theories & reasoning midterm
Examples of paradigms and how they work
-Macrotheory/Microtheory : theories on macro/micro scale -Positivism : approach to study of society that relies on empirical evidence (there are real things our there that we can # and order and that doesn't need social aspects to categorize) - gender and race made this approach not always correct) -Conflict theory : individuals and groups compete over resources rather than work cooperatively. conflicts over inequitably distributed resources often become the engine for social change. -Symbolic Interactionism : humans interact by assigning meaning to things. the meaning of specific things can change according to culture, location, and time. -Ethnomethodology : people use social interactions in order to gain an understanding of reality. what kind of reasoning do people use to get through their life (ex. prisoners in prison vs when they're out) -Feminist Paradigm : looking at the roles women have in society and the ongoing issues they face. -Critical Race Theory : how society is shaped by social conceptions of race and ethnicity
What is a constructivist paradigm?
A constructivist paradigm is a theory of knowledge that argues that humans generate knowledge and meaning from an interaction between their experiences and their ideas. People construct what society and everything in it means based off of their experiences and belief systems. (everything is a social construct- but then people started saying climate change was a social construct too) -emphasizing the significance of concepts, ideologies, and social practices to our understanding making of the world
What is a discursive paradigm?
A discursive paradigm is understanding how written, vocal, or sign language. Studying the behaviors of individuals in society and their interactions in order to understand their social systems and practices. -investigating members explanations of behavior to achieve insights to interpretive systems and practices
What is a paradigm?
A framework for observation and understanding. -A model or framework for observation and understanding, which shapes both what we see and how we understand it
What is theory?
A statement about the possible nature of an object or phenomena. -A proposition about the possible nature of an object or phenomena -A series of plausible conjectures that appear to accurately describe a phenomena
What is a natural law?
A statement that predicts the result of initial conditions. They explain what will happen under a certain set of conditions. -Scientific law predicts the results of initial conditions, theory tries to provide the most logical explanation -a law predicts what happens while a theory proposes why -A theory will never grow into law, though the development of one often triggers the other
What is a descriptive theory?
A theory that aims to describe a social phenomena. These theories describe what people do. -theories that are concerned with describing what people do. -Descriptive social theories make statements about how society works and devise models that can be used to explain and predict social phenomena
What is an explanatory theory?
A theory that explains how a phenomena happens or occurs. -theories that explain how a phenomenon happens or occurs. -Usually provides a casual mechanism for an observed relationship between variables.
What is a predictive theory?
A theory that predicts what will happen/when something will happen. -theories that tell us what will happen and when
Describe the four ways (paradigms) Freudenburg and Frickel (F &F) identify for studying human-environment relations.
Analytical Separation - separating the biophysical from the social into separate systems; and then maybe joining them up (environment is one world and humans are another world and we can see how they interact, but they're separate from each other) Analytical primacy - emphasizing the social over the biophysical or vice versa (ex. environmental determinism - people display a certain attitude/personality because of where they are from. Jamaicans are relaxed and laid back because of their tropical climate vs Dutch tough and hard workers because of climate variability) Dualistic Balance - seeks to balance the social and biophysical and provide equal weight - still has a separation factor Conjoint constitution - how natural resources are defined in politics/government through guidelines and policies that dictate how they should be used. (these things come together to make this)
What are some of the ways animals are identified as part of nature?
Animals are separate from humans (part of nature/the natural world). We try to dominate/conquer animals (ex. hunting, taxidermy, domestication) in order to show we are separate/above them. -Sociology: social science tends to present themselves preeminently as the science of discontinuity between humans and animals -Animals are nature/natural, human are society/social -Violence against animals has been found to be correlated with violence against humans
When reading theories - what are some of the things you can ask to help understand perspective of the author/theory?
Ask yourself what their nationality is, what caste/econmic class are they from, what gender are they, what kind of environment did they grow up in, were/are they religious, what is their educational background, do they have any political persuasion, do they hold influence/power in some way? -Background research of creators, origin, social statues, political persuasion, culture, religion, education -The phenomenon the author trying to explain, predict or understand. -Evidence and observation
What is the modern conservative perspective?
