Basic Social Scince

social science, any discipline or branch of science that deals with human behaviour in its social and cultural aspects. The social sciences include cultural (or social) anthropology, sociology, social psychology, political science, and economics. Also frequently included are social and economic geography and those areas of education that deal with the social contexts of learning and the relation of the school to the social order. History is regarded by many as a social science, and certain areas of historical study are almost indistinguishable from work done in the social sciences. Most historians, however, consider history as one of the humanities. It is generally best, in any case, to consider history as marginal to the humanities and social sciences, since its insights and techniques pervade both. The study of comparative law may also be regarded as a part of the social sciences, although it is ordinarily pursued in schools of law rather than in departments or schools containing most of the other social sciences.

Since the 1950s the term behavioral sciences has often been applied to the disciplines designated as the social sciences. Those who favour this term do so in part because these disciplines are thus brought closer to some of the sciences, such as physical anthropology and physiological psychology, which also deal with human behaviour. Whether the term behavioral sciences will in time supplant “social sciences” or whether it will, as neologisms so often have before, fade away is impossible to say. For the purposes of this article, the two terms may be considered synonymous.

Although, strictly speaking, the social sciences do not precede the 19th century—that is, as distinct and recognized disciplines of thought—one must go back farther in time for the origins of some of their fundamental ideas and objectives. In the largest sense, the origins go all the way back to the ancient Greeks and their rationalist inquiries into the nature of humans, state, and morality. The heritage of both Greece and Rome is a powerful one in the history of social thought as it is in other areas of Western society. Very probably, apart from the initial Greek determination to study all things in the spirit of dispassionate and rational inquiry, there would be no social sciences today. True, there have been long periods of time, as during the Western Middle Ages, when the Greek rationalist temper was lacking. But the recovery of this temper, through texts of the great classical philosophers, is the very essence of the Renaissance and the Age of Reason in modern European history. With the Age of Reason, in the 17th and 18th centuries, one may begin.

A major development in the social sciences of the 20th century was the vast increase in the number of social scientists involved, in the number of academic and other centres of teaching and research in the social sciences, and in their degree of both comprehensiveness and specialization. The explosion of the sciences generally in the 20th century included the explosion of the social sciences. Not only was there development and proliferation but there was also a spectacular diffusion of the social sciences. Beginning in a few places in western Europe and the United States in the 19th century, the social sciences, as bodies of ongoing research and centres of teaching, came to be found almost everywhere in the world. In considerable part this followed the spread of universities from the West to other parts of the world and, within universities, the very definite shift away from the hegemony once held by humanities alone to the near-hegemony held today by the sciences, physical and social.

In the 21st century specialization has been as notable a tendency in the social sciences as in the biological and physical sciences. This is reflected not only in varieties of research but also in course offerings in academic departments. Whereas not very many years ago, a couple of dozen advanced courses in a social science reflected the specialization and diversity of the discipline even in major universities with graduate schools, today a hundred such courses are found to be not enough.

Side by side with this strong trend toward specialization, however, is another, countering trend: that of cross-fertilization and interdisciplinary cooperation. At the beginning of the 20th century, down in fact until World War II, the several disciplines existed each in a kind of splendid isolation from the others. That historians and sociologists, for example, might ever work together in curricula and research projects would have been scarcely conceivable prior to about 1945. Each social science tended to follow the course that emerged in the 19th century: to be confined to a single, distinguishable, if artificial, area of social reality. Today, evidences are all around of cross-disciplinary work and of fusion within a single social science of elements drawn from other social sciences. Thus there are such vital areas of work as political sociology, economic anthropology, psychology of voting, and industrial sociology. Single concepts such as “structure,” “function,” “alienation,” and “motivation” can be seen employed variously to useful effect in several social sciences. The techniques of one social science can be seen consciously incorporated into another or into several social sciences. If history has provided much in the way of perspective to sociology or anthropology, each of these two has provided perspective, and also whole techniques, such as statistics and survey, to history. In short, specialization is by no means without some degree at least of countertendencies such as fusion and synthesis.

