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Social Network

Social network

A social network is a social structure between actors, mostly individuals or organizations. It indicates the ways in which they are connected through various social familiarities ranging from casual acquaintance to close familial bonds. The term was first coined in 1954 by J. A. Barnes (in: Class and Committees in a Norwegian Island Parish, "Human Relations"). Social network analysis (also sometimes called network theory) has emerged as a key technique in modern sociology, anthropology, Social Psychology and organizational studies, as well as a popular topic of speculation and study. Research in a number of academic fields have demonstrated that social networks operate on many levels, from families up to the level of nations, and play a critical role in determining the way problems are solved, organizations are run, and the degree to which individuals succeed in achieving their goals. Social networking also refers to a category of Internet applications to help connect friends, business partners, or other individuals together using a variety of tools. These applications are covered under Internet social networks below, and in the external links at the end of the article.

Introduction to social networks

organizational studies Social network theory views social relationships in terms of nodes and ties. Nodes are the individual actors within the networks, and ties are the relationships between the actors. There can be many kinds of ties between the nodes. In its most simple form, a social network is a map of all of the relevant ties between the nodes being studied. The network can also be used to determine the social capital of individual actors. These concepts are often displayed in a social network diagram, where nodes are the points and ties are the lines. The shape of the social network helps determine a network's usefulness to its individuals. Smaller, tighter networks can be less useful to their members than networks with lots of loose connections (weak ties) to individuals outside the main network. More "open" networks, with many weak ties and social connections, are more likely to introduce new ideas and opportunities to their members than closed networks with many redundant ties. In other words, a group of friends who only do things with each other already share the same knowledge and opportunities. A group of individuals with connections to other social worlds is likely to have access to a wider range of information. It is better for individual success to have connections to a variety of networks rather than many connections within a single network. Similarly, individuals can exercise influence or act as brokers within their social networks by bridging two networks that are not directly linked (called filling social holes). The power of social network theory stems from its difference from traditional sociological studies, which assume that it is the attributes of individual actors -- whether they are friendly or unfriendly, smart or dumb, etc. -- that matter. Social network theory produces an alternate view, where the attributes of individuals are less important than their relationships and ties with other actors within the network. This approach has turned out to be useful for explaining many real-world phenomena, but leaves less room for individual agency, the ability for individuals to influence their success, so much of it rests within the structure of their network. Social networks have also been used to examine how companies interact with each other, characterizing the many informal connections that link executives together, as well as associations and connections between individual employees at different companies. These networks provide ways for companies to gather information, deter competition, and even collude in setting prices or policies.

Applications of social network theory

Applications in social science

Social network theory in the social sciences began with the urbanization studies of the "Manchester School" (centered around Max Gluckman), done mainly in Zambia during the 1960s. It was followed up with the field of sociometry, an attempt to quantify social relationships. Scholars such as Mark Granovetter expanded the use of social networks, and they are now used to help explain many different real-life phenomena in the social sciences. Power within organizations, for example, has been found to come more from the degree to which an individual within a network is at the center of many relationships than actual job title. Social networks also play a key role in hiring, in business success for firms, and in job performance. Social network theory is an extremely active field within academia. The [http://www.insna.org/ International Network for Social Network Analysis] is an academic association of social network analysts. Many social network tools for scholarly work are available online (like [http://www.analytictech.com/ucinet.htm "UCINet"]) and are relatively easy to use to present graphical images of networks. Diffusion of innovations theory explores social networks and their role in influencing the spread of new ideas and practices. Change agents and opinion leaders often play major roles in spurring the adoption of innovations, although factors inherent to the innovations also play a role.

Popular applications

The so-called rule of 150 states that the size of a genuine social network is limited to about 150 members (sometimes called the [http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2004/03/the_dunbar_numb.html Dunbar Number]). The rule arises from cross-cultural studies in sociology and especially anthropology of the maximum size of a village (in modern parlance most reasonably understood as an ecovillage). It is theorized in evolutionary psychology that the number may be some kind of limit of average human ability to recognize members and track emotional facts about all members of a group. However, it may be due to economics and the need to track "free riders", as larger groups tend to be easier for cheats and liars to prosper in.

Degrees of Separation and the Global Social Network

The small world phenomenon is the hypothesis that the chain of social acquaintances required to connect one arbitrary person to another arbitrary person anywhere in the world is generally short. The concept gave rise to the famous phrase six degrees of separation after a 1967 small world experiment by psychologist Stanley Milgram which found that two random US citizens were connected by an average of six acquaintances. Current internet experiments continue to explore this phenomenon, including the Ohio State [http://smallworld.sociology.ohio-state.edu/html/homepage.html Electronic Small World Project] and Columbia's [http://smallworld.columbia.edu/ Small World Project]. As of 2005, these experiments confirm that about five to seven degrees of separation are sufficient for connecting any two people through the internet.

Internet social networks

:See also: List of social networking sites Whilst there was evidence of social networking on the Web in 1997, with websites such as SixDegrees.com, it was not until 2001 that websites using the Circle of Friends online social networks started appearing. This form of social networking, widly used in virtual communities, became particularly popular in 2003 and flourished with the advent of a website called Friendster. There are over 200 social networking sites, though Friendster is one of the most successful at using the Circle of Friends technique. The popularity of these sites rapidly grew, and by 2005 MySpace was getting more page views than Google. [http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2005/tc20050719_5427_tc119.htm] In these communities, an initial set of founders sends out messages inviting members of their own personal networks to join the site. New members repeat the process, growing the total number of members and links in the network. Sites then offer features such as automatic address book updates, viewable profiles, the ability to form new links through "introduction services," and other forms of online social connections. Social networks can also be organized around business connections, as for example in the case of Shortcut or LinkedIn. Blended networking is an approach to social networking that blends offline and online elements together to create a blend. A human social network is blended if it supported by both face-to-face events and an online community. The two elements of the blend support one another. A current trend is social networks that mirror real communities, becoming online extensions of these communities. MySpace builds on independent music and party scenes, and Facebook mirrors a college community. These sites allow stronger ties and freer relationships. See also Social computing.

