Who theorized the social self?
Socialization
George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) developed a theory of social behaviorism to explain how social experience develops an individual's self-concept. Mead's central concept is the self: It is composed of self-awareness and self-image. Mead claimed that the self is not there at birth, rather, it is developed with social experience. Since social experience is the exchange of symbols, people tend to find meaning in every action. Seeking meaning leads us to imagine the intention of others. Understanding intention requires imagining the situation from the others' point of view. In effect, others are a mirror in which we can see ourselves. Charles Horton Cooley (1902-1983) coined the term looking glass self, which means self-image based on how we think others see us. According to Mead the key to developing the self is learning to take the role of the other. With limited social experience, infants can only develop a sense of identity through imitation. Gradually children learn to take the roles of several others. The final stage is the generalized other, which refers to widespread cultural norms and values we use as a reference for evaluating others.
On Social Freedom
On Social Freedom: or the Necessary Limits of Individual Freedom Arising Out of the Conditions of Our Social Life is an essay regarding individual and societal freedom initially thought to have been written by the British philosopher John Stuart Mill, but later found to have been falsely attributed to him.
History of modernisation theory
In addition to social structure and the evolution of societies, the French sociologist Émile Durkheim developed the concept of functionalism, which stresses the interdependence of the institutions of a society and their interaction in maintaining cultural and social unity. His most famous work is "The Division of Labour in Society", which described mechanisms for the maintenance of social order and the ways in which primitive societies might make the transition to becoming more economically advanced industrial societies. Durkheim suggested that in a capitalist society, with a complex division of labour, economic regulation would be needed to maintain order. He stressed that the major transition from a primitive social order to a more advanced industrial society could otherwise bring crisis and disorder. Durkheim furthermore developed the idea of social evolution, which was coined by Herbert Spencer, which indicates how societies and cultures develop over time; for Durkheim, social evolution is like biological evolution with reference to the development of its components. As with living organisms and species, societies progress through several stages, generally beginning at a simple level and developing toward a more complex level of organisation. Societies adapt to surrounding environments, but also interact with other societies, which further contributes to progress and development. 
Modern sociology evolved in part as a reaction to the problems associated with modernity, such as industrialisation and the process of 'rationalisation'.
History of the social sciences
Sociology was established by Comte in 1838. He had earlier used the term "social physics", but that had subsequently been appropriated by others, most notably the Belgian statistician Adolphe Quetelet. Comte endeavoured to unify history, psychology and economics through the scientific understanding of the social realm. Writing shortly after the malaise of the French Revolution, he proposed that social ills could be remedied through sociological positivism, an epistemological approach outlined in "The Course in Positive Philosophy" [1830–1842] and "A General View of Positivism" (1844). Comte believed a positivist stage would mark the final era, after conjectural theological and metaphysical phases, in the progression of human understanding.
Social complexity
The American sociologist Talcott Parsons carried on the work of the early founders mentioned above in his early (1937) work on action theory. By 1951, Parsons places these earlier ideas firmly into the realm of formal systems theory in "The Social System". For the next several decades, this synergy between general systems thinking and the further development of social system theories is carried forward by Parson's student, Robert K. Merton, and a long line of others, in discussions of theories of the middle-range and social structure and agency. During part of this same period, from the late 1970s through the early 1990s, discussion ensues in any number of other research areas about the properties of systems in which strong correlation of sub-parts leads to observed behaviors variously described as autopoetic, self-organizing, dynamical, turbulent, and chaotic. All of these are forms of system behavior arising from mathematical complexity. By the early 1990s, the work of social theorists such as Niklas Luhmann began reflecting these themes of complex behavior.
Talcott Parsons
In 1942, Stuart C. Dodd published a major work, "Dimensions of society", which attempted to build a general theory of society on the foundation of a mathematical and quantitative systematization of social sciences. Dodd advanced a particular approach, known as a "S-theory." Parsons discussed Dodd's theoretical outline in a review article the same year. Parsons acknowledged Dodd's contribution to be an exceedingly formidable work but argued against its premises as a general paradigm for the social sciences. Parsons generally argued that Dodd's "S-theory," which included the so-called "social distance" scheme of Bogardus, was unable to construct a sufficiently sensitive and systematized theoretical matrix, compared with the "traditional" approach, which has developed around the lines of Weber, Pareto, Émile Durkheim, Sigmund Freud, William Isaac Thomas, and other important agents of an action-system approach with a more clear dialogue with the cultural and motivational dimensions of human interaction.
Sociology
The first formal Department of Sociology in the world was established by Albion Small – at the invitation of William Rainey Harper – at the University of Chicago in 1892, and the American Journal of Sociology was founded shortly thereafter in 1895 by Small as well. However, the institutionalization of sociology as an academic discipline was chiefly led by Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), who developed positivism as a foundation to practical social research. While Durkheim rejected much of the detail of Comte's philosophy, he retained and refined its method, maintaining that the social sciences are a logical continuation of the natural ones into the realm of human activity, and insisting that they may retain the same objectivity, rationalism, and approach to causality. Durkheim set up the first European department of sociology at the University of Bordeaux in 1895, publishing his "Rules of the Sociological Method" (1895). For Durkheim, sociology could be described as the "science of institutions, their genesis and their functioning".
History of the social sciences
The term "social science" first appeared in the 1824 book "An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth Most Conducive to Human Happiness; applied to the Newly Proposed System of Voluntary Equality of Wealth" by William Thompson (1775–1833). Auguste Comte (1797–1857) argued that ideas pass through three rising stages, theological, philosophical and scientific. He defined the difference as the first being rooted in assumption, the second in critical thinking, and the third in positive observation. This framework, still rejected by many, encapsulates the thinking which was to push economic study from being a descriptive to a mathematically based discipline. Karl Marx was one of the first writers to claim that his methods of research represented a scientific view of history in this model. With the late 19th century, attempts to apply equations to statements about human behavior became increasingly common. Among the first were the "Laws" of philology, which attempted to map the change over time of sounds in a language.
Social network
In the late 1890s, both Émile Durkheim and Ferdinand Tönnies foreshadowed the idea of social networks in their theories and research of social groups. Tönnies argued that social groups can exist as personal and direct social ties that either link individuals who share values and belief ("Gemeinschaft", German, commonly translated as "community") or impersonal, formal, and instrumental social links ("Gesellschaft", German, commonly translated as "society"). Durkheim gave a non-individualistic explanation of social facts, arguing that social phenomena arise when interacting individuals constitute a reality that can no longer be accounted for in terms of the properties of individual actors. Georg Simmel, writing at the turn of the twentieth century, pointed to the nature of networks and the effect of network size on interaction and examined the likelihood of interaction in loosely knit networks rather than groups.
Major developments in the field can be seen in the 1930s by several groups in psychology, anthropology, and mathematics working independently. In psychology, in the 1930s, Jacob L. Moreno began systematic recording and analysis of social interaction in small groups, especially classrooms and work groups (see sociometry). In anthropology, the foundation for social network theory is the theoretical and ethnographic work of Bronislaw Malinowski, Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, and Claude Lévi-Strauss. A group of social anthropologists associated with Max Gluckman and the Manchester School, including John A. Barnes, J. Clyde Mitchell and Elizabeth Bott Spillius, often are credited with performing some of the first fieldwork from which network analyses were performed, investigating community networks in southern Africa, India and the United Kingdom. Concomitantly, British anthropologist S. F. Nadel codified a theory of social structure that was influential in later network analysis. In sociology, the early (1930s) work of Talcott Parsons set the stage for taking a relational approach to understanding social structure. Later, drawing upon Parsons' theory, the work of sociologist Peter Blau provides a strong impetus for analyzing the relational ties of social units with his work on social exchange theory.
