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 …
Policy, treatment, and mechanism
Policies are selected in order to bring about some desired social outcome or to prevent an undesired one. Medical treatments are applied in order to cure a disease or to ameliorate its effects. In each case an intervention is performed in the belief that this intervention will causally interact with a larger system in such …
System tendencies?
A central theme of many of the posts here is the contingency, heterogeneity, and path dependency of social processes. I used the metaphor of a "constrained random walk" in an earlier posting to characterize many social processes. This figure is intended to stand in contrast to the idea of an inevitable development towards an optimum …
Continuity
Throughout much of our social experience we expect continuity: tomorrow will be pretty similar to today, and when changes occur they will be small and gradual. We expect our basic institutions -- economic, social, and political -- to maintain their core characteristics over long periods of time. We expect social attitudes and values to change …
Equilibrium reasoning
A system is in equilibrium with respect to a given characteristic when there is a system of forces in play that push the system back to the equilibrium state when it is subjected to small disturbances or changes. This is referred to as a homeostatic system. The temperature in a goldfish bowl is in equilibrium …
Turning points
Are there turning points in history? How would we know if we're in the midst of one? Does the current financial crisis represent a turning point in the development of the US economy? Did the election of Ronald Reagan represent a turning point in American politics and government? Often what is announced as a turning …
What social science can do
Quite a few postings here emphasize the limits of social science knowledge. Prediction of the behavior of large social wholes is difficult to impossible. There are few strong regularities among social phenomena. Social entities and processes are heterogeneous, plastic, and path-dependent. So the question arises: what can the social sciences do that takes them beyond …
Social surprises
The near meltdown of the US financial system this week came as a surprise to most of us -- experts, legislators, and citizens alike. That isn't to say that the components of the disaster were unknown -- the subprime crisis, the earlier financial undoings of Fannie Mae and Bear Stearns this summer, and the sudden …
Innovation in social research
The social sciences are charged to arrive at a good empirical understanding of the social world around us. They are charged to provide hypotheses and theories on the basis of which to explain the outcomes and patterns they discover. And they are charged to help design policies and interventions that will contribute to durable solutions …
Understanding Society 