External links

- [http://tidbit.wildbit.com/2005/07/social_networks.html Online Social Networking Research Report] - A comparative analysis by Wildbit of the most popular online social networks with suggestions on creating and growing web communities.
- [http://www.dau.mil/pubs/dam/03_04_2005/war-ma05.pdf Knock, Knock, Knocking on Newton's Door] - article published in Defense Acquisition University's journal Defense AT&L, based largely on Six Degrees by Duncan Watts. Explores theory and practice of social networking, as related to military technology development.
- [http://www.orgnet.com/sna.html How to Do Social Network Analysis]
- [http://radio.weblogs.com/0107127/stories/2003/01/01/robinDunbarAndTheMagicNumberOf150.html Robin Dunbar and the Magic Number of 150]
- [http://www.jibble.org/piespy/ PieSpy] - Social Network Bot Inferring and Visualizing Social Networks on IRC
- [http://www.druid.dk/wp/pdf_files/02-07.pdf The Academic Robotics Community in the UK: Web based data construction and analysis of a distributed community of practice] The social networks of this community are constructed wholly from web-based resources such as web pages, electronic CVs and bibliographic search engines
- [http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue8_8/jordan/ The Augmented Social Network: Building Identity and Trust into the Next-Generation Internet] by Ken Jordan, Jan Hauser, and Steven Foster
- [http://journal.planetwork.net/article.php?lab=reed0704&page=1 The Social Web: Building an Open Social Network with XDI] by members of the [http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/xdi OASIS XDI Technical Committee]7
- [http://vlado.fmf.uni-lj.si/pub/networks/pajek/ Pajek - Program for Large Network Analyis]
- [http://www.casos.cs.cmu.edu/index.html CASOS] Dynamic Social Network Analysis being conducted at Carnegie Mellon University Category:Virtual communities Category:Networks ja:社会的ネットワーク simple:Social network

Sociology

and their consequences are the subject of sociology studies. Here we see people engaged in various actions on the stairs of the institution of Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois.]] Sociology is a social science on the study of the social lives of people, groups, and societies, sometimes defined as the study of social interactions. It is a relatively new academic discipline that evolved in the early 19th century. It concerns itself with the social rules and processes that bind and separate people not only as individuals, but as members of associations, groups, and institutions. Sociology is interested in our behavior as social beings; thus the sociological field of interest ranges from the analysis of short contacts between anonymous individuals on the street to the study of global social processes. In a broad sense, sociology is the scientific study of social groups, the entities through which humans move throughout their lives. There is a current trend in sociology to make it a more "applied" discipline, applicable in areas such as non-profit organizations and nursing homes. The results of sociological research aid educators, lawmakers, administrators, and others interested in resolving social problems and formulating public policy. Most sociologists work in one or more specialties, such as social organization, social stratification, and social mobility; racial and ethnic relations; education; family; social psychology; urban, rural, political, and comparative sociology; sex roles and relationships; demography; gerontology; criminology; and sociological practice.

History of sociology

Main Article: History of sociology Sociology is a relatively new academic discipline among other social sciences including economics, political science, anthropology, history, and psychology. The ideas behind it, however, have a long history and can trace their origins to a mixture of common human knowledge and philosophy. Sociology as a scientific discipline emerged in the early 19th century as an academic response to the challenge of modernity: as the world was becoming smaller and more integrated, people's experience of the world was increasingly atomized and dispersed. Sociologists hoped not only to understand what held social groups together, but also to develop an antidote to social disintegration. social disintegration The term "sociology" was coined by Auguste Comte in 1838 from Latin socius (companion, associate) and Greek logia (study of, speech). Comte hoped to unify all studies of humankind--including history, psychology and economics. His own sociological scheme was typical of the 19th century; he believed all human life had passed through the same distinct historical stages and that, if one could grasp this progress, one could prescribe the remedies for social ills. Sociology was to be the 'queen of sciences'. The first book with the term 'sociology' in its title was written in the mid-19th century by the English philosopher Herbert Spencer. In the United States, the discipline was taught by its name for the first time at the University of Kansas, Lawrence in 1890 under the course title Elements of Sociology (the oldest continuing sociology course in America and the Department of History and Sociology was established in 1891 [http://www.ku.edu/%7Esocdept/about/],[http://www.news.ku.edu/2005/June/June15/sociology.shtml]) and the first full fledged independent university department of sociology in the United States was established in 1892 at the University of Chicago by Albion W. Small, who in 1895 founded the American Journal of Sociology [http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJS/home.html]. The first European department of sociology was founded in 1895 at the University of Bordeaux by Émile Durkheim, founder of L'Année Sociologique (1896). The first sociology department to be established in the United Kingdom was at the London School of Economics and Political Science (home of the British Journal of Sociology) [http://www.lse.ac.uk/serials/Bjs/] in 1904. In 1919 a sociology department was established in Germany at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich by Max Weber and in 1920 in Poland by Florian Znaniecki. Florian Znaniecki] International cooperation in sociology began in 1893 when René Worms founded the small Institut International de Sociologie that was eclipsed by the much larger International Sociologist Association [http://www.ucm.es/info/isa/] starting in 1949 (ISA). In 1905 the American Sociological Association, the world's largest association of professional sociologists, was founded. Other "classical" theorists of sociology from the late 19th and early 20th centuries include Karl Marx, Ferdinand Toennies, Émile Durkheim, Vilfredo Pareto, and Max Weber. Like Comte, these figures did not consider themselves only "sociologists". Their works addressed religion, education, economics, psychology, ethics, philosophy, and theology, and their theories have been applied in a variety of academic diciplines. Their most enduring influence, however, has been on sociology, (with the exception of Marx, who is a central figure in the field of economics as well) and it is in this field that their theories are still considered most applicable. theology] Early theorists' approach to sociology, led by Comte, was to treat it in the same manner as natural science, applying the same methods and methodology used in the natural sciences to study social phenomena. The emphasis on empiricism and the scientific method sought to provide an incontestable foundation for any sociological claims or findings, and to distinguish sociology from less empirical fields like philosophy. This methodological approach, called positivism, became a source of contention between sociologists and other scientists, and eventually a point of divergence within the field itself. As early as the 19th century positivist and naturalist approaches to studying social life were questioned by scientists like Wilhelm Dilthey and Heinrich Rickert, who argued that the natural world differs from the social world, as human society has unique aspects like meanings, symbols, rules, norms, and values. These elements of society result in human cultures. This view was further developed by Max Weber, who introduced antipositivism (humanistic sociology). According to this view, which is closely related to antinaturalism, sociological research must concentrate on humans and their cultural values. This has led to some controversy on how one can draw the line between subjective and objective research and also influenced hermeneutical studies. Similar disputes, especially in the era of Internet, have also led to the creation of branches of sociology such as public sociology.