Another outstanding characteristic of each of the social sciences in the 20th century was its professionalization. Without exception, the social sciences became bodies of not merely research and teaching but also practice, in the sense that this word has in medicine or engineering. Down until about World War II, it was a rare sociologist or political scientist or anthropologist who was not a holder of academic position. There were economists and psychologists to be found in banks, industries, government, even in private consultantship, but the numbers were relatively tiny. Overwhelmingly the social sciences had visibility alone as academic disciplines, concerned essentially with teaching and with more or less basic, individual research. All this changed profoundly, and on a vast scale, during the late 20th century. Today there are as many economists and psychologists outside academic departments as within, if not more. The number of sociologists, political scientists, and demographers to be found in government, industry, and private practice rises constantly. Equally important is the changed conception or image of the social sciences. Today, to a degree unknown before World War II, the social sciences are conceived as policy-making disciplines, concerned with matters of national welfare in their professional capacities in just as sure a sense as any of the physical sciences. Inevitably, tensions have arisen within the social sciences as the result of processes of professionalization. Those persons who are primarily academic can all too easily feel that those who are primarily professional have different and competing identifications of themselves and their disciplines.

Nature of the research

The emphasis upon research in the social sciences has become almost transcending within recent decades. This situation is not at all different from that which prevails in the physical sciences and the professions in this age. Prior to about 1945, the functions of teaching and research had approximately equal value in many universities and colleges. The idea of a social (or physical) scientist appointed to an academic institution for research alone, or with research preponderant, was scarcely known. Research bureaus and institutes in the social sciences were very few and did not rival traditional academic departments and colleges as prestige-bearing entities. All of that was changed decisively beginning with the period just after World War II. From governments and foundations, large sums of money passed into the universities—usually not to the universities as such, but rather to individuals or small groups of individuals, each eminent for research. Research became the uppermost value in the social sciences (as in the physical) and hence, of course, in the universities themselves.

Probably the greatest single change in the social sciences during the second half of the 20th century was the widespread introduction of mathematical and other quantitative methods, all of which were aided by increasingly sophisticated computer technology. Without question, economics is the discipline in which the most spectacular changes of this kind have taken place. So great is the dominance of mathematical techniques here—resulting in the eruption of what is called econometrics to a commanding position in the discipline—that, to the outsider, economics today almost appears to be a branch of mathematics. But in sociology, political science, social psychology, and anthropology, the impact of quantitative methods, above all, of statistics, has also been notable. No longer does statistics stand alone, a separate discipline, as it did in effect during the 19th century. This area today is inseparable from each of the social sciences, though, in the field of mathematics, statistics still remains eminently distinguishable, the focus of highly specialized research and theory.

The use of computers and of all the complex techniques associated with computers has become a staple of social-science research and teaching. Through the data storage and data retrieval of electronic computers, working with amounts and diversity of data that would call for the combined efforts of hundreds, even thousands of technicians, the social sciences have been able to deal with both the extensive and intensive aspects of human behaviour in ways that would once have been inconceivable. The so-called computer revolution in modern thought has been, in short, as vivid a phase of the social as the physical sciences, not to mention other areas of modern life. The problem as it is stated by mature social scientists is to use computers in ways in which they are best fitted but without falling into the fallacy that they can alone guide, direct, and supply vital perspective in the study of man.

Closely related to mathematical, computer, and other quantitative aspects of the social sciences is the vast increase in the empiricism of modern social science. Never in history has so much in the way of data been collected, examined, classified, and brought to the uses of social theory and social policy alike. What has been called the triumph of the fact is nowhere more visible than in the social sciences. Without question, this massive empiricism has been valuable, indispensable indeed, to those seeking explanations of social structures and processes. Empiricism, however, like quantitative method, is not enough in itself. Unless related to hypothesis, theory, or conclusion, it is sterile, and most of the leading social scientists of today reflect this view in their works. Too many, however, deal with the gathering and classifying of data as though these were themselves sufficient.

