People often make claims about "human nature." For example -- "It is a part of human nature to be egoistic." "Human beings are naturally acquisitive." "Cooperation is a natural human instinct." "Human nature defines the way we learn language." "Violence is natural." What would human nature look like? To start with a preliminary definition, we …
Polling and social knowledge
Here's a pretty interesting graphic from Pollster.com: As you can see, the graph summarizes a large number of individual polls measuring support for the two major party candidates from January 1 to October 26. The site indicates that it includes all publicly available polls during the time period. Each poll result is represented with two …
Causal mechanisms
The central tenet of causal realism is a thesis about causal mechanisms or causal powers. We can only assert that there is a causal relationship between X and Y if we can offer a credible hypothesis of the sort of underlying mechanism that might connect X to the occurrence of Y. The sociologist Mats Ekström …
"Influence" concepts
Power is an elusive social concept, because it is fundamentally relational and composite. The power that a person or group possesses can only be defined in relation to the domain of persons over whom this power can be wielded and the set of social resources that constitute the levers of this power. Power must be …
Labor mobilization
Workers are a group who ought to be readily prone to mobilization. They are brought together into proximity with each other in large numbers in factories, rail stations, ports, and other workplaces. The circumstances of production usually give them causes around which to gather -- health and safety issues in the workplace, bullying or disrespectful …
What do polls tell us?
We're all interested in the opinions of vast numbers of strangers -- potential voters, investors, consumers, college students, or home owners. Our interest is often a practical one -- we would like to know how the election is likely to go, whether the stock market will rebound, whether an influenza season will develop into a …
Mapping social data
Fig. 1. Household income inequality (US Census 2000 link) Fig. 2. Poverty rates (US Census Data 2000 link) Fig. 4. 90 day mortgage delinquency -- Q1 2008 (Federal Reserve Bank link) It's interesting to look at each of these data maps in detail. The comparisons of patterns are very revealing. Figure 4 is the most …
Mental life
We are all persons with thoughts, desires, emotions, memories, and awareness. In some sense we have first-hand knowledge of all this -- we are the ones who experience the situation of going through a difficult job interview, of feeling angry at an aggressive driver, of trying to decide what to do in a moment of …
Greenblatt in the world
I recently read Stephen Greenblatt's brilliant biographical book on Shakespeare, Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, and I was once again struck by what a large contribution Greenblatt might make to the social sciences. His innovations in literary theory are well known, particularly in his pioneering work on forging "the new historicism" (for …
Marx’s historical thinking
Marx's theories are deeply historical, in that he wants to explain the dynamics of change of large historical formations such as capitalism or feudalism, and he insists on putting social events into historical context. And, of course, Marx is most celebrated for developing a general approach to historical explanation, the theory of historical materialism. But …
Understanding Society 