General Politics

Discourse theory is a branch of postmodernism. It generally holds that each society has an underlying "discourse," or set of assumptions and ideological axioms that inform all behavior. What that...

Conflict theory posits that social groups or classes compete with each other in order to obtain resources that the society deems important.

The conflict perspective on deviance assumes that deviance, that is, behavior that departs from the social norm, is a social creation. It assumes that there is no "human nature" that sets a...

B.F. Skinner is one of the most famed psychologists associated with behaviorism. In general, behaviorism is the idea that human beings respond predictably to stimuli, and hence, those who control...

Functionalism is the oldest of the major sociological theories and is the first to treat it as a pure science. Functionalists believe social structures can be studied rationally through surveys...

The basic theory of deviance in social conflict centers around class warfare, in which the lower classes rebel against the upper classes who set the rules upon which society operates; laws are...

Prosocial behaviors are normally defined as those external actions or internal motivations that promote or maintain solidarity within a specific group. As a result, sociologists and psychologists...

The seeds for social-conflict theory were planted in the 19th century but did not take root until the 1960s. The underlying tenet of social conflict is that the lower class is competing for...

Anyone who uses the Internet is aware of the growing threat of identity fraud. Millions of people each year fall for phishing scams where con artists send out phony emails in the hopes of...

The social compact, sometimes called the social contract, is what 17th and 18th century philosophers believed people made when they left the state of nature and entered into civilized society....

Social judgment theory, or SJT, posits that information and opinions people encounter are immediately categorized before being rejected, accepted or considered, based on one's own preconceived...

Social learning theory concerning gender involves how both males and females learn behavior and inherent cultural roles regarding their gender. Although not a complete list, essential components...

Psychologists and sociologists use social context to study social changes over time. Social context theory is based on the interplay between social forces that affect individual behavior and...

The "Magic Bullet Theory" (or "Hypodermic Needle Theory") holds that media broadcasts directly shape the opinions and actions of viewers. According to this theory, information is "fired" or...

Social learning theory approaches can be applied to any environment where any social phenomenon occurs. Social learning theory includes distinct factors facilitating social learning: labeling...

Social learning theory pertaining to television is concerned with how a viewing audience learns through observing the events presented via television. Although not a complete list, themes...

Social influence theory states that individuals have surprising amounts of influence over each other. Social impact theory states that this social influence is stronger under the right circumstances.

While Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection is not as controversial as it was when it first came out, Herbert Spencer's Theory of Social Darwinism is sometimes seen as a...

Capitalism has been the dominant economic system in the West for 300 years. Those who follow socialism believe that socialism theory can provide a better economic system that will better take care...

The Magic Bullet Theory is the concept that a single bullet shot by Lee Harvey Oswald from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository on November 22, 1963, was responsible for all the...

Conspiracy theorists seem to live in their own little world, believing that every major event in history was actually some secret, evil plot. They shout these ideas so much that they can become...