The science and mathematics of sociology

Sociologists study society and social behaviour by examining the groups and social institutions people form, as well as various social, religious, political, and business organizations. They also study the behaviour of, and social interaction among, groups, trace their origin and growth, and analyze the influence of group activities on individual members. Sociologists are concerned with the characteristics of social groups, organizations, and institutions; the ways individuals are affected by each other and by the groups to which they belong; and the effect of social traits such as sex, age, or race on a person’s daily life. The results of sociological research aid educators, lawmakers, administrators, and others interested in resolving social problems and formulating public policy. Most sociologists work in one or more specialties, such as social organization, social stratification, and social mobility; racial and ethnic relations; education; family; social psychology; urban, rural, political, and comparative sociology; sex roles and relationships; demography; gerontology; criminology; and sociological practice. Although sociology emerged in large part from Comte's conviction that sociology eventually would subsume all other areas of scientific inquiry, in the end, sociology did not replace the other sciences. Instead, sociology came to be identified with the other social sciences (i.e., psychology, economics, etc.). Today, sociology studies humankind's organizations, social institutions and their social interactions, largely employing a comparative method. The discipline has concentrated particularly on the organization of complex industrial societies. Recent sociologists, taking cues from anthropologists, have noted the "Western emphasis" of the field. In response, many sociology departments around the world are encouraging multi-cultural and multi-national studies. Today, sociologists research micro-structures that organize society, such as race or ethnicity, social class, gender roles, and institutions such as the family; social processes that represent deviation from, or the breakdown of, these structures, including crime and divorce; and micro-processes such as interpersonal interactions and the socialization of individuals. Sociologists often rely on quantitative methods of social research to describe large patterns in social relationships and in order to develop models that can help predict social change. Other branches of sociology believe that qualitative methods - such as focused interviews, group discussions and ethnographic methods - allow for a better understanding of social processes. Some sociologists argue for a middle ground that sees quantitative and qualitative approaches as complementary. Results from one approach can fill gaps in the other approach. For example, quantitative methods could describe large or general patterns while qualitative approaches could help to understand how individuals understand those patterns.

Social theory

Main article: social theory Social theory refers to the use of abstract and often complex theoretical frameworks to explain and analyze social patterns and macro social structures in social life, rather than explaining patterns of social life. Social theory always had an uneasy relationship to the more classic academic disciplines; many of its key thinkers never held a university position. While nowadays social theory is considered a branch of sociology, it is inherently interdisciplinary, as it deals with multiple scientific areas such as anthropology, economics, theology, history, and many others. First social theories developed almost simultaneously with the birth of the sociology science itself. Auguste Comte, known as 'father of sociology', also laid the groundwork for one of the first social theories - social evolutionism. In the 19th century three great, classical theories of social and historical change were created: the social evolutionism theory (of which social darwinism is a part of), the social cycle theory and the Marxist historical materialism theory. Although the majority of 19th century social theories are now considered obsolete they have spawned new, modern social theories. Modern social theories represent some advanced version of the classical theories, like Multilineal theories of evolution (neoevolutionism, sociobiology, theory of modernisation, theory of post-industrial society) or the general historical sociology and the theory of subjectivity and creation of the society. Unlike disciplines within the “objective“ natural sciences -- such as physics or chemistry -- social theorists are less likely to use the scientific method and other fact-based methods to prove a point. Instead, they tackle very large-scale social trends and structures using hypotheses that cannot be easily proved, except by the history and time, which is often the basis of criticism from opponents of social theories. Extremely critical theorists, such as deconstructionists or postmodernists, may argue that any type of research or method is inherently flawed. Many times, however, social theory is defined as such because the social reality it describes is so overarching as to be unprovable. The social theories of modernity or anarchy might be two examples of this. However, social theories are a major part of the science of sociology. Objective science-based research can often provide support for explanations given by social theorists. Statistical research grounded in the scientific method, for instance, that finds a severe income disparity between women and men performing the same occupation can complement the underlying premise of the complex social theories of feminism or patriarchy. In general, and particularly among adherents to pure sociology, social theory has an appeal because it takes the focus away from the individual (which is how most humans look at the world) and focuses it on the society itself and the social forces which control our lives. This sociological insight (or sociological imagination) has through the years appealed to students and others dissatisfied with the status quo because it carries the assumption that societal structures and patterns are either random, arbitrary or controlled by specific powerful groups -- thus implying the possibility of change. This has a particular appeal to champions of the underdog, the dispossesed, and/or those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder because it implies that their position in society is undeserved and/or the result of oppression.

Social research methods

Main article: social research There are several main methods that sociologists use to gather empirical evidence, which include questionnaires, interviews, participant observation, and statistical research. The problem with all of these approaches is that they are all based on what theoretical position the researcher adopts to explain and understand the society the researcher sees in front of themselves. If one is a functionalist like Émile Durkheim, they are likely to interpret everything in terms of large-scale social structures. If a person is a symbolic interactionist, they are likely to concentrate on the way people understand one another. If the researcher is a Marxist, or a neo-Marxist, they are likely to interpret everything through the grid of class struggle and economics. Phenomenologists tend to think that there is only the way in which people construct their meanings of reality, and nothing else. One of the real problems is that sociologists argue that only one theoretical approach is the "right" one, and it is theirs. In practice, sociologists often tend to mix and match different approaches and methodologies, since each method produces particular types of data. The Internet is of interest for sociologists in three ways: as a tool for research, for example, in using online questionnaires instead of paper ones, as a discussion platform, and as a research topic. Sociology of the Internet in the last sense includes analysis of online communities (e.g. as found in newsgroups), virtual communities and virtual worlds organisational change catalysed through new media like the Internet, and societal change at-large in the transformation from industrial to informational society (or to information society).

