Download or read book Social Dynamics Models and Methods written by Nancy Brandon Tuma and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 1984-08-28 with total page 602 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social Dynamics: Models and Methods focuses on sociological methodology and on the practice of sociological research. This book is organized into three parts encompassing 16 chapters that deal with the basic principles of social dynamics. The first part of this book considers the development of models and methods for causal analysis of the actual time paths of change in attributes of individual and social systems. This part also discusses the applications in which the use of dynamic models and methods seems to have enhanced the capacity to formulate and test sociological arguments. These models and methods are useful for answering questions about the detailed structure of social change processes. The second part explores the formulation of the continuous-time models of change in both quantitative and qualitative outcomes and the development of suitable methods for estimating these models from the kinds of data commonly available to sociologists. The third part describes a stochastic framework for analyzing both qualitative and quantitative outcome of social changes. This part also discusses the sociologists' perspective on the empirical study of social change processes. This text will be of great value to sociologists and sociological researchers.
Download or read book The Dynamics of Social Practice written by Elizabeth Shove and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2012-05-17 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everyday life is defined and characterised by the rise, transformation and fall of social practices. Using terminology that is both accessible and sophisticated, this essential book guides the reader through a multi-level analysis of this dynamic. In working through core propositions about social practices and how they change the book is clear and accessible; real world examples, including the history of car driving, the emergence of frozen food, and the fate of hula hooping, bring abstract concepts to life and firmly ground them in empirical case-studies and new research. Demonstrating the relevance of social theory for public policy problems, the authors show that the everyday is the basis of social transformation addressing questions such as: how do practices emerge, exist and die? what are the elements from which practices are made? how do practices recruit practitioners? how are elements, practices and the links between them generated, renewed and reproduced? Precise, relevant and persuasive this book will inspire students and researchers from across the social sciences. Elizabeth Shove is Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University. Mika Pantzar is Research Professor at the National Consumer Research Centre, Helsinki. Matt Watson is Lecturer in Social and Cultural Geography at University of Sheffield.
Download or read book Quirk written by Hannah Holmes and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-02-22 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who are you? It’s the most fundamental of human questions. Are you the type of person who tilts at windmills, or the one who prefers to view them from the comfort of an air-conditioned motorcoach? Our personalities are endlessly fascinating—not just to ourselves but also to our spouses, our parents, our children, our co-workers, our neighbors. As a highly social species, humans have to navigate among an astonishing variety of personalities. But how did all these different permutations come about? And what purpose do they serve? With her trademark wit and sly humor, Hannah Holmes takes readers into the amazing world of personality and modern brain science. Using the Five Factor Model, which slices temperaments into the major factors (Extraversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness) and minor facets (such as impulsive, artistic, or cautious), Holmes demonstrates how our genes and brains dictate which factors and facets each of us displays. Are you a Nervous Nelly? Your amygdala is probably calling the shots. Hyperactive Hal? It’s all about the dopamine. Each facet took root deep in the evolution of life on Earth, with Nature allowing enough personal variation to see a species through good times and bad. Just as there are introverted and extroverted people, there are introverted and extroverted mice, and even starfish. In fact, the personality genes we share with mice make them invaluable models for the study of disorders like depression, schizophrenia, and anxiety. Thus it is deep and ancient biases that guide your dealings with a very modern world. Your personality helps to determine the political party you support, the car you drive, the way you eat M&Ms, and the likelihood that you’ll cheat on your spouse. Drawing on data from top research laboratories, the lives of her eccentric friends, the conflicts that plague her own household, and even the habits of her two pet mice, Hannah Holmes summarizes the factors that shape you. And what she proves is that it does take all kinds. Even the most irksome and trying personality you’ve ever encountered contributes to the diversity of our species. And diversity is the key to our survival.
Download or read book The Social Dynamics of Information and Communication Technology written by Dr Leslie Haddon and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2012-12-28 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What shapes the role of Information and Communication Technologies in our everyday life? Despite the speed with which information and communication technologies such as the PC, mobile telephone and internet have found their way into society, there remains a good deal of debate surrounding their adoption and use. Through empirical studies covering a broad range of everyday life and work settings, this volume provides grounded insights into the social dynamics influencing how ICTs are both shaped and experienced. Specifically, the book examines the contributions of diverse disciplines to our understanding of these processes, the symbolic nature of technologies, the influence of design on the experience of ICTs, the role of users in influencing that design, the social constraints affecting the use of those technologies, and strategies for evaluating the social consequences of ICT innovations.
Download or read book Constructal Theory of Social Dynamics written by Adrian Bejan and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-10-26 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Constructal Theory of Social Dynamics brings together for the first time social scientists and engineers who present predictive theory of social organization, as a conglomerate of mating flows that morph in time to flow more easily. The book offers a new way to look at social phenomena as part of natural phenomena, and examines a new domain of application of engineering such as thermodynamic optimization, thermoeconomics and "design as science".