Believes in: authority, small government, decentralized government, low taxes, tradition values (nuclear family, religion, gender roles), privatization, criminalization/punishment, anti-regulation/deregulation. The modern conservative perspective is that the government should be as hands-off as possible, personal freedom, and maintaining traditional values (ex. in family structures, gender, religiosity, etc.). -Modern conservative perspective often advocates for a strong national defense, gun rights, capital punishment, and a defense of Western culture from perceived threats posed by communism and moral relativism
What is a modern liberal perspective is?
Believes in: social safety net, civil rights, meritocracy, collective/community values, and environmental values. A modern liberal perspective favors government intervention in order to maintain economic prosperity, equality, and equity. -Modern liberals generally believe that national prosperity requires government management of the macro-economy in order to keep unemployment low, inflation in check, and growth high. They also value institutions that defend against economic inequality.
What is bias?
Bias is an extreme point of view. -Bias is when the creators perspective is so strong for or against something that the information in the source has become unbalanced or prejudiced.
What is Chomsky's theory about the political economy of the media?
Chomsky's theory about the political economy of the media is that the media is manufacturing consent. His theory is that the media (which is owned by a concentrated network of corporations) is filtered to show a narrative that interests the powerful and elite (those who own said corporations). -The media's content is shaped by a set of filters that serve the interests of powerful elite groups. -Through these filters, the media's ability to challenge established power structures and present alternative viewpoints is greatly restricted. media content will predominantly serve the interests of the political and economic elites, promoting their agendas and maintaining the existing power structures.
What is deductive reasoning?
Deductive reasoning is the traditional 'scientific method' way of studying a phenomena. goes: vague questions -> hypothesis -> testing -> conclusion. -traditional scientific method, begin with sometimes vague or general question, which is subjected to a process of specification resulting in hypotheses that can be tested through empirical observations.
What are the different kinds of theories by function?
Descriptive, explanatory, and predictive
Kuznet Curve
Development radically lowers human impact, at a far greater rate than the growth of population. Environmental degradation will increase as the economy develops initially, but eventually you reach a threshold (once you reach a 'mature' economy) at which the environmental degradation falls off. -income inequality will increase during economic development and decrease after reaching a state of overall affluence -predicts that environmental impacts rise during development, only to fall after an economy matures
What is York and Rosa's critique ecological modernization?
EMT 4 mains issues: 1) failed to make a clear connection between economic modernization and environmental reform 2) limitations of case studies 3) they focus on individual organizations but that does not explain how/why economy-wide processes are environmentally reformed, 4) there needs to be more distinguishing between efficiency (impact per unit of production) vs total resource consumption and waste production. -It points out the complexity of modernization, rejecting an overly simplistic one-dimensional view, however, it fails to convince that late modernization is essential to the development of ecological sustainability -It fails to explicit the theoretical expectation connecting emergent institutions of modernity with genuine environmental reform; only knows how the institution change in response to environmental problems, little to say about factor driving environmental degradation -Limitation of case studies for establishing the general effects of modernization on the environment - Address the economy-wide process rather than the process specific to any single sector or actor within an economy; ecological improvements in one sector may come at the expense of increased ecological impacts in another - The importance of distinguishing between trends in efficiency and total resource consumption and waste production; economic modernization leads to increase in total environmental impacts
What drives environmental degradation?
Environmental degradation is driven by consumer behavior and economics. Consumer behavior is altered by trying to convince the consumer that they solely hold the power to solve the environmental crisis (consumer sovereignty argument). Economics play a key role because as the market does well environmental degradation tends to get worse. How well the economy does is largely based off of how well corporations do. Corporations improve their economics through advertising (oftentimes using vague and misleading claims like green-washing). These markets do not benefit the world environmentally because corporations do not take into account the environmental and social costs of their dealings. -Consumer sovereignty assuming individual are able to shape business behavior ignoring corporation being vastly powerful due to their financial and political resources, combining with consumers' lack of time, limited information to gather resources, and cognitive weakness, allows corporations to shape consumer desires and control the level of transparency -Environmental economic does not address the fundamental causes of the world's major social and environmental crises because Inequality, power and corporate interest play important roles in shaping economic and political outcomes -Macro structural environmental sociology approach to address the inattention to inequality and power and address limitation above
What is Hardin's bias?