Sociology and other social sciences

In the early 20th century, sociologists and psychologists who conducted research in industrial societies contributed to the development of anthropology. It should be noted, however, that anthropologists also conducted research in industrial societies. Today sociology and anthropology are better contrasted according to different theoretical concerns and methods rather than objects of study. Sociobiology is a relatively new field to branch from both the sociology and biology disciplines. Although the field once rapidly gained acceptance, it has remained highly controversial as it attempts to find ways in which social behavior and structures can be explained by evolutionary and biological processes. Sociobiologists are often criticized by sociologists for depending too greatly on the effects of genes in defining behavior. Sociobiologists often respond, however, by citing a complex relationship between nature and nurture. In this regard, sociobiology is closely related to anthropology, zoology, and evolutionary psychology. Nonetheless, for most in the discipline, its ideas are unacceptable. Some sociobiologists, such as Richard Machalek, call for the field of sociology to encompass the study of non-human societies along with human beings. Sociology has some links with social psychology, but the former is more interested in social structures and the latter in social behaviors. A distinction should be made between these and forensic studies within these disciplines, particularly where anatomy is involved. These latter studies might be better named as Forensic psychology. As shown by the work of Marx and others, economics has influenced sociological theories.

Subfields of sociology

- Collective behavior
- Comparative sociology
- Computational sociology
- Environmental sociology
- Interactionism also known as the social action theory and symbolic-interactionism
- Economic development
- Economic sociology
- Feminist sociology
- Functionalism
- Historical sociology
- Human ecology (sometimes included into sociology proper)
- Industrial sociology also known as sociology of industrial relations or sociology of work
- Media Sociology
- Medical sociology
- Political sociology also known as sociology of politics or sociology of the state
- Program evaluation
- Public sociology
- Pure sociology
- Rural sociology
- Social change also known as sociology of change
- Social demography
- Social inequality
- Social movements
- Sociology of culture
- Sociology of conflict also known as Conflict theory
- Sociology of deviance also known as criminology
- Sociology of disaster
- Sociology of gender
- Sociology of the family
- Sociology of markets also known as behavioral finance
- Sociology of religion
- Sociology of science and technology
- Sociology of sport
- Sociography
- Urban sociology
- Visual sociology

External links

Self-study courses:
- [http://www.trentu.ca/trentradio/tklassen/ Free audio Lectures, An Introductory Sociology produced for the Trent University, Canada]
- [http://core.ecu.edu/soci/juskaa/SOCI2110/soci1.htm Lectures notes from Introduction to Sociology Course, East Carolina University] Other resources:
- [http://www.thearda.com American Religion Data Archive]
- [http://www.asanet.org/ American Sociological Association]
- [http://www.anovasofie.net/ Analysing and Overcoming the Sociological Fragmentation in Europe: European Virtual Library of Sociology]
- [http://www.ku.edu/%7Esocdept/centuryofsoc.pdf A Century of Sociology at University of Kansas, by Alan Sica (Adobe Acrobat PDF file)]
- [http://www.ucm.es/info/isa/ International Sociological Association]
- [http://gsociology.icaap.org/methods/ Resources for methods in social research]
- [http://www.sociosite.net/ SocioSite - Social Sciences Information System]
- [http://www.sociologyprofessor.com/ Social theories and theorists]
- [http://www.sociolog.com/ The Sociolog. Comprehensive Guide to Sociology]
- [http://www.theory.org.uk Theory.org.uk] - idiosyncratic but content-rich social theory site by David Gauntlett
- [http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy]

References

- John J. Macionis, Sociology (10th Edition), Prentice Hall, 2004, ISBN 0131849182
- Piotr Sztompka, Socjologia, Znak, 2002, ISBN 8324002189
- Stephen H. Aby, Sociology: A Guide to Reference and Information Sources. 3rd edn. Littleton, CO, Libraries Unlimited Inc., 2005, ISBN 1563089475

Social psychology

Social psychology is the study of the nature and causes of human social behavior, with an emphasis on how people think towards each other and how they relate to each other. As the mind is the axis around which social behavior pivots, social psychologists tend to study the relationship between mind(s) and social behaviors. In early-modern social science theory, John Stuart Mill, Comte, and others, laid the foundation for social psychology by asserting that human social cognition and behavior could and should be studied scientifically like any other natural science. On the one hand, Social psychology can be said to try to bridge the gap between sociology and psychology. It can be said to be co-disciplinary with sociology and psychology, providing overlapping theories and research methods in order to form a clearer and more robust picture of social life. However, social psychologists have different perspectives on what ought to be emphasized in the field, which leads to a schizm in the discipline between sociological social psychology and psychological social psychology.

Subfields

Social psychological work can be approached with the interests and the emphases of both psychology and sociology in mind. As a result, the discipline can be split in three general subfields, which concentrate on the relative importance of some subjects over others.
- As sociological social psychology, which looks at the social behavior of humans in terms of associations and relationships that they have. This type leans toward sociology. One offshoot of this perspective is the Personality and Social Structure Perspective, which emphasizes the links between individual personality and identity, and how it relates to social structures.
- As psychological social psychology, which looks at social behavior of humans in terms of the mental states of the individuals. Psychological Social Psychology is very similar to personality psychology because personality psychology looks at how the personality in people is developed, and how our attitudes and values are influenced and affected.
- As symbolic interactionism, one of the major perspectives of sociology, which looks at social behavior in terms of the subjective meanings that give rise to human actions.

SP's three angles of research

psychology Social psychology attempts to understand the relationship between minds, groups, and behaviors in three general ways. First, it tries to see how the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other(s) (Allport 3). This includes social perception, social interaction, and the many kinds of social influence (like trust, power, and persuasion). Gaining insight into the social psychology of persons involves looking at the influences that individuals have on the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of other individuals, as well as the influence that groups have on individuals. This aspect of social psychology asks questions like:

- How do small group dynamics impact cognition and emotional states?
- How do social groups control or contribute to behavior, emotion, or attitudes of the individual members?
- How does the group impact the individual?
- How does the individual operate within the social group?

Second, it tries to understand the influence that individual perceptions and behaviors have upon the behavior of groups. This includes looking at things like group productivity in the workplace and group decision making. It looks at questions like:

- How does persuasion work to change group behavior, emotion or attitudes?
- What are the reasons behind conformity, diversity, and deviance?

Third, and finally, social psychology tries to understand groups themselves as behavioral entities, and the relationships and influences that one group has upon another group (Michener 5). It asks questions like:

- What makes some groups hostile to one another, and others neutral or civil?
- Do groups behave in a different way than an individual outside the group?

In European textbooks there is also fourth level called the "ideological" level. It studies the societal forces that influence the human psyche.

