Social Science as a Guide to Social Metaphysics?

If we are sympathetic to the project of naturalising metaphysics, how should we approach the metaphysics of the social world? What role can the social sciences play in metaphysical investigation? In the light of these questions, this paper examines three possible approaches to social metaphysics: inference to the best explanation from current social science, conceptual analysis, and Haslanger-inspired ameliorative projects.     

An Adaptation for Altruism? The Social Causes, Social Effects, and Social Evolution of Gratitude

ABSTRACT— People feel grateful when they have benefited from someone's costly, intentional, voluntary effort on their behalf. Experiencing gratitude motivates beneficiaries to repay their benefactors and to extend generosity to third parties. Expressions of gratitude also reinforce benefactors for their generosity. These social features distinguish gratitude from related emotions such as happiness and feelings of indebtedness. Evolutionary theories propose that gratitude is an adaptation for reciprocal altruism (the sequential exchange of costly benefits between nonrelatives) and, perhaps, upstream reciprocity (a pay-it-forward style distribution of an unearned benefit to a third party after one has received a benefit from another benefactor). Gratitude therefore may have played a unique role in human social evolution.     

All Justice is Social but it’s not all Social Justice

I take social injustice to be injustice perpetrated on members of society by laws and public social practices. I take social justice to be the struggle to right social injustice. After explaining these ideas, I then address the question: why are so many people opposed to the very idea of social justice? I offer a number of explanations, among them, that to acknowledge that there is social injustice in one’s society often requires considerable change on one’s part.     

The Social Language of Time: The Time Perspective–Social Network Connection

Time perspective (TP) is a pivotal cognitive process through which people perceive, interpret, and negotiate their physical and social worlds. This study identifies unique patterns in the quality of social relationships that were associated with different TP dimensions. Low support and high conflict with family characterized past-negative TP. Large networks and high support from family distinguished past positive TP. Large networks with more support and companionship from friends/acquaintances typified present hedonistic TP. Having highly supportive significant others was associated with high future TP. Multidimensional time perspective is an essential cognitive process influencing human social behavior.     

What Is Social Construction?

In this paper I discuss the question of what it means to say that a property is socially constructed. I focus on an influential project that many social constructivists are engaged in, namely, arguing against the inevitability of a trait, and I examine several recent characterizations of social construction, with the aim of assessing which one is more suited to the task.     

Do Engineers have Social Responsibilities?

ABSTRACT Most American engineers believe that they have a responsibility for the safety and well-being of society, but whence does this responsibility arise? What does it entail? After describing engineering practice in America as compared with the practice of other professions, this paper examines two standard types of accounts of the social responsibilities of professionals. While neither provides a satisfactory account of the social responsibilities of American engineers, several lessons are learned by uncovering their weaknesses. Identifying the framework in which professional rights and responsibilities are justified, I argue that an end or primary good is the starting place for conceptualizing a profession, and justifying its existence and shape. Too little attention has been paid to the end(s) of engineering. The social responsibilities of American engineers as defined in the present system of engineering are ambiguous and weak. I indicate how the case for assigning American engineers stronger social responsibilities must be made by starting with the end(s) of engineering. I argue that, at present, American engineers do not have social responsibilities as engineers, though they do have social responsibilities as persons.     

Social referencing in dog-owner dyads?

Social referencing is the seeking of information from another individual to form one’s own understanding and guide action. In this study, adult dogs were tested in a social referencing paradigm involving their owner and a potentially scary object. Dogs received either a positive or negative message from the owner. The aim was to evaluate the presence of referential looking to the owner, behavioural regulation based on the owner’s (vocal and facial) emotional message and observational conditioning following the owner’s actions towards the object. Most dogs (83%) looked referentially to the owner after looking at the strange object, thus they appear to seek information about the environment from the human, but little differences were found between dogs in the positive and negative groups as regards behavioural regulation: possible explanations for this are discussed. Finally, a strong effect of observational conditioning was found with dogs in the positive group moving closer to the fan and dogs in the negative group moving away, both mirroring their owner’s behaviour. Results are discussed in relation to studies on human–dog communication, attachment and social learning.     

How Social Are Task Representations?

