Dominant

Approaches and
Ideas in the
Social Sciences
Different approaches in the social sciences
offer different ways of looking at and
understanding society.
These dominant approaches and ideas offer
various ways of looking at society and also
offered various ways of explaining the things
that are happening in it.
These approaches also serve as guide in doing
a research in the social sciences.
 Dominant Approaches

1. Positivist Social Sciences

2. Interpretative Social Sciences
3. Critical Social Sciences
 Positivism
Is one of the paradigm in the social science
which aims to explain human behavior
by discovering and documenting universal
law and patterns that govern human
behavior.
It also advocates “Objective Research" and
propagates the belief that the "truth is out
there.“
Positivism is a philosophical theory stating that 
certain ("positive") knowledge is based on natural phenomena and their
properties and relations. Thus, information derived from sensory experience
, interpreted through reason and logic, forms the exclusive source of all
certain knowledge.[1] Positivism holds that valid knowledge (certitude or
truth) is found only in this a posteriori knowledge.
Verified data (positive facts) received from the senses are known as 
empirical evidence; thus positivism is based on empiricism.[1]
Positivism also holds that society, like the physical world, operates
according to general laws. Introspective and intuitive knowledge is rejected,
as are metaphysics and theology. Although the positivist approach has been
a recurrent theme in the history of western thought,[2] the modern sense of
the approach was formulated by the philosopher Auguste Comte in the early
19th century.[3] Comte argued that, much as the physical world operates
according to gravity and other absolute laws, so does society,[4] and further
developed positivism into a Religion of Humanity.
It asserts that the only source of trustworthy
knowledge is the information obtained from rational
conducts and reports of sensory experience.
Positivism research prefers exact quantitative data and
often uses experiments, surveys, and statistics as
research methods.
For positivist social science, the eventual aim of
research is scientific explanation of social phenomena
and individual behavior (Neuman, 1997).
 Positivism
asserts that every claim can
be scientifically verified.

Structural- Rational
functionalism Choice

Institutionalism
Structural-Functionalism
A dominant approach in the social
sciences that sees society as a complex
system whose parts work together to
promote solidarity and stability.
Structural-Functionalism is more
concerned with the place of individuals
in the social order itself than with
individual actions (Barnard, 2004).
 Structural Functionalism 

is a sociological theory that attempts to explain why

society functions the way it does by focusing on the
relationships between the various social institutions that
make up society (e.g., government, law, education,
religion, etc).
In this theory, society is seen as running
effortlessly like a fit life form, composed of
many parts concocted in large systems, and
these systems, each with its own particular
use or functions, operating together with the
others.
Social institutions, like the parts of the body,
function together with the larger systems.
Kinship Religion

Society

Politics Economics
Social Functions
Refer to results or effects
for the operation of the
society in general.
Education- socialization
and learning.

 Religion- well-being of
the society.
Manifest Functions- are those that
are intentionally or known. Functions
which people suppose and anticipate
to be fulfilled by the institutions.

Latent Functions- are the

unexpected effects of institutions.
 Ex. Manifest function of Religion

To provide meaning and purpose

for society and promotes social
unity by binding people through
codes, morals, and customs.
 Latent function of Religion

 Contributing entertaining
facilities and courtship
prospects to its youth
members.
 Social Dysfunctions
Are the expected
disruption of social life.
 Ex. Manifest Disruption of
Heavy Migration from rural to urban area