It is the quest for data, for detailed, factual knowledge of human beliefs, opinions, and attitudes, as well as patterns and styles of life—familial, occupational, political, religious, and so on—that has made the use of surveys and polls another of the major tendencies in the social sciences of this century. The poll data one sees in news reports are hardly more than the exposed portion of an iceberg. Literally thousands of polls, questionnaires, and surveys are going on at any given moment today in the social sciences. The survey or polling method ranks with the quantitative indeed in popularity in the social sciences, both being, obviously, indispensable tools of the empiricism just mentioned.

Theoretical modes

It is not the case, however, that interest in theory is a casualty of the 20th-century fascination with method and fact. Though there is a great deal less of that grand or comprehensive theory that was a hallmark of 19th-century social philosophy and social science, there are still those persons who are engrossed in search for master principles, for general and unified theory that will assimilate all the lesser and more specialized types of theory. But their efforts and results are not often regarded as successful by the vast majority of social scientists. Theory tends to be specific theory—related to one or other of the major divisions of research within each of the social sciences. The theory of the firm in economics, of deviance in sociology, of communication in political science, of attitude formation in social psychology, of divergent development in cultural anthropology are all examples of theory in every proper sense of the word. But each is, clearly, specific. If there is a single social science in which a more or less unified theory exists, with reference to the whole of the discipline, it is economics. Even here, however, unified, general theory does not have the sovereign sweep it had in the classical tradition of Ricardo and his followers before the true complexities of economic behaviour had become revealed.

Developmentalism

Developmentalism is another overall influence upon the work of the social sciences. As noted above, an interest in social evolution was one of the major aspects of the social sciences throughout the 19th century in western Europe. In the early 20th century, however, this interest, in its larger and more visible manifestations, seemed to terminate. There was a widespread reaction against the idea of unilinear sequences of stages, deemed by the 19th-century social evolutionists to be universal for all mankind in all places. Criticism of social evolution in this broad sense was a marked element of all the social sciences, pre-eminently in anthropology but in the others as well. There were numerous demonstrations of the inadequacy of unilinear descriptions of change when it came to accounting for what actually happened, so far as records and other evidences suggested, in the different areas and cultures of the world.

Beginning in the late 1940s and the 1950s, however, there was a resurgence of developmental ideas in all the social sciences—particularly with respect to studies of the new nations and cultures that were coming into existence in considerable numbers. Studies of economic growth and of political and social development have become more and more numerous. Although it would be erroneous to see these developmental studies as simple repetitions of those of the 19th-century social evolutionists, there are, nevertheless, common elements of thought, including the idea of stages of growth and of change conceived as continuous and cumulative and even as moving toward some more or less common end. At their best, these studies of growth and development in the new nations, by their counterposing of traditional and modern ways, tell a good deal about specific mechanisms of change, the result of the impact of the West upon outlying parts of the world. But as more and more social scientists have recently become aware, efforts to place these concrete mechanisms of change into larger, more systematic models of development all too commonly succumb to the same faults of unilinearity and specious universalism that early-20th-century critics found in 19th-century social evolution.

Social-systems approach

Still another major tendency in all of the social sciences after World War II was the interest in “social systems.” The behaviour of individuals and groups is seen as falling into multiple interdependencies, and these interdependencies are considered sufficiently unified to warrant use of the word “system.” Although there are clear uses of biological models and concepts in social-systems work, it may be fair to say that the greatest single impetus to development of this area was widening interest after World War II in cybernetics—the study of human control functions and of the electrical and mechanical systems that could be devised to replace or reinforce them. Concepts drawn from mechanical and electrical engineering have been rather widespread in the study of social systems.

In social-systems studies, the actions and reactions of individuals, or even of groups as large as nations, are seen as falling within certain definable, more or less universal patterns of equilibrium and disequilibrium. The interdependence of roles, norms, and functions is regarded as fundamental in all types of group behaviour, large and small. Each social system, as encountered in social-science studies, is a kind of “ideal type,” not identical to any specific “real” condition but sufficiently universal in terms of its central elements to permit useful generalization.