Hardin's bias was that he was a white, American nationalist. - Hardin was a white nationalist -inspired by the anti-immigrant hatred in America -He believes since global resources are finite, so it is necessary to self preserve
What is Hardin's perspective?
Hardin's perspective was as an economist and someone who studied the natural sciences.
How does Hardin's perspective and bias come up in the Tragedy of the Commons?
Hardin's perspective: As an economist, he believes that one way to preserve resources is by pricing. As a natural scientist he believes that the resources are finite and that there is no way to solve for this issue. Hardin's bias: because resources are limited, the 'lower' classes deserve to have less resources and need to control their breeding so 'better' humans populate the Earth 1) unsupported taken-for-granted assumptions - bias ~population causes scarcity, class structure is inevitable, and class structure is desirable 2) extreme language - bias ~ "Freedom to breed is intolerable" 3) the disciplinary approaches and knowledge he brings to the problem - perspective. The population problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality, 4) the conclusions he draws from his understanding of the problem - bias/perspective ~that's a tough one?: individuals act independently in their own self-interest regardless of the consequences to others. As the hypothesis goes, left unchecked, individuals consume what they desire with no regard for neighbors or future generations.
What are the critiques of tragedy of commons?
Humans aren't all just self-interested all the time, distinguishing what is common property vs what is private property, and the failure to think about the influences of community. -The model tends to naturalize certain institutional and human conditions and demonize common property and the commoners - Requires exploring how property rights are understood by various parties and how those are translated into behavior, custom, and law; understanding the nature of conflicts over rights and responsibilities, the role of science and other forms of expertise and of larger global processes affecting land and natural resource management throughout the worlds; and understanding, respecting, and building upon the social and political capacities of local community -Re-embedding of management systems through devolution of regulator functions to local communities can help to restore these qualities crucial to collective action is an important issue from communities, governments, and other organizations
Do you think that researchers can overcome their bias to produce good research?
I think if researchers are aware of the fact that even though they're highly educated individuals, they can also have bias (even if it isn't in an overtly-negative way). If they are aware of their bias, they can work to keep it from getting good research done, although having more diversity would help reduce the risk for bias more. -Depending on the field of research, overcoming bias is important in the field of social science
IPAT model
Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology Impact = environmental impact (Deterioration of the resource, decline of ecosystem, production of waste) population = number of people (The number of people in a specific group) affluence = average consumption per individual (level of consumption of population, per capita gross domestic product- how many goods per capita (per person) are consumed in that country or area or the total production in the country divided by the population) technology = methods available to produce as many goods as possible (set of methods available to that population to produce the goods that are needed and consumed)
How are inductive and deductive reasoning related to each other?
Inductive and deductive reasoning are sort of opposities. Inductive reasoning starts with a specific question and tries to develop a theory based off of observations and already available data/knowledge. Deductive reasoning on the other hand starts off with a more general question and uses testing in order to obtain data to draw a conclusion from. Inductive reasoning can lead to the sort of 'experiments' we see in deductive reasoning. -Inductive is specific observations (specific to general) while deductive is specific results predicted from general (general to specific)Deductive method is used when the researcher has a theory or hypothesis and wants to test is using data. The inductive method is used when the researcher wants to develop theories and generalizations from observations and data.
What is inductive reasoning?
Inductive reasoning is how most reseach is done in the social sciences. it begins with a research question -> gather all information available on concept -> collect data on all that is known -> construct theory/conclusion based off of information -Constructing theory by specifying the topic and range of phenomena, identifying and specifying major concepts and variables, finding out known propositions about the relationships among those variables, and reasoning logically from those proportions to a specific topic.
What are the specific ways that academia having a liberal perspective may negatively impact social science research?
It negatively impacts its credibility. Having too much of a liberal perspective keeps relevant questions from being asked, increases the chances of unconscious bias. -Potential discrimination on the part of educational institutions including unconscious devaluation -Students are less likely to get a good education and faculties are less likely to learn from each other
Provide a critique of the population theories of environmental destruction
It's not population or resources that is the main problem, it is lifestyle. There are enough resources on Earth for everyone on it (currently), but if everyone lives like an American then of course resources will run out. Also, in the face of a resource crisis (ex. running out of wood to heat homes) humans tend to innovate (ex. using coal instead). -Malthusian thinking has severe limitations for predicting and understanding the human-environment relationship since the population can be affected by other processes -The niche environment can also be an acting factor
What is positivism?