Social order
Thomas Hobbes is recognized as the first to clearly formulate the problem, to answer which he conceived the notion of a social contract.
Social theorists (such as Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, Talcott Parsons, and Jürgen Habermas) have proposed different explanations for what a social order consists of, and what its real basis is. For Marx, it is the relations of production or economic structure which is the basis of a social order. For Durkheim, it is a set of shared social norms. For Parsons, it is a set of social institutions regulating the pattern of action-orientation, which again are based on a frame of cultural values. For Habermas, it is all of these, as well as communicative action.
Sociology
The sociology of knowledge is the study of the relationship between human thought and the social context within which it arises, and of the effects prevailing ideas have on societies. The term first came into widespread use in the 1920s, when a number of German-speaking theorists, most notably Max Scheler, and Karl Mannheim, wrote extensively on it. With the dominance of functionalism through the middle years of the 20th century, the sociology of knowledge tended to remain on the periphery of mainstream sociological thought. It was largely reinvented and applied much more closely to everyday life in the 1960s, particularly by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann in "The Social Construction of Reality" (1966) and is still central for methods dealing with qualitative understanding of human society (compare "socially constructed reality"). The "archaeological" and "genealogical" studies of Michel Foucault are of considerable contemporary influence.
Structural functionalism
Auguste Comte, the "Father of Positivism", pointed out the need to keep society unified as many traditions were diminishing. He was the first person to coin the term sociology. Comte suggests that sociology is the product of a three-stage development:Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) was a British philosopher famous for applying the theory of natural selection to society. He was in many ways the first true sociological functionalist. In fact, while Durkheim is widely considered the most important functionalist among positivist theorists, it is known that much of his analysis was culled from reading Spencer's work, especially his "Principles of Sociology" (1874–96). In describing society, Spencer alludes to the analogy of a human body. Just as the structural parts of the human body — the skeleton, muscles, and various internal organs — function independently to help the entire organism survive, social structures work together to preserve society.
Social theory
The Chicago school developed in the 1920s, through the work of Albion Woodbury Small, W. I. Thomas, Ernest W. Burgess, Robert E. Park, Ellsworth Faris, George Herbert Mead, and other sociologists at the University of Chicago. The Chicago school focused on patterns and arrangement of social phenomenon across time and place, and within context of other social variables.
Social anthropology
Modern social anthropology was founded in Britain at the London School of Economics and Political Science following World War I. Influences include both the methodological revolution pioneered by Bronisław Malinowski's process-oriented fieldwork in the Trobriand Islands of Melanesia between 1915 and 1918 and Alfred Radcliffe-Brown's theoretical program for systematic comparison that was based on a conception of rigorous fieldwork and the structure-functionalist conception of Durkheim’s sociology. Other intellectual founders include W. H. R. Rivers and A. C. Haddon, whose orientation reflected the contemporary "Parapsychologies" of Wilhelm Wundt and Adolf Bastian, and Sir E. B. Tylor, who defined anthropology as a positivist science following Auguste Comte. Edmund Leach (1962) defined social anthropology as a kind of comparative micro-sociology based on intensive fieldwork studies. Scholars have not settled a theoretical orthodoxy on the nature of science and society, and their tensions reflect views which are seriously opposed.
Social tuning
Social tuning theory describes the process whereby people adopt another person's attitudes or opinions regarding a particular subject. This phenomenon is also termed "shared reality theory." The study of this occurrence began in 1902 when Charles Cooley coined the term "looking glass self", stating that people see themselves and their own social world through the eyes of others. Research further discovered that people create their self-images through their beliefs of how others perceive them. Many people adopt the views of those surrounding them in an effort to feel like they belong and feel liked. In 1934, Mead determined that not only do individuals shape their self-concepts according to the perspectives of others, but also that people's views of themselves are continually maintained according to these adopted ideas.
Pantarchy
Pantarchy is a social theory proposed by Stephen Pearl Andrews in the 19th century. Andrews was considered the "American rival of Comte," because of his work on an all-encompassing philosophy of universology, and his political proposals had similar scope, combining elements of the individualist anarchism of Josiah Warren, whose works Andrews had edited, with a strong belief in natural hierarchy.
Auguste Comte
Influenced by the utopian socialist Henri Saint-Simon, Comte developed the "positive philosophy" in an attempt to remedy the social malaise of the French Revolution, calling for a new social doctrine based on the sciences. Comte was a major influence on 19th-century thought, influencing the work of social thinkers such as Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, and George Eliot. His concept of "sociologie" and social evolutionism set the tone for early social theorists and anthropologists such as Harriet Martineau and Herbert Spencer, evolving into modern academic sociology presented by Émile Durkheim as practical and objective social research.
Social integration
The term "social integration" first came into use in the work of French sociologist Émile Durkheim. He wanted to understand why rates of suicide were higher in some social classes than others. Durkheim believed that society exerted a powerful force on individuals. He concluded that a people's beliefs, values, and norms make up a collective consciousness, a shared way of understanding each other and the world.
Social complexity
Current usage of the term "complexity" in the field of sociology typically refers specifically to theories of society as a complex adaptive system. However, social complexity and its emergent properties are central recurring themes throughout the historical development of social thought and the study of social change. The early founders of sociological theory, such as Ferdinand Tönnies, Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, Vilfredo Pareto, and Georg Simmel, all examined the exponential growth and increasing interrelatedness of social encounters and exchanges. This emphasis on interconnectivity in social relationships and the emergence of new properties within society is found in theoretical thinking in multiple areas of sociology. As a theoretical tool, social complexity theory serves as a basis for the connection of micro- and macro-level social phenomena, providing a meso-level or middle-range theoretical platform for hypothesis formation. Methodologically, the concept of social complexity is theory-neutral, meaning that it accommodates both local (micro) and global (macro) phenomena in sociological research.
Social presence theory
Social Presence Theory was developed by John Short with the help of Ederyn Williams, and Bruce Christie. The theory came together by the appearance of difference in the physical proximity that was produced by different mediums. The main thesis and major points of the theory were first described in 1956 in The Naked Sun, a novel by Isaac Asimov. Social Presence Theory is defined by Short, Williams & Christie as the ability of a communications medium to transmit social cues. In a study conducted by Baozhou, Weiguo and Zhou Social Presence builds trust between individuals, which is crucial to our interactions in person or online.
Social comparison theory
Social comparison theory, initially proposed by social psychologist Leon Festinger in 1954, centers on the belief that there is a drive within individuals to gain accurate self-evaluations. The theory explains how individuals evaluate their own opinions and abilities by comparing themselves to others in order to reduce uncertainty in these domains, and learn how to define the self.
