Vushaj SOC 150-05 September 6, 2013 Writing assignment #1 Sociology is the study of society and social interaction. Sociology takes a broad approach at helping one understand how people interact in different societies. On the contrary, other social sciences look deeper into specific areas of society, rather than society as a whole. Classical sociologists Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, each contributed to the scientific study of sociology. Marx believed that societies grew and changed due to struggles of different social classes.
Functionalism relies very much on the scientific method. By relying on the scientific method, the study of sociology can be observed in the same way one would view the physical world. (McClelland) Most of the ideas of functionalism came from Emile Durkheim. He was a French sociologist that wrote the basis for functionalist theory. Durkheim was one of the first sociologists to use the scientific method and statistical techniques in sociological research.
Sociology examines how our behavior individually and in groups is influenced by social processes and what that means. In fact once you start seeing things with a sociological perspective – things will never be the same. It’s knowing how and why we do what we do that engages us with the world around us and makes us more effective agents for social change. However, sociologist C. Wright Mills describes sociology as “the intersection of biography and history?” A lot of you may wonder what he mean: well from my studying and perspectives; The reason why he say sociology is the interception of biography and history is because, Biography: happens to individuals and History: happens to society. For example, every
Social policy is government principles and legislation designed to deal with social problems like crime and poverty. However opinions from sociologists all vary on this matter because some believe that their research should feed into policy; whereas others are in the opinion that sociologists must find out what is happening, why it is happening and what can be done to solve the problem. There are many things that influence sociology on policy for example globalisation and policy preferences of the government at the time. This essay is going to examine the relationship between sociology and social policy. Positivists and functionalists such as Durkheim and Comte view sociology as a science and they argue that sociology can discover all the social problems.
Sociology Versus Anthropology Abstract: Sociology and Anthropology both concentrate on the society and its evolution. Both share different approaches as well as have some similarities as well. This essay will discuss two research methods used in sociology as well as two research methods used in anthropology. The methods will then be compared and contrasted. Describe two research methods used in Sociology: According to the University of North Carolina, Sociology is described as “The study of human social relationships and institutions.” Sociology uses several research methods to study social relationships and institutions including quantitative research and observational research.
He was convinced that using scientific principles, sociologists could solve problems such as poverty, crime and war. Emile Durkheim paid a lot of emphasizes on social facts and social integration. Karl Marx devoted his life to analyzing and criticizing the society he observed. He was also interested in how capitalism shaped society. Max Weber, showed that the basic structure of society comes from the political, economic, cultural spheres.
Another difference with the two is that sociology uses survey and correlational research mostly but social psychology understands the importance of experimental research as well (Myers, 2010). However, clinical psychology relies heavily on experimental research just like social psychology in order to verify hypotheses. Than general psychology or known as personality psychology is different than social psychology because they focus on the individual instead of the impact that people have on each other. In order to sum everything up sociology would be on the left for social psychology because of the focus on social interactions, clinical psychology would be to the right of social psychology because of their use of experimental research, and personality psychology would be in the main of social psychology because both want an understanding of people as
a representation of some aspect of the natural world * What are some reasons that scientists use models? to gain an aspect of the natural world, different models about the same subject may result in different results that my support or refute a claim.. Scientists need to know the limitations of the models, so they don't have flawed observations * What are some examples of scientific models? globe, map, * Why might a scientist need to use several different models of the same aspect of the natural world? Why isn’t one model enough? Because no model represents all aspects of the natural world perfectly * Why is it important for a scientist to understand the limitations of the models they use?
4). In a more descriptive definition social psychology is a scientific study that focuses on understanding and explaining how humans think about, influence and/or affect, and relate to one another. Social psychology can be summed up and simply defined as the scientific study of social thinking, social influence, and social relations (Myers, 2010). Although there are many different views, experiments, outcomes, and theories that make up social psychology these ideas can be boiled down to just a few central ideas referred to as social psychology's big lessons (Myers, 2010). These big ideas can be categorized under social thinking, social influence, or social relations.
This paper will provide a clear definition of Social Psychology, a comparison of Social Psychology to other disciplines of psychology and an understanding of the role research plays. Definition of Social Psychology Social Psychology is defined as “the scientific study of how people think about, influence and relate to one another” (Myers, 2010, p. 4). Social Psychology is not about looking at one’s social influences. In order to understand it, one must be able to see how personality, attitude, and behavior- influences and are influenced by one’s social groups. This is primarily where Social Psychology would differ from Sociology.