It's real, it's out there, we can study it, it's empirical, testing theories -approach to study of society that relies on empirical evidence -there are real things our there that we can # and order and that doesn't need social aspects to categorize
What is the late work policy?
Late work will lose half a grade for each calendar day received late.
What has been the evolution of theorizing population as a driver of environmental degradation?
Malthus (exponential growth) -> IPAT -> carrying capacity -> ecological footprint
What is Malthus' theory?
Malthus' theory is that the capacity of population to grow is greater than the power of the Earth to provide resources. Population > Resources on Earth. He believed war, famine, destitution, and disease were natural limits to population growth, that welfare policies were counterproductive because they only encouraged resource waste, and that in order to prevent a resource crisis we must engage in a moral code of self-restraint. -wars, famine, destitution and diseases are natural limits to population growth -welfare policy for the poor are counterproductive because they only encourage unnecessary reproduction and resource waste -to avert the periodic and inevitable resource crisis is a moral code of self-restraint
What has been the evolution of theorizing population as a driver of environmental degradation?
Malthus, carrying capacity, Kuznet's curve, forest transition theory, carrying capacity, ecological footprint, induced intensification, green revolution, and demographic transition model.
What does Chomsky's idea about the media say about what media content will do?
Media content will serve as a propaganda system for those in power to manipulate the general public into accepting and supporting the policies and ideologies the elites want them to have in order to further promote their agendas. -The media acts as a propaganda system that molds public opinion and influences the masses to accept and support the policies and ideologies of the elites.
Demographic Transition Model
Model of population change that predicts a decline in death rates as modernization happens. This is followed by a decline of birth rates from industrialization and urbanization. -model of population change that predicts a decline in population death rates associated with modernization, followed by a decline in birth rates resulting from industrialization and urbanization
How do paradigms shape our perspectives?
Paradigms help shape how we look at how the world works.
What is perspective?
Perspective is the author's point of view. -Point of view from which the creators of the source derive their historical events
Neo-Malthusians
Population growth is the key issue in environmental degradation. Too many people compared to the number of resources. -population growth outstrips limited natural resources and presents the single greatest driver of the environmental degradation
Forest transition theory
Populations deforest an area during economic development, but once the economy changes (once the economy matures) the land that was originally deforested is left to return back into a forest. People either out-migrate or become conservation-oriented in order to accommodate the changes. -a model that predicts a period of deforestation in a region during development, when the forest is a resource or land is cleared for agriculture, followed by a return of forest when the economy changes and population out-migrates and/or becomes conservation-oriented
What empirical evidence is there that academia has a liberal perspective or bias?
Professors are overwhelmingly democrats, especially in the social sciences and in smaller liberal arts schools. -Mitch Langbert, associate profess of Brooklyn college, publish a study of political affiliation of faculty member at 51 to the 66 liberal-art college -Democrats dominate most fields, religion is 70 to 1, music is 33 to 1, biology is 21 to 1, philosophy, history and psychology is 17 to1, political science is 8 to 1, physic, economics and mathematics is 6 to 1 chemistry is 5 to1 engineering is 1.6 to 1
What are the pros and cons to your education from having lots of liberal professors?
Pros: more open-mindedness, more modern perspectives Cons: only exposed to one sort of perspective (liberal), never get to interact/be taught by people of different perspectives -Lack ideological diversity have an obligation to offer competing views and to present them fairly and with respect and to find people who will represent competing views
What do they say research on environmental resources should focus on?
Should economic behaviors be so closely tied to our social behaviors and recognize that different cultures have different levels of embeddness in their society. -The embeddedness of resource extraction practices, institutional arrangements such as property rights, and other common dilemmas - The importance of specifying property rights, common dilemmas, and related matters within discrete and changing social, economic, political, and historical contexts -Co-management institutions and the inclusion of user knowledge in resource management
What is the paradigm of social construction?