Social cognitive neuroscience
The first scholarly works about the neural bases of social cognition can be traced back to Phineas Gage, a man who survived a traumatic brain injury in 1849 and was extensively studied for resultant changes in social functioning and personality. In 1924, esteemed psychologist Gordon Allport wrote a chapter on the neural bases of social phenomenon in his textbook of social psychology. However, these works did not generate much activity in the decades that followed. The beginning of modern social cognitive neuroscience can be traced to Michael Gazzaniga's book, "Social Brain" (1985), which attributed cerebral lateralization to the peculiarities of social psychological phenomenon. Isolated pockets of social cognitive neuroscience research emerged in the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, mostly using single-unit electrophysiological recordings in nonhuman primates or neuropsychological lesion studies in humans. During this time, the closely related field of social neuroscience emerged in parallel, however it mostly focused on how social factors influenced autonomic, neuroendocrine, and immune systems. In 1996, Giacomo Rizzolatti's group made one of the most seminal discoveries in social cognitive neuroscience: the existence of mirror neurons in macaque frontoparietal cortex. The mid-1990s saw the emergence of functional positron emission tomography (PET) for humans, which enabled the neuroscientific study of abstract (and perhaps uniquely human) social cognitive functions such as theory of mind and mentalizing. However, PET is prohibitively expensive and requires the ingestion of radioactive tracers, thus limiting its adoption.
Social therapy
Alternatively, the term "social therapy, as used in the Camphill Movement at Camphill communities, is used to label a professional discipline inspired by Rudolf Steiner, a philosopher, teacher and the founder of anthroposophy, and put into practice by Karl König. At its heart is the concept that a healthy social environment is essential for adults with developmental disabilities to live productive, independent, and joyful lives. A healthy social environment is cultivated through community where all members make a contribution according to their ability. Establishing necessary spiritual, social and physical conditions for this form of community to thrive is the art and science of social therapy.
Self-organization
In social theory, the concept of self-referentiality has been introduced as a sociological application of self-organization theory by Niklas Luhmann (1984). For Luhmann the elements of a social system are self-producing communications, i.e. a communication produces further communications and hence a social system can reproduce itself as long as there is dynamic communication. For Luhmann human beings are sensors in the environment of the system. Luhmann developed an evolutionary theory of Society and its subsystems, using functional "analyses" and systems "theory".
Social cycle theory
Sociological cycle theory was also developed by Pitirim A. Sorokin (1889–1968) in his "Social and Cultural Dynamics" (1937, 1943). He classified societies according to their 'cultural mentality', which can be ideational (reality is spiritual), sensate (reality is material), or idealistic (a synthesis of the two). He interpreted the contemporary West as a sensate civilization dedicated to technological progress and prophesied its fall into decadence and the emergence of a new ideational or idealistic era.
Social contract
Prominent of 17th- and 18th-century theorists of social contract and natural rights include Hugo Grotius (1625), Thomas Hobbes (1651), Samuel von Pufendorf (1673), John Locke (1689), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762), and Immanuel Kant (1797), each approaching the concept of political authority differently.
Social theory
Important Chinese philosophers and social thinkers included Shang Yang, Lao Zi, Confucius, Mencius, Wang Chong, Wang Yangming, Li Zhi, Zhu Xi, Gu Yanwu, Gong Zizhen, Wei Yuan, Kang Youwei, Lu Xun, Mao Zedong, Xi Jinping, Zhu Ming.
Social geography
Though the French "Géographie Sociale" had been a great influence especially on Hartke's ideas, no such distinct school of thought formed within the French human geography. Nonetheless, Albert Demangeon paved the way for a number of more systematic conceptualizations of the field with his (posthumously published) notion that social groups ought to be within the center of human geographical analysis. That task was carried out by Pierre George and Maximilien Sorre, among others. Then a Marxist, George's stance was dominated by a socio-economic rationale, but without the structuralist interpretations found in the works of some the French sociologists of the time. However, it was another French Marxist, the sociologist Henri Lefebvre, who introduced the concept of the (social) production of space. He had written on that and related topics since the 1930s, but fully expounded it in "La Production de L'Espace" as late as 1974. Sorre developed a schema of society related to the ecological idea of habitat, which was applied to an urban context by the sociologist Paul-Henry Chombart de Lauwe. For the Dutch geographer Christiaan van Paassen, the world consisted of socio-spatial entities of different scales formed by what he referred to as a "syn-ecological complex", an idea influenced by existentialism.
Deep social mind
Deep social mind is a concept in evolutionary psychology; it refers to the distinctively human capacity to 'read' (that is, to infer) the mental states of others while reciprocally enabling those others to read one's own mental states at the same time. The term 'deep social mind' was first coined in 1999 by Andrew Whiten, professor of Evolutionary and Developmental Psychology at St. Andrews University, Scotland. Together with closely related terms such as 'reflexivity' and 'intersubjectivity', it is now well-established among scholars investigating the evolutionary emergence of human sociality, cognition and communication.
History of sociology
In the mid-20th century there was a general—but not universal—trend for U.S.-American sociology to be more scientific in nature, due to the prominence at that time of action theory and other system-theoretical approaches. Robert K. Merton released his "Social Theory and Social Structure" (1949). By the turn of the 1960s, sociological research was increasingly employed as a tool by governments and businesses worldwide. Sociologists developed new types of quantitative and qualitative research methods. Paul Lazarsfeld founded Columbia University's Bureau of Applied Social Research, where he exerted a tremendous influence over the techniques and the organization of social research. His many contributions to sociological method have earned him the title of the "founder of modern empirical sociology". Lazarsfeld made great strides in statistical survey analysis, panel methods, latent structure analysis, and contextual analysis. He is also considered a co-founder of mathematical sociology. Many of his ideas have been so influential as to now be considered self-evident.
Social evolution
In 2010, Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson, a founder of modern sociobiology, proposed a new theory of social evolution. He argued that the traditional approach of focusing on eusociality had limitations, which he illustrated primarily with examples from the insect world.
Primary socialisation
Sociologist Charles Horton Cooley developed the theory of the looking-glass self, which is similar to Mead's theory in that it states that our societal interactions form our self-image. Cooley talked about how significant others are people whose opinions are of importance to us and thus they have strong influences over the way we think about things and ourselves. In this case, a significant other can be any person: a friend, family member, and/or spouse. The theory of the looking-glass self proposes three steps for the formation of the self. In the first step, an individual thinks about how a significant other perceives them. In step two, they imagine that a judgement about them is made by the significant other based on that perception they have of the individual. Lastly, in the third step, based on how the person believes the significant other sees them, they create a self-image.
John Turner (psychologist)
John Charles Turner (September 7, 1947 – July 24, 2011) was a British social psychologist who, along with colleagues, developed the self-categorization theory. Amongst other things the theory states that the self is not a foundational aspect of cognition, but rather that the self is an outcome of cognitive processes and an interaction between the person and the social context. Self-categorization theory was developed as a companion theory to the social identity theory, and the two theories taken together are known as the social identity approach.
Émile Durkheim
Durkheim believed there was more to suicide than extremely personal individual life circumstances: for example, a loss of a job, divorce, or bankruptcy. Instead, he took suicide and explained it as a social fact instead of a result of one's circumstances. Durkheim believed that suicide was an instance of social deviance. Social deviance being any transgression of socially established norms. He created a normative theory of suicide focusing on the conditions of group life. The four different types of suicide that he proposed are egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic. He began by plotting social regulation on the x-axis of his chart, and social integration on the y-axis. Egoistic suicide corresponds to a low level of social integration. When one is not well integrated into a social group it can lead to a feeling that he or she has not made a difference in anyone's lives. On the other hand, too much social integration would be altruistic suicide. This occurs when a group dominates the life of an individual to a degree where they feel meaningless to society. Anomic suicide occurs when one has an insufficient amount of social regulation. This stems from the sociological term anomie meaning a sense of aimlessness or despair that arises from the inability to reasonably expect life to be predictable. Lastly, there is fatalistic suicide, which results from too much social regulation. An example of this would be when one follows the same routine day after day. This leads to he or she believing there is nothing good to look forward to. Durkheim suggested this was the most popular form of suicide for prisoners.
