Sociology
Encyclopedia article; The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, 2009
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SOCIOLOGY scientific study of human social behavior. As the study of humans in their collective aspect, sociology is concerned with all group activities economic, social, political, and religious. Sociologists...different states as a consequence of the working of deep underlying climatic, geographic, economic, and psychological factors. In the 18th cent., Scottish thinkers made inquiries into the nature of society; scholars like...an independent study. The term sociology was coined (1838) by Auguste Comte . He attempted to analyze all aspects of cultural, political, and economic life and to identify the unifying principles of society at each stage...further developed by Herbert Blumer and others, focuses on subjective perceptions or other symbolic processes of communication. Bibliography See P. Sorokin, Contemporary Sociological Theories (1928, repr. 1964); R. Nisbet, The...