Download or read book Social Dynamics written by Brian Skyrms and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-04 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brian Skyrms applies adaptive dynamics (of cultural evolution and individual learning) to social theory, investigating altruism, spite, fairness, trust, division of labor, and signaling. Correlation is seen to be fundamental. Spontaneous emergence of social structure and of signaling systems are examined in the context of learning dynamics.
Download or read book The Social Dynamics of Roman Imperial Imagery written by Amy Russell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-12 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores how artists and patrons at all social levels helped form and evolve the visual language of the Roman Empire.
Download or read book Network Power written by David Singh Grewal and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For all the attention globalization has received in recent years, little consensus has emerged concerning how best to understand it. For some, it is the happy product of free and rational choices; for others, it is the unfortunate outcome of impersonal forces beyond our control. It is in turn celebrated for the opportunities it affords and criticized for the inequalities in wealth and power it generates. David Singh Grewal’s remarkable and ambitious book draws on several centuries of political and social thought to show how globalization is best understood in terms of a power inherent in social relations, which he calls network power. Using this framework, he demonstrates how our standards of social coordination both gain in value the more they are used and undermine the viability of alternative forms of cooperation. A wide range of examples are discussed, from the spread of English and the gold standard to the success of Microsoft and the operation of the World Trade Organization, to illustrate how global standards arise and falter. The idea of network power supplies a coherent set of terms and concepts—applicable to individuals, businesses, and countries alike—through which we can describe the processes of globalization as both free and forced. The result is a sophisticated and novel account of how globalization, and politics, work.
Download or read book The Dynamics and Evolution of Social Systems written by Jürgen Klüver and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2000-07-31 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The central topic of this book is the mathematical analysis of social systems, understood in the following rather classical way: social systems consist of social actors who interact according to specific rules of interactions; the dynamics of social systems is then the consequences of these interactions, viz., the self-organization of social systems. According to particular demands of their environment, social systems are able to behave in an adaptive manner, that is they can change their rules of interaction by certain meta rules and thus generate a meta dynamics. It is possible to model and analyse mathematically both dynamics and meta dynamics, using cellular automata and genetic algorithms. These tools allow social systems theory to be carried through as precisely as the theories of natural systems, a feat that has not previously been possible. Readership: Researchers and graduate students in the fields of theoretical sociology and social and general systems theory and other interested scientists. No specialised knowledge of mathematics and/or computer science is required.
Download or read book Textual Politics Discourse And Social Dynamics written by Jay L. Lemke and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2005-10-18 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Texts record the meanings we make: in words, pictures and deeds, and politics chronicles our uses of power in shaping social relationships large and small. Textual politics is about meaning - the meaning we make with words and with the symbolic values of every object and action.; The book begins with an introduction which discusses the relationship between Discourse And The Notions Of Power And Ideology. These Concepts Are Then applied to major issues: the social construction of class, gender and individuality; the rhetoric of polarizing social controversies religious fundamentalism vs. gay rights; and the abuse of technical language in policy arguments educational research vs. conservative politics. The book ends with chapters which extend the theory to processes of large- scale social change and apply it to the challenges facing education and political action in the new global information century.
Download or read book Comparative Social Dynamics written by Erik Cohen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-02-22 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These original articles relate to major themes in the comparative study of the dynamics of cultures, modernization, and social and political change. The authors, ranking scholars in their fields, provide fresh and important insights to the study of topics such as the interface of anthropological and sociological theory, the dynamics of Latin Americ
Download or read book The Social Dynamics of Family Violence written by Angela Hattery and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2016-07-12 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This compelling text explores family violence throughout the life course, from child abuse and neglect to intimate partner violence and elder abuse. Paying special attention to the social character and institutional causes of family violence, Hattery and Smith ask students to consider how social inequality, especially gender inequality, contributes to tensions and explosive tendencies in family settings. Students learn about individual preventative measures and are also invited to question the justice of our current social structure, with implications for social policy and reorganization. The second edition features a new chapter focusing on institutionalized violence affecting families of the military and police, as well as a discussion on sports and sexual abuse cases occurring on college campuses. Hattery and Smith also examine violence against women globally and relate this to violence in the United States. Unique coverage of same-sex and multicultural couples, as well as of theory and methods, make this text an essential element of any course considering the sociology of family violence.
