Sefer Ḥasidim and the Social Sciences

2020 ◽  
pp. 223-250
Author(s):  
Haym Soloveitchik
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Rite Of Passage ◽  
The Social

This chapter explores the evidence advanced for some of the currently reigning ideas in the study of German Pietism. The texts of the movement are available to all. The question is, how does one read them? And how does one use notions and models drawn from the neighboring disciplines of sociology and anthropology? The chapter argues that Ivan Marcus has sacrificed his numerous insights for the sake of sociological and anthropological models, and the complexities and ambiguities of the movement, of which he is aware, have lost much of their vibrancy in the attempt to align them with constructs drawn from neighboring disciplines. It examines proofs adduced for three major theses of Marcus's book Piety and Society: the three-stage evolution of German Pietism, penance as a rite of passage into the pietistic fraternity, and finally, the sectarian nature of Sefer Ḥasidim.

Exploring Liminality from an Anthropological Perspective

2013 ◽  
pp. 159-165
Author(s):  
Rina Arya
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
New Media ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
Virtual Space ◽  
Rite Of Passage ◽  
Anthropological Perspective ◽  
Digital Interface ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Social

The transition from the real to the digital requires a shift of consciousness that can be theorised with recourse to the concept of liminality, which has multidisciplinary currency in psychology and other disciplines in the social sciences, cultural, and literary theory. In anthropology the notion of liminality was introduced by the ethnographer Arnold van Gennep in the context of the development of the rite of passage. Since van Gennep’s discussion of the concept, the term has been used in a variety of contexts and disciplines that range from psychology, religion, sociology, and latterly in new media, where it has a renewed emphasis because of the transition from the real to the virtual space of the digital interface.

What Can We Learn From Factorial Surveys About Human Behavior?

Methodology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Knut Petzold ◽  
Tobias Wolbring
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Behavioral Intentions ◽  
Actual Behavior ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Factorial Survey ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Intended Behavior ◽  
The Social ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
High Level

Abstract. Factorial survey experiments are increasingly used in the social sciences to investigate behavioral intentions. The measurement of self-reported behavioral intentions with factorial survey experiments frequently assumes that the determinants of intended behavior affect actual behavior in a similar way. We critically investigate this fundamental assumption using the misdirected email technique. Student participants of a survey were randomly assigned to a field experiment or a survey experiment. The email informs the recipient about the reception of a scholarship with varying stakes (full-time vs. book) and recipient’s names (German vs. Arabic). In the survey experiment, respondents saw an image of the same email. This validation design ensured a high level of correspondence between units, settings, and treatments across both studies. Results reveal that while the frequencies of self-reported intentions and actual behavior deviate, treatments show similar relative effects. Hence, although further research on this topic is needed, this study suggests that determinants of behavior might be inferred from behavioral intentions measured with survey experiments.

Postpositivist Philosophy of the Social Sciences

1984 ◽  
Vol 29 (9) ◽  
pp. 717-718
Author(s):  
Georgia Warnke
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
The Social
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