Some Relationships Between Psychiatry and the Social Sciences

1986 ◽  
Vol 149 (5) ◽  
pp. 548-553 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Mechanic
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Psychiatric Disorders ◽  
Social Roles ◽  
Group Identification ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Deviant Behaviour ◽  
Roles And Responsibilities ◽  
Personal Commitment ◽  
The Social ◽  
Level Of Motivation

Beyond assuring biological survival, every society must have structures that nurture the young, prepare them for social roles and responsibilities, and that successfully integrate them with a reasonable level of motivation into ongoing patterns of activity. Societies must also have institutions that reinforce a sense of personal commitment to everyday affairs: the lack of a stake in social processes contributes to personal demoralisation and deviant behaviour. Deviance may also occur because of biological vulnerability or handicap, because socialisation fails, because demands exceed capacities, or as a result of sub-group identification being in conflict with dominant values. Psychiatric disorders are a sub-set of deviant behaviour.

scholarly journals ‘What is infrastructure? What does it do?’: Anthropological perspectives on the workings of infrastructure(s)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lav Kanoi ◽  
Vanessa Koh ◽  
Al Lim ◽  
Shoko Yamada ◽  
Michael R. Dove
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
Social Nature ◽  
Nature And Culture ◽  
The Social ◽  
Growing Body

Abstract Infrastructure is often thought of in big material terms: dams, buildings, roads, and so on. This study, instead, draws on literatures in anthropology and the social sciences to analyse infrastructures in relation to society and environment, and so cast current conceptions of infrastructure in a new light. Situating the analysis in context of President Biden’s recent infrastructure bill, the paper expands what is meant by and included in discussions of infrastructure. The study examines what it means for different kinds of material infrastructures to function (and for whom) or not, and also consider how the immaterial infrastructure of human relations are manifested in, for example, labour, as well as how infrastructures may create intended or unintended consequences in enabling or disabling social processes. Further, in this study, we examine concepts embedded in thinking about infrastructure such as often presumed distinctions between the technical and the social, nature and culture, the human and the non-human, and the urban and the rural, and how all of these are actually implicated in thinking about infrastructure. Our analysis, thus, draws from a growing body of work on infrastructure in anthropology and the social sciences, enriches it with ethnographic insights from our own field research, and so extends what it means to study ‘infrastructures’ in the 21st century.

John Lofland's concept of analytical ethnography

2021 ◽  
pp. 87-103
Author(s):  
ANDRII MELNIKOV ◽  
KATERYNA ALEKSENTSEVA-TIMCHENKO
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Analytical Approach ◽  
Basic Research ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Theoretical Interpretation ◽  
Research Directions ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
The Social ◽  
Methodological Strategy

The paper presents a historical and theoretical interpretation of the ethnographic paradigm in the social sciences, its specificity, general principles of application and main research directions. The sources of analytical ethnography, its founders and the period of formation as an independent approach in the structure of interpretive metaparadigm are briefly considered. An ethnographic perspective is defined as a systematic, integral understanding of social processes and the organization of the collective life in the context of everyday practices. The intellectual heritage of the analytical ethnography’s founder John Lofland is presented by characterizing the basic research principles that constitute the essence of his theoretical and methodological strategy: generic propositions; unfettered inquiry; deep familiarity; emergent analysis; true content; new content; developed treatment. An attempt is made to trace the further connections of Lofland's analytical approach with other areas of the ethnographic paradigm.

Evolutionary social science beyond culture

2006 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 356-356
Author(s):  
Harold Kincaid
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Explanations ◽  
The Common

Mesoudi et al.'s case can be improved by expanding to compelling selectionist explanations elsewhere in the social sciences and by seeing that natural selection is an instance of general selectionist process. Obstacles include the common use of extreme idealizations and optimality evidence, the copresence of nonselectionist social processes, and the fact that selectionist explanations often presuppose other kinds of social explanations.

Ritualization and abnormal behaviour

1966 ◽  
Vol 251 (772) ◽  
pp. 331-335
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Abnormal Behaviour ◽  
Deviant Behaviour ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Human Speech ◽  
The Social ◽  
Normal Human ◽  
Special Domain

