Introduction: The Social Science Study of Video Games

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Corliss
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Social Science Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Science Literature

This introduction is a short survey of social science literature on video games. It is not meant as a comprehensive review. Instead its goal is to present some of the themes and questions that prompted us to bring the articles in this issue together. The essay begins by outlining some of the recent contributions from the social sciences to video game studies—with a particular emphasis on distinct forms of video game interactivity—and concludes with suggestions for possible future directions for this research.

African History: the Contribution of the Social Sciences

1966 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-357
Author(s):  
Robert L. Tignor
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
African History ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Science Literature ◽  
Made In

In nearly all the major historical fields one can see the increasing use historians are making of methods, models, and insights from the social sciences. E. H. Carr's exhortation, that the more history becomes sociology and the more sociology becomes history the better for both, is being taken seriously. Yet there is much more that can be done to bring these fields together. Most historians have used sociological theory only to gain insight, not with great rigour. They have learned their sociology by osmosis, so to speak. They have not gone through the social science literature, but rather have soaked it up second-hand from other interpreters. Consequently their works have not had the precision they might. Concepts have been distorted because of a lack of familiarity with them. African historians, on the whole, have been reluctant to use this rich and suggestive literature. This is probably true because the greatest efforts have been made in finding new sources in this difficult field—oral tradition, linguistic evidence, and so forth. But one is hard pressed to find works by African historians which have employed the theoretical literature of the social sciences.

scholarly journals Demonic Violence and Moral Panic in Postwar Sri Lanka: Explaining the Grease Devil Crisis

2015 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 615-637 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajesh Venugopal
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Moral Panic ◽  
Strong Impact ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Primary Research ◽  
Northeastern Part ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Science Literature

How can crisis, breakdown, violence, and collapse be explained in the social sciences? This paper engages with this broad question by studying an extraordinary episode of mass tension and anxiety in postwar Sri Lanka caused by a mystery male predator known as the “grease devil.” Reports of widespread attacks on women in mid-2011 by this shadowy, ubiquitous, and powerful being led to heightened levels of vigilance and fear across large parts of rural and peri-urban Sri Lanka. It had a particularly strong impact on the formerly war-torn northeastern part of the island, where it led to violent confrontations between affected communities and the police and military. Drawing on primary research and by engaging with a range of literatures across the historical and social science literature, this paper attempts to reconstruct and understand the grease devil crisis. In doing so, it identifies and evaluates the different ways in which the crisis could be explained and the extent to which these approaches produce analytically relevant insights.

Was Stalin’s Revolution from Above a Rational Strategy of Modernization?

2021 ◽  
pp. 85-90
Author(s):  
George W. Breslauer
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
The Social ◽  
Revolutionary Violence ◽  
Social Science Literature

Strategies of modernization are legion within the social science literature. Stalin’s Revolution from Above—but not the Great Terror—is set within this literature as a revolutionary, as opposed to a reformist, strategy. Features of the revolutionary strategy may have been considered necessary to urgently create the capacity to defend the country in a hostile world. But the extent of revolutionary violence against the peasantry cannot be justified in those terms.

scholarly journals A formative evaluation of a pay-for-performance system

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsey Joseph ◽  
Kate Emmett ◽  
Joha Louw-Potgieter
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Formative Evaluation ◽  
Pay For Performance ◽  
Administrative Staff ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Line Managers ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Science Literature ◽  
Managerial Implications

Orientation: Pay-for-performance (PFP) systems emerged during the 1980s as performance improvement tools. However, research findings have shown contradictory evidence as to whether these systems motivate employees to improve their performance. Research purpose: The main aim of this evaluation was to assess whether a PFP system, which a South African university introduced for administrative employees, improved their performance. A secondary aim was to examine whether the university implemented the system as it intended to.Motivation for the evaluation: The motivation for this evaluation was to add to the social science literature on the effectiveness of PFP systems. There are many contradictions in the literature and further exploration of whether these systems deliver their intended outcomes seemed overdue.Research design, approach and method: The evaluators used a descriptive design. They administered a customised questionnaire, to which 391 university staff members responded. Of these, 129 were line managers and 262 were administrative staff.Main findings: The administrative staff, whose working lives the PFP system affected, thought that it did not improve their performance. Both line managers and administrative staff indicated that the pay aspect of the system did not differentiate between poor and excellent performance.Practical/managerial implications: The evaluators made practical recommendations for improving the implementation of the system.Contribution/value-add: This evaluation contributed to the social science literature on the effectiveness of PFP systems by showing that poor implementation rather than poor design often lies at the root of a system that does not deliver its intended outcomes.

scholarly journals The Courts in American Public Culture

Daedalus ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 143 (3) ◽  
pp. 140-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan S. Silbey
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Public Culture ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Institutional Practice ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Science Literature ◽  
Public Imagination

In American public imagination, courts are powerful but also impotent. They are guardians of citizens' rights but also agents of corporate wealth; simultaneously the least dangerous branch and the ultimate arbiters of fairness and justice. After recounting the social science literature on the mixed reception of courts in American public culture, this essay explains how the contradictory embrace of courts and law by Americans is not a weakness or flaw, nor a mark of confusion or naïveté. Rather, Americans' paradoxical interpretations of courts and judges sustain rather than undermine our legal institutions. These opposing accounts are a source of institutional durability and power because they combine the historical and widespread aspirations for the rule of law with a pragmatic recognition of the limits of institutional practice; these sundry accounts balance an appreciation for the discipline of legal reasoning with desires for responsive, humane judgment.

The Negro in the Social Science Literature: 1961

1962 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert P. Stuckert ◽  
Irwin D. Rinder
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Science Literature

scholarly journals The Prisoner’s Dilemma as a Conceptual Framework for Understanding Value-Related and Behavioral Changes in Western Societies in the Second Decade of the 21st Century: The Case of Israel

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. p39
Author(s):  
Leehu Zysberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Prisoner's Dilemma ◽  
Prisoner’S Dilemma ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Behavioral Changes ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Social Disintegration ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Science Literature

In the popular media and from time to time in the social science literature, voices are heard describing a process of social disintegration and the deterioration of common values in western societies. What may account for this fragmentation? This article uses the theoretical framework of the prisoner’s dilemma to conceptualize the phenomenon, analyze its causes and processes, and to try and outline directions for dealing with it, using processes and data regarding the Israeli society in recent years.

scholarly journals Laypeople Can Predict Which Social Science Studies Replicate

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Hoogeveen ◽  
Alexandra Sarafoglou ◽  
Eric-Jan Wagenmakers
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Signal Detection Theory ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Science Studies ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Detection Ability ◽  
Strength Of Evidence ◽  
High Profile ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Science Literature

Large-scale collaborative projects recently demonstrated that several key findings from the social-science literature could not be replicated successfully. Here we assess the extent to which a finding’s replication success relates to its intuitive plausibility. Each of 27 high-profile social science findings was evaluated by 233 people without a PhD in psychology. Results showed that these laypeople predicted replication success with above-chance accuracy (i.e., 59%). In addition, when participants were informed about the strength of evidence from the original studies, this boosted their prediction performance to 67%. We discuss the prediction patterns and apply signal detection theory to disentangle detection ability from response bias. Our study suggests that laypeople’s predictions contain useful information for assessing the probability that a given finding will replicate successfully.

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