Psychosocial
People may not be fully aware of the relationship between their mental and emotional wellbeing and the environment. It was first commonly used by psychologist Erik Erikson in his description of the stages of psychosocial development. Mary Richmond, pioneer of American social work regarded there to be a linear relationship between cause and effect in a diagnostic process. In 1941 Gordon Hamilton renamed the 1917 concept of "social diagnosis" as "psychosocial study". Psychosocial study was further developed by Hollis in 1964 with emphasis in treatment model. It is contrasted with diverse social psychology, which attempts to explain social patterns within the individual. Problems that occur in one's psychosocial functioning can be referred to as "psychosocial dysfunction" or "psychosocial morbidity." This refers to the lack of development or diverse atrophy of the psychosocial self, often occurring alongside other dysfunctions that may be physical, emotional, or cognitive in nature. Adolph Meyer in the late 1800s stated "We cannot understand the individual presentation of mental illness, [and perpetuating factors] without knowing how that person functions in the environment," psychosocial assessment stems from this idea.
Social effects of evolutionary theory
"Social Darwinism" is a derogatory term associated with the 19th century Malthusian theory developed by Whig philosopher Herbert Spencer. It is associated with evolutionary theory but now widely regarded as unwarranted. Social Darwinism was later expanded by others into ideas about "survival of the fittest" in commerce and human societies as a whole, and led to claims that social inequality, sexism, racism and imperialism were justified. However, these ideas contradict Darwin's own views, and contemporary scientists and philosophers consider these ideas to be neither mandated by evolutionary theory nor supported by data.
Artificial society
The computational methods of artificial life were applied to the analysis of social systems, christened "the artificial society" by Joshua M. Epstein and Robert Axtell. Eventually, the artificial society provided a new method for sociological analysis in the form of computational sociology. The principal problem is that of classical sociology, the issue of macro-micro linkage: as first articulated by French Sociologist Émile Durkheim, the question of how individuals within a social system influence and are influenced by the macrosocial level.
History of science
Ibn Khaldun can be regarded as the earliest scientific systematic sociologist. The modern sociology emerged in the early 19th century as the academic response to the modernization of the world. Among many early sociologists (e.g., Émile Durkheim), the aim of sociology was in structuralism, understanding the cohesion of social groups, and developing an "antidote" to social disintegration. Max Weber was concerned with the modernization of society through the concept of rationalization, which he believed would trap individuals in an "iron cage" of rational thought. Some sociologists, including Georg Simmel and W. E. B. Du Bois, utilized more microsociological, qualitative analyses. This microlevel approach played an important role in American sociology, with the theories of George Herbert Mead and his student Herbert Blumer resulting in the creation of the symbolic interactionism approach to sociology.
Social experiment
The starting differentiation of the general field of psychology into physiological and social psychology as suggested by Wilhelm Wundt in 1862 lay way for the first social experiments. In 1895, American psychologist Norman Triplett constructed one of the first social experiments with the intention to study the influence of a group on racing performance. During the 1920s, Gordon Allport used experimental methods to study conformity, non-verbal communication, and social facilitation, shaping social psychology as we know it.
Intergroup relations
British psychologists Henri Tajfel and John Turner developed social identity theory and later self-categorization theory, pioneering the social identity approach in psychology in the 1970s and 80s. Tajfel and Turner were among the first psychologists to study the importance of social group membership and explore how the salience of an individual's group membership determined behavior and beliefs in the group context. Tajfel invented the minimal groups paradigm, an experimental method of arbitrarily assigning to individuals to groups (e.g., by flipping a coin) which showed that even when individuals were divided into arbitrary, meaningless groups, they tended to show favoritism for their own group.
Kurt Lewin
Lewin is often recognized as the "founder of social psychology" and was one of the first to study group dynamics and organizational development. A "Review of General Psychology" survey, published in 2002, ranked Lewin as the 18th-most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
Social impact theory
Social impact theory was created by Bibb Latané in 1981 and consists of four basic rules which consider how individuals can be "sources or targets of social influence". Social impact is the result of social forces including the strength of the source of impact, the immediacy of the event, and the number of sources exerting the impact. The more targets of impact that exist, the less impact each individual target has.
Sociology of knowledge
The sociology of knowledge was pioneered primarily by the sociologist Émile Durkheim at beginning of the 20th century. His work deals directly with how conceptual thought, language, and logic could be influenced by the sociological milieu out of which they arise. In an early work co-written with Marcel Mauss, "Primitive Classification", Durkheim and Mauss take a study of "primitive" group mythology to argue that systems of classification are collectively based and that the divisions with these systems are derived from social categories. Later, Durkheim in "The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life" would elaborate his theory of knowledge, examining how language and the concepts and categories (such as space and time) used in logical thought have a sociological origin. While neither Durkheim, nor Mauss, specifically coined nor used the term 'sociology of knowledge', their work is an important first contribution to the field.
Sociology
Both Weber and Georg Simmel pioneered the ""Verstehen"" (or 'interpretative') method in social science; a systematic process by which an outside observer attempts to relate to a particular cultural group, or indigenous people, on their own terms and from their own point of view. Through the work of Simmel, in particular, sociology acquired a possible character beyond positivist data-collection or grand, deterministic systems of structural law. Relatively isolated from the sociological academy throughout his lifetime, Simmel presented idiosyncratic analyses of modernity more reminiscent of the phenomenological and existential writers than of Comte or Durkheim, paying particular concern to the forms of, and possibilities for, social individuality. His sociology engaged in a neo-Kantian inquiry into the limits of perception, asking 'What is society?' in a direct allusion to Kant's question 'What is nature?'
Harold Kelley
Harold Kelley’s most important collaboration was with John Thibaut, with whom he developed interdependence theory. Often identified as a social exchange theory, interdependence theory was first broadly addressed by Thibaut & Kelley in their 1959 book "The Social Psychology of Groups", and later more comprehensively formalized in their 1978 book "Interpersonal Relations: A Theory of Interdependence. In the 1998 Handbook of Social Psychology, it is said of Kelley & Thibaut's interdependence theory, “Given the elegance and profundity of this analysis… there is good reason that its impact will be durable." Indeed, for over 50 years interdependence theory has influenced generations of scientists studying group dynamics, social comparison, attribution, self-presentation, self-regulation, love, commitment, and conflict, among other topics.
Social inertia
The idea of social inertia can be traced back to French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. According to Bourdieu, each person occupies a position in a social space, which consists of his or her social class as well as social relationships and social networks. Through the individual's engagement in the social space, he or she develops a set of behaviors, lifestyle and habits (which Bourdieu referred to as habitus) which often serve to maintain the status quo. Thus, people are encouraged to "accept the social world as it is, to take it for granted, rather than to rebel against it, to counterpose to it different, even antagonistic, possibles." This can explain the continuity of the social order through time.
