Sociology is a social science that strives to understand human behavior.
What is peculiar about sociology's way of understanding human behavior? How can we distinguish it from history, psychology and the other social sciences that also attempt to understand human behavior?
ANSWER: Sociology's subject matter is patterns of behavior, not individual acts.
For example, if someone, say Frank, pulls out a gun in class, puts it to his own head and pulls the trigger, would I as a sociologist be interested in understanding this behavior?
ANSWER: Yes.
Would I attempt to understand this behavior by interviewing everyone who had contact with Frank in the last several days -- girlfriends, roommates, parents, sibs? Would I try to discover what was going on inside Frank's head that motivated him to take his own life?
ANSWER: No.
This would be the approach of psychology: attempting
to understand a particular individual act.
How would a sociologist attempt to understand Frank's behavior?
ANSWER: By making it part of a pattern of
behavior. Frank's taking his own life is one more instance
of a general pattern -- say of youth suicide. Frank's
act is added to the statistics on suicide at Fairfield University, and
youth suicide nationwide. I as a sociologist am very curious as to
why young people take their own lives at the rate that they do. I
want to understand that pattern of behavior.
I want to understand what causes that rate to increase and decrease.
I want to know which young people are more or less likely to commit suicide:
girls or boys, white/blacks/hispanics, freshmen or seniors? And I
want to know what social facts are behind youth suicide rates
being what they are.