The concerns of social psychology

Some of the basic topics of interest in social psychology are:
- Socialization (investigates the learning of standards, rules, attitudes, roles, values, and beliefs; and the agents, processes, and outcomes of learning) and Sociobiology (looks at the native faculties of human systems, including genetics, and their effect upon temperament, attitudes, learning skills, and so on)
- Gender roles - the effects of role schemas on the perceived makeup of gender and the sexes
- Personal development and life course - the general facets of life in various societies, including personal careers, identities, biological development, and shifts in roles
- Intelligence
- Communication - delves into the learning and processing of verbal and non-verbal language, and the effects of social structures and societies on the use of both
- Social influence - looks at the characteristics of successful and unsuccessful persuasion, as well as compliance, obedience, and resistance to authority
- Impression management and Dramaturgy - investigates the use of self-presentation, along with tactical impression management, deception, and failed identities
- Sociolinguistics and sociology of language - looks at how societies affect language use, and vice-versa (respectively)
- Semantics - analyses the topic of meaning in general
- Pragmatics - analyzes the rules of usage, i.e. in conversation
- Social perception and social cognition - looks specifically at the types of schemas that people have; the ways they develop impressions of one another; and the ways that they attribute the causes of social behavior
- Self and Identity - the schemas that individuals have about themselves and about groups; the impacts that those ideas have on behaviors; the different kinds of identities that people tend to have.
- Attitudes - delves into the nature, types, and functions of attitudes, and their effects on behavior
- Attribution - the ways that people attribute causes and responsibilities to persons or situations
- Social emotion theories (as opposed to physiological-psychological emotion theories)
- Moral development - the development of frames of reference to make moral judgements (or to evaluate what is moral in other ways) in relation to others

Empirical methods

Social psychology involves the empirical study of social behavior and psychological processes associated with social cognition, social behavior, and groups. It makes use of both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. European social psychology tends to be more interested in qualitative methods than is the case in the U.S. Quantitative methods include surveys, controlled experiments, and mathematical modelling. Qualitative methods include naturalistic observation / field research, participant observation, content analysis, discourse analysis, ethnomethodology and etogenia. There is also meta-analysis, which can be either qualitative or quantitative. Many researchers emphasize the importance of a multimethodological approach to social research, drawing from both qualitative and quantitative approaches.

Relation to other fields

Social psychology has close ties with the other social sciences, especially sociology and psychology. It also has very strong ties to the field of social philosophy.
- Sociology is the study of group behavior and human societies, with emphasis on the structures of societies and the processes of social influence.
- Psychology is the study of the underlying psychological processes that make all behaviors and experiences possible. Some examples of the things it seeks to explain are: the attribution of mental states to others, the notion of a unitary 'self', sight and perception, personality and identity, warfare and violence, being hungry, waking up, love, etc.
- Social philosophy is the study of theoretical questions about the experience and behavior of persons. It involves questions related to the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, social epistemology, and many other fields.

Social psychological theories

Some of the theories and topics within social psychology can fit, roughly, within the headings of psychological social psychology and sociological social psychology.

Psychological social psychology

- Personality psychology and social identity
- implicit personality theory
- the looking-glass self - the idea the actor has of their selves, as seen through the judgments of others (impacts self-esteem and the self-concept)
- the ideal self - the person that an actor aspires to be (sometimes influenced by role models)
- Helping - the effects that norms, motives, situations, and psychology of actors have on helping and altruism
- Arousal/cost reward model - an explanation of helping behavior that claims a decision to aid is based on a weighing of the costs and rewards involved, both for oneself and others
- Empathy-altruism model - explains helping behavior through the emotions of distress and empathy
- Interpersonal attraction and relationships - investigates the way that norms, propinquity, familiarity, availability, sameness, attractiveness, trust, and dependence have on friendly relationships.
- The matching hypothesis
- Aggression - the reasons and motives behind acts of hostility initiated by one person on another
- The frustration-aggression hypothesis - a highly controversial hypothesis that states that all aggression stems from frustration and vice-versa
- Power - the ability to cause a person to behave or think in a way despite resistance
- Authority and the authoritarian personality
- Social Dominance Orientation and the related concept of Right Wing Authoritarianism
- Dependency (sociology) - perceived or actual social dependency of person(s) upon other(s)
- Trust (sociology) - a belief in the competence and/or benevolence of another actor. In social cognition, it is important to understand how trust impacts how actors behave and think based on the behaviors and words of others.
- Persuasion - to change one's thoughts or behaviors based on the charismatic and/or reasoned input of others
- The elaboration likelihood model
- Indifference - apathy, especially to the suffering of oneself and others, or to norms
- Anomie, Alienation, Fatalism, and Depression
- Social Neuroscience, Social Cognitive Neuroscience - The study of how the brain processes, understands, and is affected by the social envrionment

Sociological social psychology

- Group cohesion and conformity - looks at the use of roles, an understanding of group structure, and the expectations of all actors involved.
- Hegemony is a related issue
- Consensus, Group structure, work performance, and decision making - looks at the effects of leadership styles, group size, group goals, communicative interaction, reward distributions, and decision making on the stability or polarization of groups
- Expectation states theory - proposes that status characteristics cause group members to form expectations over the expected results of a group task
- Collective behavior, Social movements, and aggregate behavior - the causes, meanings, functions, types, and structures of societies
- Bystander effect
- Drive Theory - looks at the effect of a passive audience on performance of a task
- Herd behavior as an unstructured collective behavior
- Intergroup behavior
- Social identity theory of intergroup behavior
- Social structure, population density and personality - the co-influence of health, alienation, status, and values on one's position in various group structures
- Dissent, Deviance and reactions to deviance - the role of habitual mindsets and social functions on the existence of norms, as well as the impact of labeling and social controls on deviance
- Anomie theory - considers some deviance to be a result of persons trying to achieve a cultural goal but lacking the appropriate resources or means
- Strain theory
- Differential association theory - understands deviance to occur when the definitions and meanings that support deviant acts are learned
- Control theory (sociology) - explains deviant behavior as influenced by ties to other persons
- J-curve theory - predicts social revolutionary change to occur when an intolerable gap develops between people's expected satisfaction of needs and their actual satisfaction of needs
- Labeling theory - believes that the reaction that people have to rule violations can have a compelling effect on deviants
- Routine activities perspective - considers how deviance occurs out of the routines of everyday life
- Intergroup conflict - the reasons and motives behind hostility between groups
- Realistic group conflict theory - sees group conflict as a conflict of goals
- Intergroup contact hypothesis - stresses the notion that group conflict could be defused if both groups had more contact with one another