In this paper I shall present evidence from my clinical psychiatric experience to support the view that some abnormalities of behaviour can appropriately be seen as, so to say, para-rituals or meta-rituals; the deritualization of normal human rituals. Ritualization and abnormal are both terms that present some difficulty in a multidisciplinary symposium. If ordinary human speech is an instance of ritualization of behaviour in the ethological sense, then ‘schizophrenese’ is a de-structuring, a deritualizing of the socially shared ritual structuration of those patterns of sound that have acquired symbolic functions and come to be a language. I shall, however, be using ‘ritualization’ here subsequently more in the manner employed by the anthropologists. Within the social sciences, in particular sociology, anthropology and psychiatry, the concept o f‘abnormal’ is itself problematic. Without rehearsing here the different sides of the debate, I shall, for the purpose of this paper, regard abnormal behaviour as behaviour that is socially deviant within a given society. Socially deviant behaviour is simply behaviour that the majority of people regard as such. Some abnormal—that is socially deviant—behaviour is regarded as an expression of ‘mental illness’. Again, the concept of ‘mental illness’ is extremely problematic and has recently been subject to searching criticism from within psychiatry itself (Szasz 1961), as well as by anthropologists and sociologists (Goffman 1961; Scheff 1963, 1964 a, b ). My examples are drawn from that subclass of socially deviant behaviour regarded as coming within the special domain of relevance and field of competence of psychiatry. I put in parentheses in this paper any question of ‘ aetiology ’ of such behaviour (see Laing & Esterson 1964, pp. 2- 9).

scholarly journals Are equality policies reflected in textbooks?

2020 ◽  
pp. 147-166
Author(s):  
Olga Moreno Fernández ◽  
Pablo Ruiz-Alba
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Secondary Education ◽  
Social Roles ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Inclusive Language ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Publishing Houses ◽  
Formed Part

This research has used as a technique the analysis of the content, both of the language and of the images of the textbooks that have formed part of the sample, taking as a reference the criteria of the instructions of 14 June 2018 on textbooks. The focus has been on the number of images of men and women, as well as the use of language in the three publishers studied. The sample consisted of 3 textbooks used in the Social Sciences subject (Geography and History) of the 2nd year of Compulsory Secondary Education of the publishing houses Vicens Vives, Oxford and Santillana. Use of inclusive language, 158 images analysed for category 2. Diversity, and 286 images analyzed for category 3. Social roles. The results indicate that equality policies in Andalusia aim to achieve goals that are still far from being achieved, at least in the field of education and more specifically in the values that are transmitted, so it is necessary to continue working so that equality is reflected in the textbooks present in the school classrooms.  

scholarly journals The Potential of Modeling Process for Social Sciences and Social Work

2021 ◽  
pp. 113-134
Author(s):  
Andrés Lorenzo-Aparicio ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Useful Knowledge ◽  
Agent Based Modelling ◽  
Modeling Process ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Ecosystems

Simplification and necessary reductionism in a model cannot lead to detailed descriptions of social phenomena with all their complexity, but we can obtain useful knowledge from their application both in specific and generic contexts. Human ecosystems, that perform as adaptative complex systems, have features which make it difficult to generate valid models. Amongst them, the emergency phenomena, that presents new characteristics that cannot be explained by the components of the system itself. But without this knowledge derived from modelling, we, as social workers, cannot suggest answers that ignore the structural causes of social problems. Faced with this challenge we propose Agent Based Modelling, as it allows us to study the social processes of human ecosystems and in turn demonstrates new challenges of knowledge and competences that social workers might have.

scholarly journals Future Anticipation in Sociology

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 333-341
Author(s):  
Carlos Miguel Ferreira ◽  
Sandro Serpa
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Scientific Approach ◽  
The Future ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Scientific Fields

The ability to make forecasts about events is a goal favored by the so-called exact sciences. In sociology and other social sciences, the forecast, although often sought after, is not likely to be realized unconditionally. This article seeks to problematize and discuss the connection between sociology and forecast. The object of study of sociology has particular features that distinguish it from other scientific fields, namely facts and social situations, which deal with trends; the systems of belief of social scientists and policymakers that can influence the attempt to anticipate the future; the dissemination of information and knowledge produced by sociology and other social sciences, which have the potential to change reality and, consequently, to call into question their capacity for the social forecast. These principles pose challenges to sociology’s heuristic potentials, making the reflection on these challenges indispensable in the scientific approach to social processes.

Methode, Statistik und Modell in den Sozialwissenschaften

1983 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerhard Arminger
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Continuous Time ◽  
Ordinal Data ◽  
Linear Models ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Linear Differential ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Basic Similarity

AbstractThe relationship between methods, statistics and models in the social sciences is discussed. New models generalizing commonly used linear models to deal with qualitative and ordinal data are introduced; their basic similarity to linear models is pointed out. Rate models and stochastic linear differential equations to model social processes in continuous time are mentioned. The implications of weak substantial theory and the correct use of statistical significance tests for any kind of model are demonstrated.

Comparative History and the Theory of Modernization

1970 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lester M. Salamon
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Comparative History ◽  
The Social ◽  
Area Of Study

One of the sorest needs in the social sciences is for clear and concise conceptual equipment to give structure to disciplines and order to the range of hypotheses these disciplines purport to explore. Perhaps nowhere is this need for conceptual equipment more pressing, however, than in that amorphous area of study that examines the broad range of social processes gathered under the rubric of “modernization.” Depending on one's perspective, the process of modernization is either primarily economic, or political, or psychological, or social, or technological, or all of the above. Like the elephant in the old tale, the beast is different depending on who touches it and where.

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