Social construction is the understanding that most (if not all) aspects of the social world around us only exist in the way they exist because we give them reality through social agreement. (everything is social construct that we all agree to follow) -Any category, condition, or thing that exists or is understood to have certain characteristics because people socially agree that it does -Knowledge and many aspects of the world around us are not real in and of themselves, they only exist because we give them reality through social agreement
How do social constructionist and discursive paradigms relate to understanding "mutually constituted" phenomenon identified by Freudenburg and Fricke
Social constructionist = things are a social construct discursive = how language shapes our reality mutually constituted = how the biophysical world is shaped by our discourse and social phenomenons and vice versa. -physical facts are shaped by social construction processes and where those things that are social phenomenon are shaped by the biophysical world
What are spurious correlations? Why do we worry about them and what is their relevance to theory?
Spurious correlations are arbitrary correlations that occur due to the size of available date, not because the data sets are connected. We worry about them in theory because you can make a random correlation and try to manipulate people into thinking they are connected. -Very large databases contain arbitrary correlations, and only appear due to size, not the nature of the data. -They can be found in randomly generated, too much information and too litter generate spurious correlation
'Slaughterhouses and Increased Crime Rates' : identify theory tested, and what data was used to test it
The hypothesis tested was the Sinclair Hypothesis. The Sinclair hypothesis is that the propensity for violent crime is increased by work that involved the routine slaughter of other animals. The data used to test this theory were U.S. counties not adjacent to metropolitan areas and that had right-to-work laws. The independent variables were the number of employees in slaughtering industries (excluding poultry) compared to the number of employees in comparable industries (ex. iron, steel, trucking). The dependent variable were the amount of crimes happening and whether they were violent crimes. -Sinclair hypothesis: the propensity for violent crime is increased by work that involves the routine slaughter of other animals -crimes in result of demographic characteristics, population booms and social disorganization, and unemployment - independent variable: the number of animal slaughtering employee in each counties and the number of employee in five comparison industries, all industries are characterized by high immigrant worker concentrations, low pay, routinized labor, and dangerous conditions - Dependent variable: 14 arrest variables, and 8 crime report variables drawn from uniform crime report
What is their new method for studying bias in media content and why do they think its an improvement?
The new method for studying bias in media is by using a Media Bias Monitor. This is a system that uses the advertiser interfaces of social media in order to reveal insights into the demographics of a news source's audience online. -propose using large-scale data analysis and machine learning techniques to quantitatively measure biases in social media news outlets to provide a more systematic and objective approach, allows them to analyze the audience demographics of news sources, along the lines of race, gender, age, national identity, and more
'Reading the trophy: exploring the display of dead animals in hunting magazines' : identify what phenomenon was being explored and what data was used to explore it.
The phenomena being observed is how we portray hunting and animals. The research is done through a social constructionist approach (through its focus on images and discourse). The data included almost 800 images of dead animals or animal body parts (not including fish or paintings of dead animals). When looking at the data the researches noted when the animal was in its natural environment, the race, age, and gender of the human(s) in the photograph, and how they are positioned. -Most animals bodies were displayed in their natural environment, apparently just after kill, sometimes made to look alive, sometimes without hunter just the weapons -Mostly white men, minorities never hold a weapon, 5% are women -Hunting remains a white male narrative, in spite of the rhetoric of increased family participation that permeates contemporary hunting discourse; hunting and the exhibition of trophy animals are driven by ideologies of domination, colonialism and patriarchy
What is the theory of ecological modernization?
The theory of ecological modernization is that as capitalism progresses it helps drive environmental reform. So, once capitalism reaches a certain threshold/peak, the market will signal a need for environmental reforms (ex. USA 70s). - Theorize that continued industrial development, rather than inevitably continuing to degrade the environment, offers the best option for escaping from the global ecological challenge - "The only possible way out of the ecological crisis is by going further into the process of modernization"
What are some of the differences with theorizing and conducting research about society/humans and conducting other kinds of bio/geo/physical sciences?
Theorizing and conducting research on society/humans is limited because of the nature of society/humans. Social patterns constantly change, so social theories only hold true under a limited range of settings. Along with that, because social theorists are studying the social world, they cannot ethically manipulate many variables in their studies (such as belief systems, how someone is raised). Biogeophysical sciences are able to conduct studies in which many variables are controllable (within a lab) and create theories that apply universally under the parameters they were studied under. - Social patterns change constantly; what is true in one time or places may not hold in another; social science theories may be better understood as models that work in a limited range of settings, rather than laws of science that hold and apply universally - Because social scientists are part of the social world they study, objectivity in social research is especially challenging, controlling and recognizing the values, worldviews, and prior experience may affect the research, interacting with their subjects, or analyzing data.