Major perspectives in social psychology

- Reinforcement theory - understands social actions to follow largely out of direct rewards and punishments, called conditioning. In radical form, it presumes that all social cognition starts out blank and is created by conditioning.
- Cognitive Theory - places the thoughts, choices, and mental events at the core of human social action, emphasizing in particular the impact of schemas on personal behavior and worldviews. It looks especially at an information processing view of the mind, asserting that the mind is composed of many functional input/output sytems and relationships that can be fruitfully understood to underlie all of our more 'emergent' experiences and social phenomena.
- Game theory
- Discursive psychology - also described as the second cognitive revolution. Its main idea states that there is no "cognite level" as such, and that discursive phenomena like cognition should be studied only by observable methods like brain scanning and a careful analysis of everyday use of language.
- Role theory - considers most social action in everyday life to be the fulfillment of a certain kind of schema called roles.
- Social exchange theory - emphasizes the idea that, in relatively free societies, social action is the result of personal choice between optimal benefits and costs. See also rational choice theory.
- Social learning theory - in contrast to reinforcement theory, social learning theory attempts to explain all of human behavior by observation and mimicry.
- Symbolic interactionism - a version of cognitive theory that posits that mental events cannot be understood except in the context of social interaction.
- Psychosocial theory - explores and emphasizes the role of unconscious mental events on human social thought and behavior. Its psychological foundation is psychodynamic theory.
- Social representation theory - an attempt to understand how people represent ideas of the world and themselves in similar ways.
- Evolutionary theory - attempts to explain the biology and physiology of persons, as well as their effects on social action, in the context of gene transmission across generations. In evolutionary psychology, it may take the cognitive perspective and form hypotheses about function and design by acknowleding the evolutionary causal process that built these cognitive mechanisms.
- Sociobiology - attempts to explain all of the theories mentioned in terms of biology and physiology.

Models of social behavior

Hedonistic theory of action

Finding its roots explicitly from the philosophy of Epicurus, followed by philosophers like John Locke and Ludwig von Mises (among many others). The hedonistic theory of action (or psychological hedonism) states that human action occurs when:
- The actor is compelled to increase their pleasure by achieving a goal, or
- The actor is compelled to relieve the burden of uneasiness by achieving a goal.

: Psychological hedonism has a fundamental place in most theories of action, most notably behaviorism, praxeology, and psychosocial theory.

: Psychological hedonism helps to explain the motivations behind all social action.

Emotion theories

Philosophical approaches to the emotions have been around for a long time, written with explanatory depth in such writers as Thomas Hobbes and Aristotle. Social psychological approaches use these perspectives as launching points from which further theories might proceed. There are many ways in social psychology that have been used to study emotions. There is the social constructionist approach of James Averill and Rom Harre and the realist approach of Paul Ekman and his study of facial expressions. In cognitive emotion theories there are especially the contesting works of Lazarus and Zajonc. The main debate in the cognitive school has been about the sequence of events. Does cognition trigger emotion or does emotion trigger cognition? Social constructionist emotion research uses cultural evidence and review of historical documents. For instance, it's hard to find a western equivalent for Japanese emotion of amae. Another example often used is the emotion of acide, which has disappeared from european discourse in the 15th century. Lately Antonio Damasio has revived Willam James' emotion theory as an updated version. The original theory of Willam James was that we first experience physical feelings in our bodies that we afterward interpret as emotions. If one sees a bear in the woods and decides to make a run for it then one interprets oneself as being scared because one's heart, respiration, and feet are functioning faster.

Psycho-social theory of the self

Erik Erikson conceived of a psychosocial developmental theory as an extension of Freudian psychodynamic developmental theory. The psychosocial model is meant to be used to explain the most important variables in bodily development, and how they might relate to socialization. It includes:
- The erogenous zones on the body which provide stimulation. For example, the oral, anal, and phallic zones. Can also be expanded to non-erogenous zones of the body, including cerebral-cortical, loco-motor, sensory-motor, respiratory, muscular, and kinesthetic
- The psychosexual mode, or the actions associated with each zone. For example, retention and elimination for the anal zone
- The psychosocial modality, or the social analogy that can be associated with each respective mode. For example, "anal-retentiveness" To which, Erikson added:
- The meaning, or preferred external objects associated with each mode and zone With this addition, Erikson made steps towards a developmental theory that was both psychological and sociological.

: Psychosocial theory helps to explain what kinds of goals the social actor may develop.

The "unit act" model of action

The American sociologist Talcott Parsons created a model of human social action which stressed that the most basic interesting event to recognize is goal-directed social action. It was further refined by his student Robert K. Merton. In this model, social actions are made up of and involve:
- The actor or agent performing an action
- The (immediate) goal, or a future state of affairs that is desired
- The situation in which action is located, including both:
- The conditions of action (the things about a situation that the actor cannot influence or change). This includes such things as the normative background (or the relevant norms), and the human ecology of the setting
- The means of action (which the actor has some degree of control over)
- And to this, we can also include:
- the actual consequences of the action
- the motives of the actor
- the end-goal, or the broader state of affairs that the actor is trying to reach by means of the immediate goal

: This model can be used as a basis for the explanations of anomie theory and realistic group conflict theory. It also overlaps significantly with the semantic tool of thematic roles.

Theories of context

1. Objective Factors in Context In attempting to understand the objective factors that are in play when people influence one another, the communication-persuasion paradigm begins with this model.
- The source is the person who is trying to influence another person. What makes a good persuader are how credible, trustworthy, attractive, and competent they are
- The message is what the source is trying to convince the target of. Relevant factors include how far the message departs from the target's ideas, whether or not there is an appeal to emotion, and whether or not there is a balance of perspectives
- The target is the person who the source is trying to convince of something. Important to them are the relevance of message to person, their personal desire for cognition, and amount of distractions present
- The channel is the venu that the message is delivered
- The impact is the reaction from the target. This may include an attitude change, a rejection of the message, a counterargument, a suspense of judgment, and/or an attack on the source Trying to explain the conditions where any particular message will have social influence, Latane, Jackson, and Sedikides emphasized the importance of three characteristics of the sources in their social impact theory.
- Social Strength of the actors involved, for example power and social status
- Immediacy, or the physical / psychological distance between actors
- Number of Sources Present For functionalism, the achievement of goals relative to the normative background is important. To the extent that a) an action is beneficial towards the achievement of a goal, and b) the goal and/or means fit the normative background of some group or society, the act is considered functional in that respect / relative to that goal. Conversely, to the extent that a) the act is an obstacle to achieving a desired goal, and b) the goal fits the normative background of some group or society, the act is considered dysfunctional in that respect. 2. Subjective Factors in Context Symbolic interactionism stresses the importance of the way the actor subjectively perceives persons in the world.
- the generalized other - the actor's notion of the normal expectations of others
- the opinions of significant others - the actor's idea of the expectations of special persons; ie, parents, children, spouse, friends

: Theories of context help to explain the normative and situational backgrounds within a social action.