Structuralism and functionalism

Structuralism in the social sciences is closely related to the theory of the social system. Although there is nothing new about the root concepts of structuralism—they may be seen in one form or other throughout Western thought—there is no question but that in the present century this view of behaviour has become a dominant one in many fields. At bottom it is a reaction against all tendencies to deal with human thought and behaviour atomistically—that is, in terms of simple, discrete units of either thought, perception, or overt behaviour. In psychology, structuralism in its oldest sense simply declares that perception occurs, with learning following, in terms of experiences or sensations in various combinations, in discernible patterns or gestalten. In sociology, political science, and anthropology, the idea of structure similarly refers to the repetitive patternings that are found in the study of social, economic, political, and cultural existence. The structuralist contends that no element can be examined or explained outside its context or the pattern or structure of which it is a part. Indeed, it is the patterns, not the elements, that are the only valid objects of study.

What is called functionalism in the social sciences today is closely related to structuralism, with the term structural-functional a common one, especially in sociology and anthropology. Function refers to the way in which behaviour takes on significance, not as a discrete act but as the dynamic aspect of some structure. Biological analogies are common in theories of structure and function in the social sciences. Very common is the image of the biological organ, with its close interdependence to other organs (as the heart to the lung) and the interdependence of activities (as circulation to respiration).

Interactionism

Interaction is still another concept that had wide currency in the social sciences of the 20th century. Social interaction—or, as it is sometimes called, symbolic interaction—refers to the fact that the relationships among two or more groups or human beings are never one-sided, purely physical, or direct. Always there is reciprocal influence, a mutual sense of “otherness.” And always the presence of the “other” has crucial effect in one’s definition of not merely what is external but what is internal. One acquires one’s individual sense of identity from interactions with others beginning in infancy. It is the initial sense of the other person—mother, for example—that in time gives the child its sense of self, a sense that requires continuous development through later interactions with others. From the point of view of interactionist theory, all one’s perceptions of and reactions to the external world are mediated or influenced by prior ideas, valuations, and assessments. Always one is engaged in socialization or the modification of one’s mind, role, and behaviour through contact with others.

Future of the social sciences

What has been covered in the preceding paragraphs may be the most that can be said within restricted compass about the social sciences of the 20th century without turning to the individual social sciences themselves and related disciplines. The concern here has been with only those major contextual influences, tendencies of overall character, and dominant ideas or theories that the social sciences taken as a whole manifest in one degree or other.

There is one final aspect of the subject that must be considered briefly, for how it is resolved will have much effect upon the future of the social sciences in the West. This is the relation of the social sciences to organized society, to government and industry, and to other institutional centres of authority, especially in light of funding for research and the implications for scientific objectivity. The social sciences, it is said, must maintain their distance, their freedom, from bureaucratized government and industry. Otherwise they will lose their inherent powers of honest and dispassionate criticism of the ineffective or evil in society. Although there may be a certain amount of feeling ranging from the naïve to the politically revolutionary in such sentiments, they cannot be taken lightly, as is apparent from the serious consideration that is being given on a steadily rising scale to the whole problem of the relationship between social science and social policy.

Since the inception of the social sciences—since, indeed, the time when the universities in the West came into being for the express purpose of training professional men in law, theology, and medicine—man has properly sought, through knowledge, to influence social policy, taking this latter term in the widest sense to include not merely the policies of national government but of local government, business, professions, and so on. What else, it may be asked, are the social sciences all about if it is not to use knowledge to improve social life; and how else but through influencing of the major institutions can such improvement take place?

So much is true, comes the answering response. But in the process of seeking to influence the great agencies of modern power and function—of what is loosely called the Establishment—the social sciences may themselves become influenced adversely by the values of power and affluence to be found in these great agencies. They themselves may become identified with the status quo. What the social sciences should give, say the partisans of this view, is a continuation of the revolutionary or at least profoundly reformist tradition that was begun in the 18th century by the philosophers of reason who, detesting the official establishment of their day, sought on their own to transform it. What is today called objectivity or methodological rigour turns out to be, say these same partisans, acceptance of the basic values of reigning government and industry.

It is this essential conflict regarding the purposes of the social sciences, the relation of the social sciences to government and society, and the role of the individual social scientist in society that bids fair at this moment to be the major conflict of the years ahead. How it is resolved may very well determine the fate of the social sciences, now less than two centuries old.

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