Download or read book Societal Dynamics written by Frederick Betz and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-11-25 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At both a micro-information level and a macro-societal level, the concepts of “knowledge” and “wisdom” are complementary – in both decisions and in social structures and institutions. At the decision level, knowledge is concerned with how to make a proper choice of means, where “best” is measured as the efficiency toward achieving an end. Wisdom is concerned with how to make a proper choice of ends that attain “best” values. At a societal level, knowledge is managed through science/technology and innovation. And while science/technology is society's way to create new means with high efficiencies, they reveal nothing about values. Technology can be used for good or for evil, to make the world into a garden or to destroy all life. It is societal wisdom which should influence the choice of proper ends -- ends to make the world a garden. How can society make progress in wisdom as well as knowledge? Historically, the disciplines of the physical sciences and biology have provided scientific foundations for societal knowledge But the social science disciplines of sociology, economics, political science have not provided a similar scientific foundation for societal wisdom. To redress this gap, Frederick Betz examines several cases in recent history that display a fundamental paradox between scientific/technological achievement with devastating social effects (i.e., historical events of ideological dictatorships in Russia, Germany, China, and Yugoslavia). He builds a new framework for applying social science perspectives to explain societal histories and social theory. Emerging from this methodological and empirical investigation is a general topological theory of societal dynamics. This theory and methodology can be used to integrate history and social science toward establishing grounded principles of societal wisdom.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Social Psychology and Social Justice written by Phillip L. Hammack and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The twentieth century witnessed not only the devastation of war, conflict, and injustice on a massive scale, but also the emergence of social psychology as a discipline committed to addressing these and other social problems. In the twenty-first century, the promise of social psychology remains incomplete. We witness the reprise of authoritarianism and the endurance of institutionalized forms of oppression such as sexism, racism, and heterosexism across the globe. This volume represents an audacious proposal to reorient social psychology toward the study of social injustice in real-world settings. Contributors cross borders between cultures and disciplines to highlight new and emerging critical paradigms that interrogate the consequences of social injustice. United in their belief in the possibility of liberation from oppression, the authors of this book offer a blueprint for a new kind of social psychology." --
Download or read book Quantitative Sociodynamics written by Dirk Helbing and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-11-15 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When I wrote the book Quantitative Sociodynamics, it was an early attempt to make methods from statistical physics and complex systems theory fruitful for the modeling and understanding of social phenomena. Unfortunately, the ?rst edition appeared at a quite prohibitive price. This was one reason to make these chapters available again by a new edition. The other reason is that, in the meantime, many of the methods discussed in this book are more and more used in a variety of different ?elds. Among the ideas worked out in this book are: 1 • a statistical theory of binary social interactions, • a mathematical formulation of social ?eld theory, which is the basis of social 2 force models, • a microscopic foundation of evolutionary game theory, based on what is known today as ‘proportional imitation rule’, a stochastic treatment of interactions in evolutionary game theory, and a model for the self-organization of behavioral 3 conventions in a coordination game. It, therefore, appeared reasonable to make this book available again, but at a more affordable price. To keep its original character, the translation of this book, which 1 D. Helbing, Interrelations between stochastic equations for systems with pair interactions. Ph- icaA 181, 29–52 (1992); D. Helbing, Boltzmann-like and Boltzmann-Fokker-Planck equations as a foundation of behavioral models. PhysicaA 196, 546–573 (1993). 2 D. Helbing, Boltzmann-like and Boltzmann-Fokker-Planck equations as a foundation of beh- ioral models. PhysicaA 196, 546–573 (1993); D.
Download or read book The Psychodynamics of Social Networking written by Dr. Aaron Balick and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-24 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past decade, the very nature of the way we relate to each other has been utterly transformed by online social networking and the mobile technologies that enable unfettered access to it. Our very selves have been extended into the digital world in ways previously unimagined, offering us instantaneous relating to others over a variety of platforms like Facebook and Twitter. In The Psychodynamics of Social Networking, the author draws on his experience as a psychotherapist and cultural theorist to interrogate the unconscious motivations behind our online social networking use, powerfully arguing that social media is not just a technology but is essentially human and deeply meaningful.
Download or read book The Social Dynamics of Pronominal Systems written by Paul Bouissac and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2019-07-15 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Personal pronouns have a special status in languages. As indexical tools they are the means by which languages and persons intimately interface with each other within a particular social structure. Pronouns involve more than mere grammatical functions in live communication acts. They variously signal the gender of speakers as parts of utterances or in their anaphoric roles. They also prominently indicate with a range of degrees the kind of social relationships that hold between speakers from intimacy to indifference, from dominance to submission, and from solidarity to hostility. Languages greatly vary in the number of pronouns and other address terms they offer to their users with a distinct range of social values. Children learn their relative position in their family and in their society through the “correct” use of pronouns. When languages come into contact because of population migrations or through the process of translation, pronouns are the most sensitive zone of tension both psychologically and politically. This volume endeavours to probe the comparative pragmatics of pronominal systems as social processes in a representative set from different language families and cultural areas.