Social behaviorism

Although this theory carries within it the word behaviorism, it has very little if anything to do with behaviorism per se. Social behaviorism is a theory developed by George Herbert Mead, and it emphasizes the relevant social context of the learning environment. If it needs to be contrasted with something, then Vygotsky's theories resemble Mead's theories more than do Watson's or Skinner's theories.

Behaviorism in this wider sense is simply an approach to the study of the experience of the individual from the point of view of his conduct, particularly, but not exclusively, the conduct as it is observable by others. The behaviorist of the Watsonian type has been prone to carry his principle of conditioning over into the field of language. By a conditioning of reflexes the horse has become associeated with the word "horse." and this in turn releases the set of responses. We use the word, and the response may be that of mounting, buying, selling or trading. We are ready to do all these different things. This statement, however, lacks the recognition that these different processes which the behaviorist says are identified with the word "horse" must be worked into the act itself, or the group of acts, which gather about the horse. They go to make up that object in our experience, and the function of the word is a function which has its place in that organisation; but it is not, however, the whole process. (Mead, 1934)

Social behaviorism is influenced by Darwin's theories, Wilhelm Wundt and the pragmatic philosophy of the Chicago school (James, Dewey, Shibutani, etc.). Yet social behaviorism contrasts with cognitive psychology and Darwinian theories in one important aspect. Social behaviorism doesn't consider mind as something that is pre-existing to interaction. Also of noteworthy is the fact that social behaviorists refuted the behaviorist notion of language far before Chomsky did, though Chomsky is the one who is usually credited for this shift of paradigm.

Contrary to Darwin, however, we find no evidence for the prior existence of consciousness as something which brings about behavior on the part of one organism that is of such a sort as to call forth an adjustive response on the part of another organism, without itself being dependent on such behavior. We are rather forced to conclude that consciousness is an emergent from such behavior; that so far from being a precondition of the social act, the social act is the precondition of it. The mechanism of the social act can be traced out without introducing into it the conception of consciousness as a separable element within that act; hence the social act, in its more elementary stages or forms, is possible without, or apart from, some form of consciousness. (Mead, 1934)

Well-known cases, studies, and related works

Famous experiments in social psychology include:
- the Milgram experiment, which studied how far people would go to avoid dissenting against authority even when the suffering of others was at stake. (At the time a poll of psychiatrists showed a belief that only 1% of the populace would be capable of continuing to cause pain to an extreme point.) Coming soon after World War II, it suggested that people are more susceptible to control by authority than was then assumed in the Western democratic world.
- the Asch conformity experiments from the late 1950s, a series of studies that starkly demonstrated the power of conformity in groups on the perceptions/cognitions and behaviors of individuals.
- the Stanford prison experiment, where a role-playing exercise between students went out of control.
- The Authoritarian Personality by Theodor Adorno - looked at the attitudes, values, and mental habits of what he called the "authoritarian" personality
- The Open and Closed Mind by Milton Rokeach - a followup on the authoritarian personality that clarified cognitive differences
- The Kitty Genovese case - looks at aggregate group behavior in a time of crisis — the bystander effect, showing the phenomenon of diffusion of responsibility.
- Amal and Kamal - Indian children who had no human contact.
- Bobo doll experiment by Albert Bandura
- Facial expression studies of Paul Ekman
- Emotions of Ifaluk of Micronesia by Cathrine Lutz. Cathrine Lutz made a fundamental field research revealing many problems of traditional emotion research.
- Presentations of everyday self the so called Dramaturgy or theater analogy developed by Erving Goffman, which looks at the meanings behind how people present themselves
- The article social psychology as history by Kenneth Gergen. This article was one of the major works on the incident known as the 'crisis of social psychology' in the '70s

References

- Allport, G. (1954). The nature of prejudice, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. p. 3.
- Mead, G.H. (1934). Mind, Self, and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Michener, H. Andrew. (2004). Social Psychology. Wadsworth: Toronto.

External links

- [http://www.socialpsychology.org/ Social Psychology Network ]
- [http://www.spsp.org/ Society for Personality and Social Psychology]
- [http://www.sesp.org/ Society of Experimental Social Psychology]
- [http://www.apa.org/journals/psp.html Journal of Personality and Social Psychology]
- [http://www.uiowa.edu/~grpproc/crisp/crisp.html Current Research in Social Psychology]
- [http://www.trinity.edu/~mkearl/socpsy.html Social Psychology - brief introduction]
- [http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/socpsy.html Social Psychology basics]
- [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/social_psychology/ Social Psychology forum]
- [http://www.birchmore.org/html/scapegoating.html Scapegoating Processes in Groups]
- [http://www.portalpsicologia.org/busqueda.jsp?idDisciplina=6 Portalpsicologia.org]
- [http://www.wilderdom.com/psychology/social/Introduction.html/ Introduction to Social Psychology]
- [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas-Theorem Thomas-Theorem - in German]
- [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_I._Thomas W.I.Thomas] Category:Psychology Category:Social philosophy Category:Social sciences Category:Sociology Category:Behavioural sciences ja:社会心理学

Weak tie

Weak tie is a term suggested by Mark Granovetter in "The strength of weak ties" (American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 78, No. 6., May 1973) as the ties in a social network that are not strong. Strong ties are those such as kin relations and close personal friends, while weak ties are loose acquaintances such as those connections made at a party. James Coleman's work builds on social ties, conceptualizing social capital as resources derived from social relationships and networks. Robert Putnam's bestseller Bowling Alone is an elaborate examination of social capital and networks in America. Category:Sociology

