scholarly journals Traveling between worlds: repositioning methods and theory for research into coupled socio-ecological systems

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lasse Gerrits
Keyword(s):  
Social Behavior ◽  
Landscape Ecology ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Literature Survey ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Its Analysis

Abstract Context This paper engages with the question of how one can arrive at more coherent explanations of social behavior in coupled socio-ecological systems. Objectives The paper aims to give a counterargument to the assumption that social theory in coupled socio-ecological systems can only be developed in one way, as such showing that the premise of the special issue deserves further scrutiny. Methods Current issues are identified and categorized based on a literature survey; likewise, the solutions derive from methodological literature, in particular from the realm of critical realism. Results The paper shows how a set of assumptions about the nature of socio-ecological systems and about the nature of theory derived from observations prohibit a deeper understanding of how social theory may be developed at the nexus of coupled socio-ecological systems. Researchers should engage more clearly with movements between theories, models and data, and movements between ontology, epistemology and data. Conclusions Landscape ecology can—and should—accommodate social theory in its analysis but from a different premise than is currently often the case. The proposed operations will contribute to a complexity-informed understanding of human behavior in coupled socio-ecological systems.

Magic and Politics

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 5-14
Author(s):  
Sabina Magliocco
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
The United States ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Cultural Expression ◽  
Spirit World

This essay introduces a special issue of Nova Religio on magic and politics in the United States in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election. The articles in this issue address a gap in the literature examining intersections of religion, magic, and politics in contemporary North America. They approach political magic as an essentially religious phenomenon, in that it deals with the spirit world and attempts to motivate human behavior through the use of symbols. Covering a range of practices from the far right to the far left, the articles argue against prevailing scholarly treatments of the use of esoteric technologies as a predominantly right-wing phenomenon, showing how they have also been operationalized by the left in recent history. They showcase the creativity of magic as a form of human cultural expression, and demonstrate how magic coexists with rationality in contemporary western settings.

Measuring Social Norms in Economics: Why It Is Important and How It Is Done

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-312
Author(s):  
Daniele Nosenzo ◽  
Luise Görges
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Experimental Economics ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Research Projects

Abstract Experimental economics offers new tools for the measurement of social norms. In this article, we argue that these advances have the potential to promote our understanding of human behavior in fundamental ways, by expanding our knowledge beyond what we learn by simply observing human behavior. We highlight how these advancements can inform not only economic and social theory, but also policymaking.We then describe and critically assess three approaches used in economics to measure social norms. We conclude our overview with a list of recommendations to help empirical researchers choose among the different tools, depending on the nature and constraints of their research projects.

Markets are constantly collapsing: Reconceptualizing ‘the market’ as a quantum social wavefunction

2021 ◽  
pp. 102452942098782
Author(s):  
Michael Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Open Economy ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Core Concepts ◽  
Broad Framework

The quantum moment in International Relations theory challenges the taken for granted Newtonian assumptions of conventional theories, while offering a novel physical imaginary grounded in quantum mechanics. As part of the special issue on reconceptualizing markets, this article questions if prior efforts to conceptualize ‘the market’ have been unsuccessful at capturing the paradoxical microfoundational/macrostructural because of the Newtonian worldview within which much social science operates. By developing a new, quantum perspective on the market, taking the physical paradigm of the wavefunction, I seek to explore the connections between entanglement, nonlocality, interference and invisible social structures. To demonstrate the applicability of quantum thinking, I explore how global value chains and open economy politics might be ‘quantized’, through the mobilization of core concepts of quantum social theory, within the broad framework of the market as a quantum social wavefunction.

scholarly journals Philosophy and society: From the collection to the journal

2013 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 44-60
Author(s):  
Dusan Boskovic
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Former Yugoslavia ◽  
Historical Document ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Short Overview ◽  
History Of

This paper brings a short overview of the history of the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, the publisher of the journal Philosophy and Society. The first issue came out in 1987 as a collection of essays, and for the last eight years it has been published annually. In 2005 it became a journal with three issues per year, becoming quarterly since 2011. The article gives a review of all special topics covered in the journal up until the end of 2012. In addition, the article provides a detailed analysis of the journal?s special issue on Antifascism (IV/1993). We argue that this issue is an important historical document in the changing social atmosphere of the former Yugoslavia, with the first signs of its disintegration. The papers were initially presented at a conference held on 2, 3 July, 1991.

scholarly journals Human Behavior Prediction and Analysis Using Machine Learning-A Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 870-876
Author(s):  
Monali Gulhane, T.Sajana
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Feature Extraction ◽  
Social Behavior ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Technical Difficulty ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Machine Learning Algorithms ◽  
Disease Classification ◽  
Machine Learning Techniques ◽  
Classification Techniques

