social science

social science term for any or all of the branches of study that deal with humans in their social relations. Often these studies are referred to in the plural as the social sciences. Although human social behavior has been studied since antiquity, the modern social sciences as disciplines rooted in the scientific method date only from the 18th cent. Enlightenment. Interest at first centered on economics , but by the 19th cent. separate disciplines had been developed in anthropology , political science , psychology , and sociology . The 19th cent. was characterized by the development of wide-ranging theories (e.g., the work of Auguste Comte, Karl Marx, and Herbert Spencer). Developments in the 20th cent. have moved in these directions: the improvement and increased use of quantitative methods and statistical techniques; increased use of the empirical method, as opposed to general theorizing; and the direct practical application of social science knowledge. Social science departments are now firmly established in universities, and social scientists are increasingly called upon to advise industries and governments for future planning.

Bibliography: See C. M. Bonjean, ed., Social Science in America (1976); T. L. Haskell, The Emergence of Professional Social Science (1977); R. S. Lynd, Knowledge for What? (1939, repr. 1986); R. D. Luce et al., ed., Leading Edges in Social and Behavioral Science (1989); D. Ross, The Origins of American Social Science (1991).

social science A general label applied to the study of society and human relationships. The development of social sciences, during the course of the nineteenth century, followed on the development of natural science. The designation of an area of study as a social science usually carries the implication that it is comparable in important ways to a natural science. Of the various disciplines that study human beings, psychology is often seen as a natural rather than a social science, and economics most frequently regarded as a comparatively unproblematic social science. Sociology, social psychology, politics, and geography have a more problematic status, while history is perhaps least often designated as a science.

Discipline boundaries are by no means always clear and the generic term social science usually covers most or all of the disciplines mentioned. All, to various degrees, are engaged in debates about the nature of science and scientific status. Are the social sciences directly comparable to the natural sciences, or does the fact that their object of study is human make them different? And, if they are different, in what sense (if any) are they scientific? Sociologists, in particular, have addressed these questions more or less continuously from the time of the classical theorists onwards. See also METHODOLOGY.