Disciplines and Ideas in

the Social Sciences

 What is Social Science?
• The study of society and the manner in which people behave and influence the
world around us.
• It tells us about the world beyond our immediate experience. It can help also explain
how our own society works from the causes of unemployment or what help
economic growth, to how and why people vote, or what makes people happy. It
provides vital information for government and policy makers, local authorities, non-
governmental organizations and others.
• The social sciences researchers influence policy and practice in areas of family
planning, gender equality, children’s rights, and indigenous people’s rights, tax
policies to business innovation, health and environmental protection.
 Fields of Human Knowledge
• Social Science is the field of human knowledge that deals with all aspects of the
group life
• Natural Science is concerned with the natural environment where human beings
exist. It includes science, physics and chemistry that deals with the laws of matter,
motion, space, mass and energy. It also includes the biological science, the study of
living things.
• Humanities deals with humans and their culture and related to social science. It
deals with the special aspects of human culture and are primarily concerned with
our attempts to express spiritual and aesthetics values of mankind. It also discovers
the meaning of life.
 What are the disciplines of social science?

• Anthropology
• Economics
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Sociology
• Demography
 Anthropology
• Derived from the Greek word Anthropos which means man or mankind or humanity and logia
which means study.
• Anthropology is a science that deals with the origins, physical and cultural development,
social characteristics, social customs and beliefs of mankind.
• Anthropology traces its roots to ancient Greek. Anthropologist regard Herodotus as one of
the first thinkers to write widely the concepts that would later become central to
Anthropology.
• In the books History, Herodotus described the cultures of various peoples of the Persian
Empire in which the Greek conquered during the first half of the 400 B.C.. He referred the
Greece as the dominant culture of the West and Persia as the dominant culture of the East.
 Anthropology
• Anthropology is a discipline of infinite curiosity about human beings. It is
simply the study of mankind.
• It covers the physical anthropology, archaeology, culture, history, social
linguistics, social and cultural anthropology
• Anthropologist concentrate on different fields of anthropology: Biological
Anthropology and Cultural Anthropology
• Three subfields of Cultural Anthropology: Archaeology, Ethnology and
Linguistics.
 Economics
• Economics can be traced back from the Greek work oikonomos which means who manages a household. Oikos-
house and nemein- to manage.
• Economics is the study of how people choose to use resources. Resources include the time and talent people
have available, the land, buildings, equipment, and the other tools on hand, and knowledge of how to
combine them to create useful products and services. Important choices involve how much time to devote to
work, to school, and to leisure, how many dollars to spend land and how many to save, how to combine
resources to produce goods and services, and how to vote and shape the level of taxes and the role of
government.
• It is a social science because is concerned with human beings and the social system by which they organize
their activities to satisfy basic material need(food, shelter, clothing) and non-material wants (education,
knowledge, spiritual fulfillment). Economics looks at human activities relationship to production,
consumption and distribution of goods, services and wealth within societies.
 Economics
• It uses mathematical methods to predict changes in economic indicators such as statistics on
GNP, per capita income, savings and credit, investments, trade, balance or imbalance.
• Some of the topics included in economics are:
-Supply and Demand.
-Monetary and Fiscal Policy
-Costs
-Inflation
-Unemployment
 Political science
• Derived from the Polis which means “City-state” , the only form of government
known to the ancient Greeks. The word ciencia means knowledge or study.
• Political science began as early as the 14th century B.C. when Aristotle wrote the
Politics, the first systematic work on political affairs.
• Political Science defined as the study of the state and government. It is concerned
with the history and theory of government. It examines the political processes and
power struggle.
• It deals with government, and its interest are: Politics, laws, administration,
theory of the nature and functions of the state, and international relations.
 Political Science
• It Examines the theory of systems of government, but it also studies actual
practices by which government:
• Taxes
• Prohibits
• Regulates
• Protects
• Provides Services
 Political science

• There are three stages of development in the political science:

1. Religious stage- The government, with its leaders and laws, was considered as divine or divinely-
inspired. This stage began during the prehistoric era and continued as long as the Divine Right
of Kings was supported. It was difficult to remove a bad ruler because he claimed that his
authority came from the gods and only the gods could dismiss a ruler, usually by natural death.
2. Metaphysical Stage- considered as a human institution but it was worshipped as a perfect
institution. This stage began with the ancient Greeks Aristotle and Plato who thought that the
state was the means to develop the highest potential of the individual.
3. Modern Stage- the state was still considered as a human institutions but it was deemed capable
of being improved by rulers and subjects according to certain principles and laws.
 Psychology
• Psychology derived from the latin words psyche which means mind and ology which means
study and soul. From the etymology of this word, it can basically defined as study of the
soul or mind.
• Psychology is the scientific study of human behaviors and mental processes. Behaviors are
those actions and movements that can be directly observed; while mental processes are
those private experiences that cannot be directly observed such as thoughts, feelings and
motivations. However, both behaviors and mental processes can be measured. As a science,
psychology follows systematic methods of observing, describing, predicting and explaining
its subject matter.
• As a science, Psychology follows systematic methods of observing, describing, predicting
and explaining its subject matter.
 Psychology
• Psychology is mainly interested in a wide range of mental, psychological, and
behavioral processes such as learning, human and personality development,
perception, emotion, cognition, motivation, creativity, personality disorders, and
mental illnesses. It focuses on the individual and physical processes, such as
biological structure; development; and maturation.
• The most relevant branch of psychology is the social psychology. Social Psychology
is the study of the individual’s behavior as it influences and is influenced by the
behavior of others. Some specific topics that interest psychologists and social
psychologists are: socialization, environment and heredity, and adjustment and
maladjustment.
 Sociology
• Sociology was taken from the words: Socius, a Latin term which means
companion or associate, and logos, ang Greek term for Study.
• Sociology is the scientific study of society that primarily focuses on what,
how and why human beings are connected to each other. It emphasizes on
the social behavior of the individual within the context of his or her social
group society.
• Sociology is the scientific study of society that primarily focuses on what,
how and why human beings are connected to each other.
 Demography
• Derived from the Greek word demos which means the people and French word,
Graphie which means “to write.”
• It is the study of the size, composition, growth and distribution of human
populations.
• The study of population is a concern of social scientists. Demographers study, birth
death, and immigration data and how these affect the composition, size, and
distribution of the population. Thy analyze the factors which causes the increase or
decrease in population. The characteristics of the population, like the occupational
groupings, marital, religious, educational, and ethnic status are also gathered. They
use statistical methods.
 Demography