Why is theory useful?
Theory is useful because it helps us understand patterns we observe and helps us make sense of what possible variables are affecting the patterns. -Theories make sense of observed patterns in a way that can suggest what other variables might be addressed or changed. Theories direct research so they are more affected
Induced Intensification
Theory that predicts that as population grows, demands for food lead to innovations in food production on the same amount of available land. -thesis predicting that where agricultural population grow, demands for food lead to technological innovations resulting in increased food production on the same amount of available land
What are the techniques or methods they use to critique tragedy of the commons?
They 1) identify problematic assumptions, 2)question definition of terms and what terms are/are not included, 3) and what information/ideas are missing from the theory. Specifically for McCay and Jentoft- critique of tragedy of the commons, they point out assumptions about how people behave and a need for a deeper (thick v thin qualitative) understanding of the issue.
How do theories become established or discredited?
Through testing -Law tend to resist change since they wouldn't have been adopted if they didn't fit the data, only occasionally revised laws in the face of new unexpecting information -Scientists tend to favor theories that can explain most data though there may still be gaps in our understanding. They also like it when new theories successfully predict previously unobserved phenomena. -Some theories are new ideas with little experimental evidence that are often suspicious and ridiculed, theories endured years of experimental confirmation before earning acceptance by the majority of the scientific community
How do we empirically study bias in media content traditionally?
Traditionally, we empirically study bias in media by content analysis (manually analyzing each individual article for bias) and readership analysis (analyzing bias by reviewing what biases the audience of a news outlet has, usually get this data through surveys/questionnaires) -Content analysis: this method involves manually analyzing media content to identify any biases in the representation of information or the framing of issues. Researchers examine the language, tone, and selection of topics to determine if there is any favoritism or unfair reporting. -Survey and questionnaires: This method involved collecting data through surveys and questionnaires to understand people's perceptions of media bias. Participants are asked about their views and opinions on media content, allowing researchers to gain insights into how biases are perceived by the audience.
How are animals socially constructed ?
We believe animals are separate from humans/are a part of nature. They are wild and we are not (we are civilized).
How does F&F's mutual constitution relate to thinking about animals and society?
We've drawn lines between humans and animals that are (for the most part) mutually constructed. For example, we make hierarchies out of animals. We eat chickens, but have dogs as pets.
What questions should you ask to detect if a "natural" phenomenon is socially constructed?
What does 'natural' even really mean? Most people consider things 'natural' if they are not touched by human activity, but almost every corner of the Earth is affected by human activity, so is there anything 'natural' at all? -The natural world, everything that exists that is not a product of human activity; often put in quotes to designate that it is difficult if not impossible to divvy up the entire world into discrete natural and human components.
How do you identify bias?
You identify bias by looking for word choice that is extreme in their description (either extremely positive or negative) and whether it includes incorrect information about things other than the key issue was as well (ex. what the weather is like). -Bias in a source is usually categorized into two kinds either extremely positive or extremely negative, word choice that are extreme in their description, depictions that are clearly exaggerated for the purpose
How do you identify perspective?
You identify perspective by differences in word choice due to their nationality, caste, gender, or the environment they grew up in.
Green Revolution
happened between the 50s-80s. technological innovations in agriculture increase agricultural yields dramatically, but with a related rise in chemical inputs. -technological innovations developed in universities and international research centers, applied to agriculture between the 50s and 80s, increased agricultural dramatically, but concomitant rise of chemical inputs and demands for water and machinery
ecological footprint
the impact each individual has on the environment. A way to measure a person's environmental impact. -theoretical spatial extent of the earth's surface required to sustain an individual, group, system, organization; an index of environmental impact
carrying capacity
the number of people who theoretically can be supported by the environment they live in -theoretical limit of population that a system can sustain
Questions to ask to be able to critique a theory
what are the definitions? Are they appropriate? Too broad? Too narrow? Inaccurate?
Know what questions to ask to understand a theory?
what kind of theory is it? what are they explaining? What are the important factors in the theory?