History of sociology
In 1959, Erving Goffman published "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life" and introduced the theory of dramaturgical analysis which asserts that all individuals aim to create a specific impression of themselves in the minds of other people. C. Wright Mills presented "The Sociological Imagination", encouraging humanistic discourse and a rejection of abstracted empiricism and grand theory. Parallel with the rise of various social movements in the 1960s, particularly in Britain, the cultural turn saw a rise in conflict theories emphasizing social struggle, such as neo-Marxism and second-wave feminism. Ralf Dahrendorf and Ralph Miliband presented pioneering theory on class conflict and industrialized nation states. The sociology of religion saw a renaissance in the decade with new debates on secularisation thesis, globalization, and the very definition of religious practise. Theorists such as Lenski and Yinger formulated 'functional' definitions of religion; enquiring as to what a religion "does" rather than what "it is" in familiar terms. Thus, various new social institutions and movements could be examined for their religious role. Marxist theorists continued to scrutinize consumerism and capitalist ideology in analogous terms. Antonio Gramsci's "Selections from the Prison Notebooks" [1929–1935] was finally published in English during the early 1970s.
In the 1960s and 1970s so-called post-structuralist and postmodernist theory, drawing upon structuralism and phenomenology as much as classical social science, made a considerable impact on frames of sociological enquiry. Often understood simply as a cultural style 'after-Modernism' marked by intertextuality, pastiche and irony, sociological analyses of postmodernity have presented a distinct "era" relating to (1) the dissolution of metanarratives (particularly in the work of Lyotard), and (2) commodity fetishism and the 'mirroring' of identity with consumption in late capitalist society (Debord; Baudrillard; Jameson). Postmodernism has also been associated with the rejection of enlightenment conceptions of the human subject by thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Claude Lévi-Strauss and, to a lesser extent, in Louis Althusser's attempt to reconcile Marxism with anti-humanism. Most theorists associated with the movement actively refused the label, preferring to accept postmodernity as a historical phenomenon rather than a method of analysis, if at all. Nevertheless, self-consciously postmodern pieces continue to emerge within the social and political sciences in general.
History of creationism
Herbert Spencer was a 19th-century English philosopher who developed ideas about the unifying concept of evolution across the natural and social sciences. Spencer is the first to develop a theory of cultural evolution and is considered by some to be the father of Social Darwinism. It is also he and not Darwin who coined the phrase "survival of the fittest". Much of the positivist ideas of progress that dominated the social science philosophy of Spencer and subsequent Social Darwinists has been criticized by present-day sociologists, but such ideas continue to be one of the major critiques made by creationists against evolution in general, even though strict biological evolution does not depend on it nor offer any type of endorsement of so-called "social Darwinism" or its derivative philosophies such as eugenics.
Tony Lawson
As a result of his argument that economics should concern itself with ontology, Lawson has developed and defended his own theory of the constitution and nature of social reality. The main philosophical influence for this is the Cambridge Social Ontology Group. An early influence was the work of Roy Bhaskar. Indeed, in his early work, Lawson joined Bhaskar and others in referring to the account of social reality defended as "transcendental realism". Since 1997, however, Lawson has developed his own conception of social ontology, largely in collaboration with the Cambridge Social Ontology Group, and refers to it as social positioning theory.
Atomism (social)
Atomism or social atomism is a sociological theory arising from the scientific notion "atomic theory", coined by the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus and the Roman philosopher Lucretius. In the scientific rendering of the word, atomism refers to the notion that all matter in the universe is composed of basic indivisible components, or atoms. When placed into the field of sociology, atomism assigns the individual as the basic unit of analysis for all implications of social life. This theory refers to "the tendency for society to be made up of a collection of self-interested and largely self-sufficient individuals, operating as separate atoms". Therefore, all social values, institutions, developments and procedures evolve entirely out of the interests and actions of the individuals who inhabit any particular society. The individual is the ‘atom’ of society and therefore the only true object of concern and analysis. 
Political theorists such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes extend social atomism to the political realm. They assert that human beings are fundamentally self-interested, equal and rational "social atoms" that together form an aggregate society of self-interested individuals. Those participating in society must sacrifice a portion of their individual rights in order to form a "social contract" with the other persons in society. Ultimately, although some rights are renounced, self-interested cooperation occurs for the mutual preservation of the individuals and for society at large. 
Those who criticize the theory of social atomism believe that it neglects the idea of the individual as unique. Sociologist Elizabeth Wolgast asserts that,
“From the atomistic standpoint, the individuals who make up a society are interchangeable like molecules in a bucket of water--society a mere aggregate of individuals. This introduces a harsh and brutal equality into our theory of human life and it contradicts our experience of human beings as unique and irreplaceable, valuable in virtue of their variety--in what they don't share--not in virtue of their common ability to reason.” 
Those who question social atomism argue that it is unjust to treat all persons equally when individual necessities and circumstances are clearly dissimilar.
Social identity theory
By the late 1920s the collectivist perspective had all but disappeared from mainstream social psychology. Over fifty years later, around the time of the first formal use of the term 'social identity theory,' Tajfel wrote this on the state of social psychology:
Eliseo Verón
Verón has published books on sociology, social psychology, communication and semiotics since 1968. His early period was influenced by the structuralism of Claude Lévi-Strauss and the binary theory of the sign of Ferdinand de Saussure, and then the triadic sign theory of Charles Sanders Peirce, on whom he relied to develop his theory of social semiosis (1988).
Open society
The open society was conceived in 1932 by French philosopher Henri Bergson. The idea was further developed during the Second World War by Austrian-born British philosopher Karl Popper.
Bergson describes a closed society as a closed system of law or religion. It is static, like a closed mind. Bergson suggests that if all traces of civilization were to disappear, the instincts of the closed society for including or excluding others would remain. In contrast, an open society is dynamic and inclined to moral universalism.
Intimate relationship
In 1891, William James wrote that a person's self-concept is defined by the relationships endured with others. In 1897, Émile Durkheim's interest in social organization led to the examination of social isolation and alienation. This was an influential discovery of intimate relationships in that Durkheim argued that being socially isolated was a key antecedent of suicide. This focus on the darker side of relationships and the negative consequences associated to social isolation were what Durkheim labeled as anomie. Georg Simmel wrote about dyads, or partnerships with two people. Simmel suggested that dyads require consent and engagement of both partners to maintain the relationship but noted that the relationship can be ended by the initiation of only one partner. Although the theorists mentioned above sought support for their theories, their primary contributions to the study of intimate relationships were conceptual and not empirically grounded.
Social theory
Social theory by definition is used to make distinctions and generalizations among different types of societies, and to analyze modernity as it has emerged in the past few centuries. Social theory as it is recognized today emerged in the 20th century as a distinct discipline, and was largely equated with an attitude of critical thinking and the desire for knowledge through "a posteriori" methods of discovery, rather than "a priori" methods of tradition.
Social identity theory
Some social identity theorists, including John Turner, consider the self-esteem hypothesis as not canonical to social identity theory. In fact, the self-esteem hypothesis is argued to be conflictual with the tenets of the theory. It is argued that the self-esteem hypothesis misunderstands the distinction between a social identity and a personal identity. Along those lines, John Turner and Penny Oakes argue against an interpretation of positive distinctiveness as a straightforward need for self-esteem or "quasi-biological drive toward prejudice". They instead favour a somewhat more complex conception of positive self-concept as a reflection of the ideologies and social values of the perceiver. Additionally, it is argued that the self-esteem hypothesis neglects the alternative strategies to maintaining a positive self-concept that are articulated in social identity theory (i.e., individual mobility and social creativity).
Social theory
The 19th century brought questions involving social order. The French Revolution freed French society of control by the monarchy, with no effective means of maintaining social order until Napoleon came to power. Three great classical theories of social and historical change emerged: the social evolutionism theory (of which Social Darwinism forms a part), the social cycle theory, and the Marxist historical materialism theory.