Nowadays many trends are being in the area of medicine to predict the human behaviour and analysis of patient behaviour is being studied but the technical difficulty of cost efficient method to predict the behaviour of user is overcome in the proposed researched methodology .The mental health of the used can lead to good immunity system to be healthy in this pandemic of COVID-19. Hence After a detailed study on different human health disease classification techniques it is found that machine learning techniques are reliable for the feature extraction and analysis of the different human parameters. CNN is the most optimum choice of classification of diseases. Feature extraction and feature selection is automatically managed by the CNN layers, which reduces the training speed. Techniques like sensor-based feature extraction like EEG, ECG, etc. will be further explored using machine learning algorithms for detection of early detections of diseases from human behavior on different platforms in this research. Social behavior and eating habits play a vital role in disease detection. A system that combines such a wide variety of features with effective classification techniques at each stage is needed. The research in this paper contributes the review of the human behavior analysis through different body parameters, food habits and social media influences with social behavior of the person. The main objective of research is to analysis theses different area parameters to predict the early signs of the diseases.

A Theory of Balanced Leadership

2021 ◽  
pp. 25-47
Author(s):  
Ralf Müller ◽  
Nathalie Drouin ◽  
Shankar Sankaran
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Contingency Theory ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Leadership Theory ◽  
Practical Work ◽  
Middle Range Theory ◽  
Balanced Leadership ◽  
Middle Range ◽  
Range Theory

This chapter describes balanced leadership theory. It starts by discussing the need for theories for good practical work. A positioning follows, which locates balanced leadership as a middle-range theory between substantive and grand theories. The chapter continues with some of the required information to make sense of the theory. This includes the philosophical stance, which is critical realism, and the theoretical lens, which is realist social theory and its morphogenetic cycle. A detailed description of the theory follows. This description addresses the theory’s constituting variables (the what), the macro- and micro-processes that explain the flow of activities (the how), the internal functioning and its relation to contingency theory (the why), and finally, the limitations and areas of application where the theory holds (the where/when/who). Various cross-references are made to the subsequent chapters in this book.

On Being Mortal

2021 ◽  
pp. 11-24
Author(s):  
Mari Fitzduff
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Social Psychology ◽  
Social Behavior ◽  
Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Brain Structure ◽  
Dna Analysis ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Neural Factors

This chapter introduces readers to the basics of what they need to know about social psychology—that is, the study of how people’s feelings, ideas, and behaviors are influenced by the presence of others. It also looks at the increasingly important bio/neural factors such as genes, brain structure, and hormonal processes that are now being examined and understood as relevant to any study of human behavior, including group conflicts. In addition, it provides a brief introduction to the various methodologies that are increasingly able to measure social behavior, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, electroencephalography, DNA analysis, and hormonal testing.

Bloch, Ernst Simon (1885–1977)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent Geoghegan
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Open System ◽  
Its Analysis ◽  
New Material ◽  
Closed Systems ◽  
The Many ◽  
Fundamental Categories ◽  
Western Marxism ◽  
The Universe

Bloch was one of the most innovative Marxist philosophers of the twentieth century. His metaphysical and ontological concerns, combined with a self-conscious utopianism, distanced him from much mainstream Marxist thought. He was sympathetic to the classical philosophical search for fundamental categories, but distinguished earlier static, fixed and closed systems from his own open system, in which he characterized the universe as a changing and unfinished process. Furthermore, his distinctive materialism entailed the rejection of a radical separation of the human and the natural, unlike much twentieth-century Western Marxism. His validation of utopianism was grounded in a distinctive epistemology centred on the processes whereby ‘new’ material emerges in consciousness. The resulting social theory was sensitive to the many and varied ways in which the utopian impulse emerges, as, for example, in its analysis of the utopian dimension in religion.

Homo sapiens and Criminality

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-230
Author(s):  
Shanta Balgobind Singh ◽  
Marion Pluskota
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Behavior Management ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The People ◽  
The Family ◽  
The World ◽  
Different Parts

History has shown that primitive societies, with their well-developed value and norm systems, were self-governing. Needs of the people led to the development of mechanisms for survival. As primitive societies became more complex, a need arose for knowledge of the nature and structure of the communities in which they lived. Moral laws and rules, which governed primitive communities, were organized around the family and tribal environment. Even in the 21st century, forms of human behavior management center on tribal authority systems in different parts of the world. Crime is a social construction that has been widely theorized by historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and, of course, criminologists. Researchers have long tried to answer the questions as to why crime exists, how it is defined, how it can be controlled, and what makes it more prevalent in certain communities than in others. This special issue addresses many of these questions and reflects on contemporary research in the criminological field. The authors are at the forefront of the research on crime and shed new light on our societies’ ability to identify, reduce, or cope with criminality.

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