From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Social
Social
The term social refers to a characteristic of living organ-
isms (humans in particular, though biologists also ap-
Modern uses
ply the term to populations of other animals). It always In contemporary society, "social" often refers to the re-
refers to the interaction of organisms with other organ- distributive policies of the government which aim to ap-
isms and to their collective co-existence, irrespective of ply resources in the public interest, for example, social
whether they are aware of it or not, and irrespective of security. Policy concerns then include the problems of
whether the interaction is voluntary or involuntary. social exclusion and social cohesion. Here, "social" con-
trasts with "private" and to the distinction between the
public and the private (or privatised) spheres, where
Definition ownership relations define access to resources and atten-
In the absence of agreement about its meaning, the term tion.
"social" is used in many different senses and regarded as The social domain is often also contrasted with that
a fuzzy concept, referring among other things to: of physical nature, but in sociobiology analogies are
Attitudes, orientations, or behaviors which take the drawn between humans and other living species in order
interests, intentions, or needs of other people into ac- to explain social behavior in terms of biological factors.
count (in contrast to anti-social behaviour) has played The term "social" is also added in various other academic
some role in defining the idea or the principle. For in- sub-disciplines such as social geography, social psychol-
stance terms like social realism, social justice, social con- ogy, social anthropology, social philosophy, social ontol-
structivism, social psychology and social capital imply ogy, social statistics and social choice theory in mathe-
that there is some social process involved or considered, matics.
a process that is not there in regular, "non-social" real-
ism, justice, constructivism, psychology, or capital.
The adjective "social" is also used often in political
See also
discourse, although its meaning in a context depends • Phronetic social science
heavily on who is using it. In left-wing circles it is often • Sociology
used to imply a positive characteristic, while in right- • Social neuroscience
wing circles it is generally used to imply a negative char- • Social psychology
acteristic. It should also be noted that, overall, this adjec- • Social support
tive is used much more often by those on the political left • Social undermining
than by those on the political right. For these reasons,
those seeking to avoid association with the left-right po-
litical debates often seek to label their work with phras-
References
es that do not include the word "social". An example is
quasi-empiricism in mathematics which is sometimes la- External links
belled social constructivism by those who see it as an un-
• Dolwick, JS. 2009. The ’Social’ and Beyond:
warranted intrusion of social considerations in mathe-
Introducing Actor Network Theory, article
matical practice,
examining different meanings of the concept ’social’
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Social&oldid=463455451"
Categories:
• Sociology
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