Symbolic interactionism
Symbolic interaction was conceived by George Herbert Mead and Charles Horton Cooley. Mead argued that people's selves are social products, but that these selves are also purposive and creative, and believed that the true test of any theory was that it was "useful in solving complex social problems". Mead's influence was said to be so powerful that sociologists regard him as the one "true founder" of the symbolic interactionism tradition. Although Mead taught in a philosophy department, he is best known by sociologists as the teacher who trained a generation of the best minds in their field. Strangely, he never set forth his wide-ranging ideas in a book or systematic treatise. After his death in 1931, his students pulled together class notes and conversations with their mentor and published "Mind, Self and Society" in his name. It is a common misconception that John Dewey was the leader of this sociological theory; according to "The Handbook of Symbolic Interactionism," Mead was undoubtedly the individual who "transformed the inner structure of the theory, moving it to a higher level of theoretical complexity". "Mind, Self and Society" is the book published by Mead's students based on his lectures and teaching, and the title of the book highlights the core concept of social interactionism. "Mind" refers to an individual's ability to use symbols to create meanings for the world around the individual – individuals use language and thought to accomplish this goal. "Self" refers to an individual's ability to reflect on the way that the individual is perceived by others. Finally, "society", according to Mead, is where all of these interactions are taking place. A general description of Mead's compositions portray how outside social structures, classes, and power and abuse affect the advancement of self, personality for gatherings verifiably denied of the ability to characterize themselves.
Social organism
The model or concept of society as an organism is traced by Maclay from Aristotle via a number of thinkers including Comte. It was then developed in the late 19th century by Émile Durkheim, a French sociologist. According to Durkheim, the more specialized the function of an organism or society the greater its development, and vice versa. Generally, culture, politics, and economics are the three core activities of society. Social health depends on the harmonious interworking of these three activities. This concept was further developed by Rudolf Steiner in his lectures, essays and books on "The Threefold Social Order" from 1904 for the next two decades. Hence, the "health" of the social organism can be thought of as a function of the interaction of culture, politics and rights, and economics, which in theory can be studied, modeled, and analyzed. The conception of an "organismic society" was elaborated further by Herbert Spencer in his essay on "The Social Organism".
Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism is the application of the evolutionary concept of natural selection to human society. The term itself emerged in the 1880s, and it gained widespread currency when used after 1944 by opponents of these ways of thinking. The majority of those who have been categorized as social Darwinists did not identify themselves by such a label.
Libertarianism
Catalan historian Xavier Diez reports that the intentional communal experiments pioneered by Warren were influential in European individualist anarchists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries such as Émile Armand and the intentional communities started by them. Warren said that Stephen Pearl Andrews, individualist anarchist and close associate, wrote the most lucid and complete exposition of Warren's own theories in "The Science of Society", published in 1852. Andrews was formerly associated with the Fourierist movement, but converted to radical individualism after becoming acquainted with the work of Warren. Like Warren, he held the principle of "individual sovereignty" as being of paramount importance. Contemporary American anarchist Hakim Bey reports:
Unilineal evolution
The term "classical social evolutionism" is most closely associated with the 19th-century writings of Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer (who coined the phrase "survival of the fittest") and William Graham Sumner. In many ways Spencer's theory of 'cosmic evolution' has much more in common with the works of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Auguste Comte than with contemporary works of Charles Darwin. Spencer also developed and published his theories several years earlier than Darwin. In regard to social institutions, however, there is a good case that Spencer's writings might be classified as 'Social Evolutionism'. Although he wrote that societies over time progressed, and that progress was accomplished through competition, he stressed that the individual (rather than the collectivity) is the unit of analysis that evolves, that evolution takes place through natural selection and that it affects social as well as biological phenomenon.
Sociological theory
Anomie theory seeks to understand "normlessness", where society provides little moral guidance to individuals. Sociologist Emile Durkheim observed that social periods of disruption result in greater anomie and higher rates of suicide and crimes. Merton theorizes that anomie (normative breakdown) and some forms of deviant behavior derive largely from a disjunction between “culturally prescribed aspirations” of a society and “socially structured avenues for realizing those aspirations". In "The Division of Labor in Society", Durkheim described anomie as one result of an inequitable division of labour within the society. Broadly speaking, then, during times of great upheaval, increasing numbers of individuals "cease to accept the moral legitimacy of society,” as sociologist Anthony R. Mawson, University of Keele, UK, notes.
Social entropy
Social entropy is a sociological theory that evaluates social behaviours using a method based on the second law of thermodynamics. The equivalent of entropy in a social system is considered to be wealth or residence location. The theory was introduced by Kenneth D. Bailey (sociologist) in 1990.
Sociological theory
Prominent sociological theorists include Talcott Parsons, Robert K. Merton, Randall Collins, James Samuel Coleman, Peter Blau, Niklas Luhmann, Marshal McLuhan, Immanuel Wallerstein, George Homans, Harrison White, Theda Skocpol, Gerhard Lenski, Pierre van den Berghe and Jonathan H. Turner. Prominent social theorists include: Jürgen Habermas, Anthony Giddens, Michel Foucault, Dorothy Smith, Roberto Unger, Alfred Schütz, Jeffrey Alexander, and Jacques Derrida. There are also prominent scholars who could be seen as being in-between social and sociological theories, such as Harold Garfinkel, Herbert Blumer, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Pierre Bourdieu and Erving Goffman.
Social cognitive theory
The proposition of social learning was expanded upon and theorized by Canadian psychologist Albert Bandura. Bandura, along with his students and colleagues conducted a series of studies, known as the Bobo doll experiment, in 1961 and 1963 to find out why and when children display aggressive behaviors. These studies demonstrated the value of modeling for acquiring novel behaviors. These studies helped Bandura publish his seminal article and book in 1977 that expanded on the idea of how behavior is acquired, and thus built from Miller and Dollard's research. In Bandura's 1977 article, he claimed that Social Learning Theory shows a direct correlation between a person's perceived self-efficacy and behavioral change. Self-efficacy comes from four sources: "performance accomplishments, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological states".
Social theory
Some known French social thinkers are Claude Henri Saint-Simon, Auguste Comte, and Émile Durkheim.
Sociology of space
Georg Simmel has been seen as the classical sociologist who was most important to this field. Simmel wrote on "the sociology of space" in his 1908 book "Sociology: Investigations on the Forms of Sociation". His concerns included the process of metropolitanisation and the separation of leisure spaces in modern economic societies.
Optimal distinctiveness theory
Optimal distinctiveness theory was built upon and further extended the assumptions of social identity theory and other models that examine ingroup bias and favoritism (Brewer, 1991, 1996, 2003). Social identity theory, proposed by Tajfel and Turner in 1979, describes the psychological basis of such bias and discrimination (Brewer, 1991; Twente, 2007). The theory asserts that individuals have multiple selves, or multiple social identities, that interact with other people on different, yet necessary levels (Twente, 2007). Social identity is thus created through membership in groups. Tajfel and Turner (1986) suggested that this group membership alone is enough to induce favoritism (or positive bias) towards the ingroup at the expense of the outgroup. This sense of ingroup favoritism was coined “positive distinctiveness” (Tajfel & Turner, 1986) and argued to lead to increased self-esteem based on the new capability for individuals to express themselves as “we” in addition to “I” (a social and personal identity, respectively: Twente, 2007). Brewer suggested that the increased self-esteem could flow from social identity rather than ingroup favoritism. Therefore, she asserted, self-esteem was not an adequate predictor of why individuals sought ingroup memberships (Brewer, 2003).