• Main sources of demographic date are: population

census, vital registration statistics, sample or special
surveys, data gathered and processed by government
agencies. The data obtained is important for formulation,
implementation, and evaluation of plans, policies, and
programs.
Social Sciences and Its
Methods
 Methods of Social Sciences
• Observing • Choosing a research design
• Defining the problem • Collecting the necessary data
• Reviewing the literature • Analyzing the results
• Observing some more • Drawing conclusions
• Developing a theoretical
framework and formulating a
hypothesis
 Methods of Social Sciences

• Observing. Notice the social science begins with observation. Social science is
about the real world, and the best way to know about the real world is to observe it.
• Defining the problem. Of the various research steps listed, this one is probably
the most important. If you have carefully defined your terms, you can save an
enormous amount of energy. Put simply, if you do not know what you are doing,
no matter how well you do it, you are not going to end up with much. The topic
might be chosen for variety of reasons, perhaps because it raises issues of
fundamental social science importance, perhaps because it has suddenly become a
focus of controversy, or perhaps because research funds have become available to
investigate it.
 Methods of Social Sciences
• Reviewing the literature. Knowledge of the relevant literature is essential
because it provides background, suggests approaches, indicates what has
already been covered and what has not, and saves you from redoing what has
already been done. It is a way of using other people’s observations.
• Observing some more. After you have defined your problem and reviewed
literature, your observation will be sharper. You will know more precisely
what you are looking for and how to look for it.
 Methods of Social Sciences
• Developing a theoretical framework and formulating a hypothesis. Make a
statement predicting your results and then clarify what each of the terms in the
statement means within the framework of your research. Suppose your hypothesis
is: High price increases sales of fashionable magazines. You should specify how
high is high, and compared to what specific price is the price stated to be ig; how
much of an increase is significant over the circulation the magazine enjoyed at the
lower price?, what sales are included (newsstand, subscription, or both)? And what
is “fashionable” Different researchers may define the same term differently, which is
one of the reasons why the same research subject can produce different results.
 Methods of Social Sciences
• Choosing a research design. Pick a means of gathering data survey, an
experiment, an observational study, use of existing sources, or a
combination. Weigh this choice carefully because your plan is the crux of the
research process.
• Collecting the necessary data. Data are what one collects from careful
observation. Your conclusions will only be good as your data, so take care in
collecting and, especially, in recording your data. If you cannot document
what you have done, you might as well not have done it.
 Methods of Social Sciences
• Analyzing the results. When all the data are in, classify facts, identify trends,
recognize relationships, and tabulate the information so that it can be accurately
analyzed and interpreted. As given set of facts may be interpreted in two different
ways by two different analysts, so give your analysis carefully, objective attention.
After this step has been taken, your hypothesis can then be confirmed, rejected, or
modified.
• Drawing conclusions. Now you can prepare a report, summarizing the steps you
have followed and discussing what you have found. A good report will relate your
conclusions to the existing body of research, suggest where current assumptions
may be modified because of new evidence, and possibly identify unanswered
questions for further study.
Social Sciences in the
Philippines
 Social Sciences in the Philippines
• The Philippine social sciences emerged as specialized disciplines with
the establishment of academic departments in the early American
colonial period. Patterned after American universities, the social
science departments in the country were established in different years.
Anthropology was the first discipline to be instituted at the University
of the Philippines by the second decade of the 1900s. The
Department of Sociology and Economics and of the Political Science
were established a year after the Department of Anthropology in 1915.
The Department of Psychology was instituted after eleven years.
 Major National Associations of Social
Scientists and Professional Journals
Name of Association Date of Founding Journal Date of First Issue

Philippine Political 1962 Philippine Political 1974

Science Association Science Journal
Philippine Sociological 1952 Philippine Sociological 1953
Association Review
Philippine Association 1962 Philippine Journal of 1968
of Psychologists Psychology
Philippine Economic 1962 Philippine Economic 1962
Society Journal
Ugnayan Pang-agham 1977 Agham-Tao 1978
Tao (UGAT)