Meaning of Sociology - Essay Example

At micro level, sociology discusses the individual agency while at macro level it deals with the social structure in its entirety (Giddens, Anthony, Duneier, 2007). Like other branches of knowledge sociology has evolved throughout its history and it is continuously progressing. Traditionally it focused on social stratification, culture religion, social mobility, law, deviance and social class. It is obvious that there are two kinds of worlds that every human interacts with. One is an inwardly universe called the individual agency and the other is the social structure (outwardly) where the individual interacts with his environment and surroundings.

And through this interaction, sociology has evolved into much more broad and comprehensive body of knowledge. It now includes; military, health, penal institutions, medical, Internet and last but not the least how social factors contribute towards developing scientific knowledge. This aspect of sociology has developed into an elaborate form that also incorporates the psychological factors that interplay in individuals that defines and controls their behaviors. Social scientific method is ever expanding and is usually an umbrella term that incorporates social researches.

 These researches are carried out through qualitative and quantitative research techniques. This form of social scientific method is very popular in researches conducted by students in their universities for their PhD papers and theses. 2) Define what is meant by demographic, psychological, sociological, and behavioral viewpoints.  Demographic Viewpoints Demographic viewpoints revolve around ‘human geography’, how the placement of humans on the world has contributed towards their societal norms and their social behaviors.

It also incorporates population arithmetic. In short it is the study of human population dynamics. This can be a powerful tool in understating the sociology of a particular region or country. Psychological Viewpoints Social psychology is the aspect of sociology that studies social actions and how they interrelate with human mind (cognition), personality, values, culture and social structure. Major subjects under this heading are social inequity, sociocultural change, intra-group behavior prejudice; group conflict etc.

Psychological viewpoint in sociology is all about understanding the drivers of human behavior. How people act and why they act the way they act. How does psychology play its role in developing or shaping such behavior and what influences these drivers. Sociological Viewpoints European sociologists are the pioneers of defining and refining sociological viewpoints, but at the same time they also offer a broad understanding of the social fundamentals and how they work. Sociological viewpoints usually revolve around a philosophical position where experts ask asking certain kinds of questions about society and its people, and how sociological viewpoints can be used to view aspects of human lives.

Behavioral Viewpoints Social behavior is directed towards the society or that takes place between the members of the same classes. This can stretched to animals too where such behavior is studied amongst animals. However behavior such as predation that studies the interaction of two species (a lion chasing a zebra on NatGeo) is not considered a social behavior. The umbrella term ‘behavioral sciences’ is used here to refer to sciences that study disturbance-behavior in general. 3) Identify an important demographic