Disciplines and

Ideas in the
Social Sciences

An Introduction
SOCIAL SCIENCES
– deal with human society, societal groups, individuals in their relationships with
others or institutions of societies and material goods as expression of human
cohabitation (Bayer, 1992)
– are a set of disciplines united by a method to investigate human society and
human relationships
– seek to understand the nature of people and society
– concerned with society and the relationship among individuals within a society
– the study of society
– deal with human behavior in its social and cultural aspects
Disciplines within
the Social Sciences

– Anthropology
– Economics
– Geography
– History
– Linguistics
– Political Science
– Psychology
– Sociology
Anthropology
– taken from two Greek words “Anthropos” which means “man” or
“human being” and “logos” or “logia” which means “to study”
– the scientific study of man or human being
– branch of knowledge which deals with the scientific study of man,
his works, his body, his behavior, and values, in time and space. It
is the study of physical, social and cultural development and
behavior of human beings since their appearance on earth
– exploration and study of human diversity around the world
Economics
– study of complicated tables and charts, statistics and numbers,
but, more specifically, it is the study of what constitutes rational
human behavior in the endeavor to fulfill needs and wants
– comes from the Greek word “oikanomia” meaning “household
management”
– deals with the production, distribution and consumption of goods
and services
– devoted to understand how society allocates its scarce resources
Geography
– comes from the Greek words “geo” which means the “earth” and
“graphe” which means “to write” or “to draw”
– the science of the Earth and its life, dealing with land, sea and air
conditions; the distribution of plant and animal life especially with
man and his industries (Frazier, 1982)
– Physical Geography describes and studies the surface features of
the Earth
– Human Geography describes and studies what human being do in
and on land and water
History
– systematic inquiry of man’s recorded past for the purpose of
establishing causal relationships, validating historical facts, and
reconstruction of chronological events
– Herodotus is regarded as the Father of History
– taken from the Greek word “istoria” which translates to knowing
by inquiry
Linguistics
– the study of language and of the way languages work
– the study of human speech including the units, nature, structure,
and modification of language
Political Science
– sytematic study of state and government
– the word political is derived from the Greek word “polis” which means
“city” or what today would be equivalent of sovereign state; the word
science comes from the Latin word “scire” which means to know
– its objective is to have a basic understanding and knowledge of the state
and of the principles and ideals which underlie its organization and
activities
– concerned with the association of human being into a “body politic” or a
political community that was organized under government and law
Psychology
– comes from Greek words “psyche” which means soul or mind and
“logos” which means to study, therefore, literally psychology
means the study of the “soul” or “mind”
– scientific study of behavior and mental processes (Santrock, 2000)
– as a science of behavior, psychology is applied to understanding
oneself as his method of adopting an environment
Sociology
– deals with social institutions and social relationships
– the scientific analysis of a social institution as a functioning whole
and as it relates to the rest of the society