Overpopulation
and
unemployment
 Latent Disruption of Heavy
Migration from rural to urban
area
Rise in crime rate due to
massive unemployment
generated by the said
migration.
Herbert Spencer
Social Equilibrium
When conditions of the society are
modified, consequential changes to social
structure will maintain equilibrium,
returning society to stability.
 Strengths
1. The existence of a general agreement on
the values and norms of the society by
majority.
2. The belief that society is made up of
integrated parts bounded together, and if
something is wrong with one part, it will
affect the other parts.
3. Seeks stability and avoids conflict.
 Important thinkers and their contributions
1. Bronislaw Malinowski- he speculated
that cultural practices had psychological and
physiological functions.
2. Emile Durkheim- one important
contribution made by him was the struggle
to make sociology accepted as a rightful
science.
He also advocated the idea that sociology
was the science of institutions.
3. A.R. Radcliff-Brown- his study on
the functions of social institutions was
his contribution to structural-
functionalism.
His study on descent theory was probably
his great contribution to functionalism
but he wrote little about it.
 Rational Choice Theory
Is one of the many positivist
theories that try to explain human
behavior in terms of utility
maximization, or the idea that when
a person is confronted with set of
choices, that person will choose the
option that will best serve his/her
objectives.
Rational- means people
act based on or in
accordance with reason or
logic.
Choice- refers to an act
of selecting or making a
decision when faced with
two or more possibilities.
When applied to economics, this
means that people estimate the
probable costs and benefits of any
action before deciding what to
do.
They tend to choose the course
of action that is likely to give
them the greatest satisfaction at
the lowest costs possible.
Rational Choice Theory
 it is individual choices
and how they affect society
which is considered more
important.
Rational choice theory, also known as choice
theory or rational action theory, is a framework for
understanding and often formally modeling social and
economic behavior.Rational choice theory is
an economic principle that states that
individuals always make prudent and logical
decisions. These decisions provide people
with the greatest benefit or satisfaction
given the choices available and are also in
their highest self-interest.
In general, rational
choices are used to predict
social consequences of
decision-making.
According to Ian Shapiro
and Donald Green, there are
basic assumptions of
rational choice theory.
Utility maximization
Structure of preferences
Decision-making under conditions of
uncertainty
The centrality of individuals in the
explanation of collective outcomes
Utility maximization
Refers to patterns of behavior in
societies wherein the choices made by
individuals are governed by the
maximization of benefits and
minimization of costs.
In short, people will choose
the object that provides the
greatest reward at the lowest
cost.
 Structure of preferences
Refers to the idea that people are
motivated by their personal desires
and aspirations but since it is not
possible for them to attain all of the
things they want, they must make
choices related to their goals and the
means for attaining those goals.
The determining factor in
human behavior is reinforcing
through rewards and
punishments, also known as
conditioning.
Ex. A person who wishes to
have a car may choose
between two options: buy the
car by spending most of
his/her savings, or steal the
car.
Decision-making under conditions of
uncertainty
Means that each individual takes full
advantage of the likely worth of his
own payoff.
Individuals act on the basis of the
information that they have about the
conditions under which they were
acting.
Centrality of individuals in the
explanation of collective
outcomes
Means that rational choice theorist
believe that it is by reference to the
maximizing actions of individuals
that group outcomes must be
explained.
 Thinkers and their contributions

1. Gary Becker- His major contribution was

perhaps the ability for having extended the
realm of microeconomic investigation to a
broad extent of human behavior and
interaction such as discrimination, crime
and punishment, human capital, families,
and organ market.
2. George Homans- He was considered
as the pioneer of rational choice. In his
book Social Behavior: Its Elementary
Form (1961/1974), he explained the
principles of behavioral psychology and
the elementary forms of social behavior
in small groups.
 Institutionalism
Views society as made up of
individuals who are influenced by
institutions, which are also humanly
created constraints that shape
political, economic, and social
interactions.
Humanly devised constraints that
affect human behavior.
 Types of Institutions

1. Formal institutions- refer to

those officially established, often by
governments.
2. Informal institutions- refer to
rules governing behavior outside
official channels, which may have
constitutive and regulative effects on
human behavior.
 Thinkers and their
contributions
1. Johan Olsen- He became professor of
emeritus and is one of the developers of the
systematic-anarchic perspective of
organizational decision-making known as
Garbage Can Model.
2. Max Weber- Some of his important
works are: The Protestant Ethic and the
Spirit of Capitalism, 1904; The City, 1912;
The Sociology of Religion, 1922; General
Economic History, 1923; and The Theory
of Social and Economic Organization,
1925.
3. James March- He is best
known for his research on
organizations and
organizational decision-
making.
PREPARED BY:
LOVELY B. CARBONEL
MAY V. SOBREVIGA
MARIA TERESA G. OLEGARIO
ANGELO LUIGI C. DINOS
LAWRENZ AXL D.V LIQUIRAN