no
better than conclusions based on studying no mice at
all
• Drawing conclusions from an N of 1 is overgeneralization, bad logic
N of 1 and Critical Thinking (2)
• If 1 observation is not enough for a reliable
generalization, how many observations do you
need?
– A serious issue for statisticians
– For statisticians answer depends on …
• How reliable you want to be
• How different the observations are from each other
–If we are talking about societies, there is a
great deal of variability
Sciences of Human Behavior:
Review
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Sociology
Economics
Political science
Political economy
Psychology
Anthropology and its branches
N of 1
Animal Behavior
• Humans are animals
• Humans do many of the same things animals
lacking our magnificence () do
– Eat
– Drink
– Procreate
– Use the kitty box
Animal Behavior Disciplines
Political economy
Political
Science
Economics
Sociology -Human social behavior
Psych, Anthro - Human behavior
BIOLOGY - Animal Behavior
Biology
• Humans are critters … so what?
– Male – female seems biological
– Hormones – biological
– Brains for thinking – seems biological
– Sociability – maybe biological
– Capacity for language – biological
• Ergo [therefore] biology should be important
for sociology
Sociobiology
• Sociobiology: the science concerned with the
biological bases of social behavior
– Also called behavioral genetics
• Sociobiologists are sometimes accused of
being biological or genetic determinists:
Biology is destiny!
• Sociologists were largely indifferent or hostile
– Twin studies helped change
Why Sociologists Have Ignored
Biology
• It is hard enough to learn sociology
• Wide range of responses people have made to
human biology
– If biology were destiny, all societies would be alike
• Assuming all Homo sapiens are basically alike
• Implicit assumption all environments alike or irrelevant
– Societies are not all alike
• Roles of men and women, in particular, are not alike
Sex, Gender, and Biology
• Gender is a social construction
– Different societies define gender roles differently
– Different societies recognize different sexes
• A variety of unusual conditions in utero or in
the genes can lead to babies that do not have
the typical external genitalia
– There can be more than two possible
combinations of X and Y chromosomes
– Intersexes
Compare Sex and Gender
1. Sex refers to biological differences between
males and females
2. Gender refers to social or cultural
differences between males and females
3. They are alike because both are concerned
with male/female differences
4. They differ in the source of the differences:
sex comes from biology, gender from society
Biology: Hormones
• Chemical messengers
• Q: do they affect human social behavior?
– Menstrual cramps
• Sex hormones are of great interest
– Estrogen – important female hormone
– Testosterone especially studied (male hormone)
• Hard to tell cause from effect
Testosterone
• Vietnam vets study
• Results: High testosterone goes with
– Lower marriage rates
– Higher divorce rates
– Lower educational attainment
– More spouse abuse
– More legal problems
– More drug use (including alcohol)
Evolution vs Physiology
• Hormone action is about physiology – how
the body does what it does
– Some sociobiology has a physiological focus
• Comparisons of human and chimpanzee
behavior typically have evolutionary focus
– How did this behavior evolve?
– Sometimes explanations sound like Just So stories
History (as a Social Science)
• History interprets the past
– Sociologists often, too
• Historians tend to want to understand the
details of a particular story
• Sociologists: how are general laws of behavior
reflected in particular stories?
Idiographic vs Nomothetic
• Historians tend to be more idiographic
– Interested in specifics of a specific case
• Sociologists more nomothetic
– Interested in general laws
• “Cases” historians study today not simply
wars, politics, nations
– Now social phenomena like lives of peasants, male
female relationships, etc
Boundaries Between Disciplines Are
Porous
• To answer a discipline’s questions often
involves consideration of other disciplines’
special knowledge
• Examples
– Biology of the brain
– Development of the self
– Interaction process
– Language
– Power
– Consumption
Disciplines and SOCY1000
• Course topic is Human Social Behavior
– We steal ideas wherever we find them
– Mostly steal from sociology
• Human social behavior is domain of sociology
• Sociology is what I know best
• In practice stealing from sociology is like stealing from
other disciplines since sociologists do it all the time
Review: Animal Behavior; History
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Sociobiology
Sex
Gender
Estrogen
Testosterone
Idiographic
Nomothetic