Social sciences: overview and disciplinary foundations

Social Sciences

Why are the social sciences governed by a system of rules? Why is methodology and application important in our pursuit to understand human behavior? How can statistics help to explain social facts? Does common sense play a factor in exploring human beings? Explain.

Like the natural sciences, the social sciences also attempt to explain real, measurable behavior in the world. Even though human behavior may be more difficult to isolate in the laboratory, more subject to multiple exterior influences in the 'field' of lived experience, and less predictable and uniform in its behavior than microbes and molecules, this is all the more reason for studying human behavior in a systematized fashion. It helps make sense of what often seems chaotic and unpredictable, when viewed anecdotally. If social sciences like psychology aspire to be useful and prescriptive, experimental studies and observations must be subject to controls and prove hypotheses with the same rigor as the natural sciences.

Useful research in the social science that makes prescriptive conclusions cannot be purely anecdotal, although case studies have their place within the social sciences. But even in a case study, statistics can support the conclusions of the observer. For example, the proposal that Swedish teenagers growing up in a more open sexual environment are more likely to take responsibility for their sexuality might be an idea confirmed in dialogues with these teens and an analysis of the mass media. Still, this idea should also be supported by data about birth control use and an analysis of how often responsible attitudes towards sexuality are discussed in the media, rather than a deconstruction of a few ads.

The issue of ethics in psychology and anthropology also requires a certain rigorous and rule-based methodology. To avoid exploiting or changing home cultures, anthropologists must maintain a proper distance from their subjects. Researchers in psychology cannot abuse subjects in a laboratory environment to prove a theory.