ABSTRACT— The classical Simon effect shows that actions are carried out faster if they spatially correspond to the stimulus signaling them. Recent studies revealed that this is the case even when the two actions are carried out by different people; this finding has been taken to imply that task representations are socially shared. In work described here, we found that the "interactive" Simon effect occurs only if actor and coactor are involved in a positive relationship (induced by a friendly-acting, cooperative confederate), but not if they are involved in a negative relationship (induced by an intimidating, competitive confederate). This result suggests that agents can represent self-generated and other-generated actions separately, but tend to relate or integrate these representations if the personal relationship between self and other has a positive valence.     

Havighurst’s Social Roles Revisited

The purpose of this exploratory research was to review, update, and revise Havighurst’s classic social role studies for their relevance in contemporary society. Based on the input of expert panels, 13 roles, Association/Club Member, Citizen, Daughter/Son, Friend, Grandparent, Home/Services Manager, Kin/Relative, Learner, Leisure Time Consumer, Parent, Religious Affiliate, Spouse/Partner, and Worker, were incorporated into an instrument to assess social role importance. The instrument was administered to a stratified, quota sample of 300 respondents. Univariate repeated-measures analysis and Dunn’s test for multiple comparisons were conducted. Perceived social role importance ratings were established for age, gender, and socio-economic status (SES) groupings. The Friend role and a cluster of family-associated roles received the highest overall ratings. Many roles appeared to have a distinct age-related factor. SES differences, particularly among the lowest level, were also significant in many roles.     

What Do People Infer from Social Comparisons? Bridges between Social Comparison and Person Perception

Human judgment is basically comparative, with self‐judgments in particular being based on social comparison. Not surprisingly, much research has focused on how self‐comparisons shape comparers’ self‐views on the specific comparison dimension. We argue that both comparers and observers may, and do, draw various other inferences and that they do so from both self‐comparisons and other‐comparisons. In both cases they may draw inferences from (a) the fact that social comparison has taken place, (b) the allocation of the target and referent roles, and (c) the stated relationship between the target and the referent. In order to show how exploring these inferences may lead social comparison research into new and exciting directions, we point out some unanswered questions about them.     

How Do Social Structures Become Taken for Granted? Social Reproduction in Calm and Crisis

Human Studies - This paper identifies experiential processes through which social structures become taken for granted, termed processes of “structure marginalization”. Passive processes...     

Typification in Society and Social Science: The Continuing Relevance of Schutz’s Social Phenomenology

This paper examines Alfred Schutz’s insights on types and typification. Beginning with a brief overview of the history and meaning of typification in interpretive sociology, the paper further addresses both the ubiquity and the necessity of typification in social life and scientific method. Schutz’s contribution itself is lacking in empirical application and grounding, but examples are provided of ongoing empirical research which advances the understanding of types and typification. As is suggested by illustrations from scholarship in the social studies of social science, studies of social identity associated with membership categorization analysis, and constructionist social problems theory, typification can be found to be central to social research whether it is taken up as a largely unacknowledged resource or whether it is addressed by different names. The overview and illustrations suggest the continuing, widespread, and indeed foundational relevance of Schutz’s insights into types and typification.     

Confucian Social Media: An Oxymoron?

International observers and critics often attack China's Internet policy on the basis of liberal values. If China's Internet is designed and built on Confucian values that are distinct from, and sometimes incompatible to, liberal values, then the liberalist critique ought to be reconsidered. In this respect, Mary Bockover's “Confucian Values and the Internet: A Potential Conflict” appears to be the most direct attempt to address this issue. Yet, in light of developments since its publication in 2003, it is time to re-examine this issue. In this paper, I revisit Bockover’s argument and show why it fails. Using social media as an example, I offer an alternative argument to show why the Internet remains largely incompatible with Confucian values. I end this paper by suggesting how to recontextualise the Confucian way of life and to redesign social media in accordance to Confucian values in the information society.     

Dewey’s Social Ontology: A Pragmatist Alternative to Searle’s Approach to Social Reality

Dewey’s social ontology could be characterized as a habit ontology, an ontology of habit qua second nature that offers us an account of intentionality, social statuses, institutions and norms in terms of habituations. Such an account offers us a promising alternative to contemporary intentionalist and deontic approaches to social ontology such as Searle’s. Furthermore, it could be the basis of a social ontology better suited to explain both the maintenance and the transformation of social reality.