Social determinism
Social determinism was first studied by Emile Durkheim (1858 - 1917), French philosopher considered as the father of the social science.
Social theory
The term "postmodernism" was brought into social theory in 1971 by the Arab American Theorist Ihab Hassan in his book: "The Dismemberment of Orpheus: Toward a Postmodern Literature". In 1979 Jean-François Lyotard wrote a short but influential work "The Postmodern Condition: A report on knowledge". Jean Baudrillard, Michel Foucault, and Roland Barthes were influential in the 1970s in developing postmodern theory.
Social character
The social character is the central basic concept of the analytic social psychology of Erich Fromm.
Intergroup relations
In the 1970s and 80s, Henri Tajfel and John Turner proposed two connected theories of social identity, self-categorization theory and social identity theory, that together form a method for understanding the psychological processes underlying how individuals make sense of their identities and group membership.
Urban sociology
The philosophical foundations of modern urban sociology originate from the work of sociologists such as Karl Marx, Ferdinand Tönnies, Émile Durkheim, Max Weber and Georg Simmel who studied and theorized the economic, social and cultural processes of urbanization and its effects on social alienation, class formation, and the production or destruction of collective and individual identities.
Social control theory
In criminology, social control theory proposes that exploiting the process of socialization and social learning builds self-control and reduces the inclination to indulge in behavior recognized as antisocial. It derives from functionalist theories of crime and was developed by Ivan Nye (1958), who proposed that there were three types of control:
Self-concept
The self-categorization theory developed by John Turner states that the self-concept consists of at least two "levels": a personal identity and a social one. In other words, one's self-evaluation relies on self-perceptions and how others perceive them. Self-concept can alternate rapidly between the personal and social identity. Children and adolescents begin integrating social identity into their own self-concept in elementary school by assessing their position among peers. By age 5, acceptance from peers significantly affects children's self-concept, affecting their behavior and academic success.
Solomon Asch
According to Levine (1999), Asch's research has led to four critical ideas that persist in social influence research. First, Asch believed that social interaction reflects the ability of individual people to synthesize information about group norms, the viewpoints of others and their own perceptions of themselves as group members. This point of view has been manifested in at least two important theories (social identity theory and self-categorization theory), and has been a source of inspiration for the work of many social psychologists (See Hardin & Higgins, 1996; Weick & Roberts, 1993).
Social learning (social pedagogy)
Karl Mager (1810 - 1858) is often identified as the one who coined the term social pedagogy. He held the belief that education should focus on the acquisition of knowledge but also of culture through society and should orient its activities to benefit the community. It also implies that knowledge should not solely come from individuals but also from the larger concept of society.
Social learning (social pedagogy)
The founding father of social pedagogy, German philosopher and educator Paul Natorp (1854-1924) published the book "Sozialpädagogik: Theorie der Willensbildung auf der Grundlage der Gemeinschaft" (Social Pedagogy: The theory of educating the human will into a community asset) in 1899. Natorp argued that in all instances, pedagogy should be social. Teachers should consider the interaction between educational and societal processes.
Social identity theory
The term 'social identity theory' achieved academic currency only in the late 1970s, but the basic underlying concepts associated with it had emerged by the early twentieth century. William G. Sumner, writing in 1906, captures the primary dynamics in this excerpt from his influential work "Folkways: A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals":
Marxist sociology
Influenced by the thought of Karl Marx, Marxist sociology emerged during the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. As well as Marx, Max Weber and Émile Durkheim are considered seminal influences in early sociology. The first Marxist school of sociology was known as Austro-Marxism, of which Carl Grünberg and Antonio Labriola were among its most notable members. Much of the development in the field of Marxist sociology occurred on the outskirts of academia, pitting Marxist against "bourgeois" sociology.
Social contract
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) advocated a conception of social contract that did not involve an individual surrendering sovereignty to others. According to him, the social contract was not between individuals and the state, but rather among individuals who refrain from coercing or governing each other, each one maintaining complete sovereignty upon him- or herself:
Sociology
At the turn of the 20th century the first generation of German sociologists formally introduced methodological anti-positivism, proposing that research should concentrate on human cultural norms, values, symbols, and social processes viewed from a resolutely subjective perspective. Max Weber argued that sociology may be loosely described as a science as it is able to identify causal relationships of human "social action"—especially among "ideal types", or hypothetical simplifications of complex social phenomena. As a non-positivist, however, Weber sought relationships that are not as "historical, invariant, or generalisable" as those pursued by natural scientists. Fellow German sociologist, Ferdinand Tönnies, theorised on two crucial abstract concepts with his work on "Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft" (lit. "community" and "society"). Tönnies marked a sharp line between the realm of concepts and the reality of social action: the first must be treated axiomatically and in a deductive way ("pure sociology"), whereas the second empirically and inductively ("applied sociology").
Social theory
The 19th century pioneers of social theory and sociology, like Saint-Simon, Comte, Marx, John Stuart Mill or Spencer, never held university posts and they were broadly regarded as philosophers. Emile Durkheim endeavoured to formally established academic sociology, and did so at the University of Bordeaux in 1895, he published "Rules of the Sociological Method". In 1896, he established the journal "L'Année Sociologique". Durkheim's seminal monograph, "Suicide" (1897), a case study of suicide rates amongst Catholic and Protestant populations, distinguished sociological analysis from psychology or philosophy.
Mechanical and organic solidarity
In sociology, "mechanical solidarity" and "organic solidarity" are the concepts of solidarity as developed by Émile Durkheim. Durkheim introduced the terms "mechanical" and "organic solidarity" as part of his theory of the development of societies in "The Division of Labour in Society" (1893). According to Durkheim, the types of social solidarity correlate with types of society, which are mechanical and organic societies.
The Sociological Imagination
The reception of C. Wright Mills can now be seen as somewhat illustrative of Mills's personality. In his work, we can see the "space of selfhood" which Mills argued individuals connect individuals with society as a whole. Thus, of personalized experiences being used to link public discourses he can thereby be seen to mark a biographical turn in post-structuralist Sociology (Brewer, 2005, 661-663).
History of the social sciences
It was with the work of Charles Darwin that the descriptive version of social theory received another shock. Biology had, seemingly, resisted mathematical study, and yet the theory of natural selection and the implied idea of genetic inheritance—later found to have been enunciated by Gregor Mendel, seemed to point in the direction of a scientific biology based, like physics and chemistry, on mathematical relationships. In the first half of the 20th century, statistics became a free-standing discipline of applied mathematics. Statistical methods were used confidently, for example in an increasingly statistical view of biology. The first thinkers to attempt to combine inquiry of the type they saw in Darwin with exploration of human relationships, which, evolutionary theory implied, would be based on selective forces, were Freud in Austria and William James in the United States. Freud's theory of the functioning of the mind, and James' work on experimental psychology would have enormous impact on those that followed. Freud, in particular, created a framework which would appeal not only to those studying psychology, but artists and writers as well.
Social order
Two different theories exist that explain and attempt to account for social order. The first theory is "order results from a large number of independent decisions to transfer individual rights and liberties to a coercive state in return for its guarantee of security for persons and their property, as well as its establishment of mechanisms to resolve disputes," as stated in "Theories of Social Order" by Hechter and Horne. The next theory is that "the ultimate source of social order as residing not in external controls but in a concordance of specific values and norms that individuals somehow have managed to internalize." also stated in "Theories of Social Order" by Hechter and Horne. Both arguments for how social order is attained are very different. One argues that it is achieved through outside influence and control, and the other argues that it can only be attained when the individual willingly follows norms and values that they have grown accustomed to and internalized. Weber's insistence on the importance of domination and symbolic systems in social life was retained by Pierre Bourdieu, who developed the idea of social orders, ultimately transforming it into a theory of fields.
