L3: Empirical-Analytical Approaches in the Social Sciences

• empirical analytical disciplines


  associated with the technical interest of understanding nature, forming general laws, and making predictions
• rational choice theory


  a powerful tool in making sense of why people act or behave in the way they do
• game theory


  a situation where other's choice of strategy affects an individuals best choice and vice versa
• criticism


  not all actions are rational
• symbolic interactionism


  a sociological framework that focuses on different meanings that individuals attach to object, people, and interactions
• play stage


  children's identification of key figures in their environment
• game stage


  children's extrapolate from the vantage point of the roles they have
• generalized other stage


  the widespread cultural norms and values used as a reference in evaluating ourselves
• insiders criticism


  a critic of symbolic interactionism that focuses on the method and the central concepts of symbolic interactionism particularly on the self
• outsider critique


  a critic of symbolic interactionism that refers to the claim of symbolic interactionism's perspective is a historical, noneconomic, and limited view of social power and organization
• structural functionalism

  a framework for building a theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts works together to promote solidarity and stability
• adaptation


  acquiring and mobilizing sufficient resources so that system can survive
• goal attainment


  setting and implementing goals
• integration


  maintaining solidarity among subunits of the system
• latency


  creating, preserving, and transmitting the system's distinctive culture and values
• institutionalism

  the study of political institutions that is central to the identity of the discipline of political science
• new institutionalism


  focuses on the sociological view on institutions on the way they can cooperate with each other and how they affect society
• human environment system approach

  refers to the interaction of human systems with corresponding environmental or technological systems
• george herbet mead


  an influencial figure in the field of symbolic interactionism