Social science
Karl Marx rejected Comte's positivism but nevertheless aimed to establish a "science of society" based on historical materialism, becoming recognized as a founding figure of sociology posthumously as the term gained broader meaning. Around the start of the 20th century, the first wave of German sociologists, including Max Weber and Georg Simmel, developed sociological antipositivism. The field may be broadly recognized as an amalgam of three modes of social thought in particular: Durkheimian positivism and structural functionalism; Marxist historical materialism and conflict theory; and Weberian antipositivism and verstehen analysis. American sociology broadly arose on a separate trajectory, with little Marxist influence, an emphasis on rigorous experimental methodology, and a closer association with pragmatism and social psychology. In the 1920s, the Chicago school developed symbolic interactionism. Meanwhile, in the 1930s, the Frankfurt School pioneered the idea of critical theory, an interdisciplinary form of Marxist sociology drawing upon thinkers as diverse as Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche. Critical theory would take on something of a life of its own after World War II, influencing literary criticism and the Birmingham School establishment of cultural studies.
Social comparison theory
The three-selves model proposes that social comparison theory is a combination of two different theories. One theory is developed around motivation and the factors that influence the type of social comparison information people seek from their environment and the second is about self-evaluation and the factors that influence the effects of social comparisons on the judgments of self. While there has been much research in the area of comparison motives, there has been little in the area of comparative evaluation. Explaining that the self is conceived as interrelated conceptions accessible depending upon current judgment context and taking a cue from Social Cognitive Theory, this model examines the Assimilation effect and distinguishes three classes of working Self-concept ideas: individual selves, possible selves and collective selves.
Social structure
The notion of social structure was extensively developed in the 20th century, with key contributions from structuralist perspectives drawing on the theories of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Feminist or Marxist perspectives, from functionalist perspectives such as those developed by Talcott Parsons and his followers, or from a variety of analytic perspectives (see Blau 1975, Lopez and Scott 2000). Some follow Marx in trying to identify the basic dimensions of society that explain the other dimensions, most emphasizing either economic production or political power. Others follow Lévi-Strauss in seeking logical order in cultural structures. Still others, notably Peter Blau, follow Simmel in attempting to base a formal theory of social structure on numerical patterns in relationships—analyzing, for example, the ways in which factors like group size shape intergroup relations.
Juan Vázquez de Mella
Key elements of de Mella's thought are defined as society, religion, family, regionalism, tradition and monarchy. The very core of de Mella's concept, however, considered also his most original contribution to Traditionalist thought, was his idea of a society. Though many thinkers before him dedicated considerable attention to the problem and underlined that it was not a contractual body but a result of natural development, most scholars agree that it was de Mella who introduced the theory of social sovereignty. Different from political sovereignty exercised exclusively by the monarch, it attributes to communities the right to govern themselves with no interference on part of external agents, be it the king or other communities; social sovereignty is embodied in the Cortes. Other scholars maintain that the concept was coined by others, but de Mella elevated it to the form he named sociedalismo, which stands for superiority of such a society over state. The concepts of de Mella and Gil led to major transformation of Traditionalism; in the previous phase centred on monarchy, in the subsequent one, to last until the late 20th century, it got centred on society.
Mind, Self and Society
Mind, Self, and Society is a book based on the teachings of American sociologist George Herbert Mead's, published posthumously in 1934 by his students. It is credited as the basis for the theory of symbolic interactionism. Charles W. Morris edition of Mind, Self, and Society initiated controversies about authorship because the book was based on oral discourse and Mead's students notes.
Internet studies
From particularly sociological perspective, James Slevin (2000) develops a social theory of the Internet that is primarily informed by the line of thought grounded by the British sociologist Anthony Giddens., while Christian Fuchs (2008) is a social theory account that is primarily grounded in the works by critical theory scholars such as Herbert Marcuse, by the concept of social self-organization, and by neo-Marxist thinking.
Social representation
The term "social representation" was originally coined by Serge Moscovici in 1961, in his study on the reception and circulation of psychoanalysis in France. It is understood as the collective elaboration "of a social object by the community for the purpose of behaving and communicating". They are further referred to as "system of values, ideas and practices with a twofold function; first, to establish an order which will enable individuals to orient themselves in their material and social world and to master it; and secondly to enable communication to take place among the members of a community by providing them with a code for social exchange and a code for naming and classifying unambiguously the various aspects of their world and their individual and group history". In his study, Moscovici sought to investigate how scientific theories circulate within common sense, and what happens to these theories when they are elaborated upon by a lay public. For such analysis, Moscovici postulated two universes: the "reified" universe of science, which operates according to scientific rules and procedures and gives rise to scientific knowledge, and the "consensual" universe of social representation, in which the lay public elaborates and circulates forms of knowledge which come to constitute the content of common sense.
Thomas theorem
The Thomas theorem is a theory of sociology which was formulated in 1928 by William Isaac Thomas and Dorothy Swaine Thomas (1899–1977) :
Social contract
The social contract theory also appears in "Crito", another dialogue from Plato. Over time, the social contract theory became more widespread after Epicurus (341-270 BC), the first philosopher who saw justice as a social contract, and not as existing in Nature due to divine intervention (see below and also Epicurean ethics), decided to bring the theory to the forefront of his society. As time went on, philosophers of traditional political and social thought, such as Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau put forward their opinions on social contract, which then caused the topic to become much more mainstream.
Imaginary (sociology)
Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor uses the concept of modern social imaginaries to explore the Western transition from the hierarchical norms of pre-modern social imaginaries to the egalitarian, horizontal, direct access social imaginary of modernity. He sees the Renaissance ideal of civility and self-fashioning as a sort of halfway house on the road to modernity and modern morality. The modern social imaginary he considers comprises a system of interlocking spheres, including reflexivity and the social contract, public opinion and Habermas' public sphere, the political/market economy as an independent force, and the self-government of citizens within a society as a normative ideal.
Social research
Durkheim's seminal monograph, "Suicide" (1897), a case study of suicide rates among Catholic and Protestant populations, distinguished sociological analysis from psychology or philosophy. By carefully examining suicide statistics in different police districts, he attempted to demonstrate that Catholic communities have a lower suicide rate than that of Protestants, something he attributed to social (as opposed to individual or psychological) causes. He developed the notion of objective "suis generis" "social facts" to delineate a unique empirical object for the science of sociology to study. Through such studies he posited that sociology would be able to determine whether any given society is "healthy" or "pathological", and seek social reform to negate organic breakdown or "social anomie". For Durkheim, sociology could be described as the "science of institutions, their genesis and their functioning".
Sociological theory
Phenomenological sociology is an approach within the field of sociology that aims to reveal what role human awareness plays in the production of social action, social situations and social worlds. In essence, phenomenology is the belief that society is a human construction. The social phenomenology of Alfred Schütz influenced the development of the social constructionism and ethnomethodology. It was originally developed by Edmund Husserl.
Sociocybernetics
The idea to study society as a system can be traced back to the origin of sociology when the emergent idea of functional differentiation has been applied for the first time to society by Auguste Comte.