Max Gluckman

Max Gluckman (26 January 1911 – 1975) was a South African social anthropologist, born in Johannesburg of Russian Jewish parents. He grew up in South Africa, working later under the British Administration in Northern Rhodesia (esp. on the Barotse law, in what is now the Western Province, Zambia). He was educated at Exeter on a Rhodes Scholarship and was called to professorship at the University of Manchester and was widely known for his radio lectures on Custom and Conflict in Africa (later published in many editions at Oxford University Press), being a remarkable contribution to conflict theory. Gluckman was a political activist, openly and forcefully anti-colonial. He engaged directly with social conflicts and cultural contradictions of colonialism, with racism, urbanisation and labour migration. "(...) perhaps the anthropologist par excellence whose own personal life, history and consciousness not only embodied some of the critical crises of the modern world but also demanded that the anthropology he imagined should confront and examine them" (Bruce Kapferer on Gluckman in "The Crisis in Anthropology" on the occasion of the first Max Gluckman Memorial lecture) He was of considerable influence on several anthropologists and sociologists (J. Clyde Mitchell, A. L. Epstein, Bruce Kapferer, Victor Turner et al.). His school of thought has come to be known as the Manchester School.

External link

- [http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/Faculty/murphy/manchest.htm Max Gluckman and The Manchester School] Gluckman, Max Gluckman, Max Gluckman, Max Gluckman, Max

Zambia

The Republic of Zambia is a landlocked country in southern Africa. It borders the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania on the north-east, Malawi on the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia to the south, and Angola on the west. Formerly Northern Rhodesia, the country is named after the Zambezi river.

History

The indigenous hunter-gatherer occupants of Zambia, (called Bushmen) began to be displaced or absorbed by more advanced migrating tribes about 2,000 years ago. The major waves of Bantu-speaking immigrants—the Bantu expansion—began in the 12th century. Among them, the Tonga people were first to settle in Zambia and are believed to have come from the far east near the "big sea" believed to be the Red Sea where human civilisation started. Other groups followed with the greatest influx coming between the late 17th and early 19th centuries. These later migrants came primarily from the Luba and Lunda tribes of southern Democratic Republic of Congo and northern Angola but were joined in the 19th century by Ngoni peoples from the south. By the latter part of that century, the various peoples of Zambia were largely established in the areas they currently occupy. Except for the occasional Portuguese explorer, the area lay untouched by Europeans for centuries. After the mid-19th century, it was penetrated by Western explorers, missionaries, and traders. In 1855, missionary and explorer David Livingstone, became the first European to see the magnificent waterfalls on the Zambezi River. He named them Victoria Falls after Queen Victoria.The falls are known in Zambia as Mosi-O-Tuna, "the smoke that Thunders". The Zambian town, Livingstone, near the falls is named after him. In 1888, Cecil Rhodes, spearheading British commercial and political interests in Central Africa, obtained a mineral rights concession from local chiefs. In the same year, Northern and Southern Rhodesia (now Zambia and Zimbabwe, respectively) were proclaimed to be within the British sphere of influence. Southern Rhodesia was annexed formally and granted self-government in 1923, and the administration of Northern Rhodesia was transferred to the British Colonial Office in 1924 as a protectorate. Mining began in the Copperbelt in 1934. In 1953, both Rhodesias were joined with Nyasaland (now Malawi) to form the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Northern Rhodesia was the centre of much of the turmoil and crisis that characterized the federation in its last years. At the core of the controversy were insistent African demands for greater participation in government and European fears of losing political control. A two-stage election held in October and December 1962 resulted in an African majority in the legislative council and an uneasy coalition between the two African nationalist parties. The council passed resolutions calling for Northern Rhodesia's secession from the federation and demanding full internal self-government under a new constitution and a new National Assembly based on a broader, more democratic franchise. On 31 December 1963, the federation was dissolved, and Northern Rhodesia became the Republic of Zambia on 24 October 1964. At independence, despite its considerable mineral wealth, Zambia faced major challenges. Domestically, there were few trained and educated Zambians capable of running the government, and the economy was largely dependent on foreign expertise. Abroad, three of its neighbors--Southern Rhodesia and the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique and Angola--remained under white-dominated rule. Rhodesia's white-ruled government unilaterally declared independence in 1965. In addition, Zambia shared a border with South African-controlled South-West Africa (now Namibia). Zambia's sympathies lay with forces opposing colonial or white-dominated rule, particularly in Southern Rhodesia. During the next decade, it actively supported movements such as the National Union for Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), the African National Congress of South Africa (ANC), and the South-West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO). Conflicts with Rhodesia resulted in the closing of Zambia's borders with that country and severe problems with international transport and power supply. However, the Kariba hydroelectric station on the Zambezi River provided sufficient capacity to satisfy the country's requirements for electricity. A railroad to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam, built with Chinese assistance, reduced Zambian dependence on railroad lines south to South Africa and west through an increasingly troubled Angola. By the late 1970s, Mozambique and Angola had attained independence from Portugal. Zimbabwe achieved independence in accordance with the 1979 Lancaster House Agreement, but Zambia's problems were not solved. Civil war in the former Portuguese colonies generated an influx of refugees and caused continuing transportation problems. The Benguela Railroad, which extended west through Angola, was essentially closed to traffic from Zambia by the late 1970s. Zambia's strong support for the ANC, which had its external headquarters in Lusaka, created security problems as South Africa raided ANC targets in Zambia. In the mid-1970s, the price of copper, Zambia's principal export, suffered a severe decline worldwide. Zambia turned to foreign and international lenders for relief, but as copper prices remained depressed, it became increasingly difficult to service its growing debt. By the mid-1990s, despite limited debt relief, Zambia's per capita foreign debt remained among the highest in the world.

Politics

The major figure in Zambian politics from 1964 to 1991 was Kenneth Kaunda, who led the campaign for independence and successfully bridged the rivalries among the country's various regions and ethnic groups. Kaunda tried to base government on his philosophy of "humanism," which condemned human exploitation and stressed cooperation among people, but not at the expense of the individual. Kaunda's political party—the United National Independence Party (UNIP)—was founded in 1959 and was in power under Kaunda's leadership from 1964 to 1991. Before 1972, Zambia had three significant political parties—UNIP, the African National Congress (ANC), and the United Progressive Party (UPP). The ANC drew its strength from western and southern provinces, while the UPP found some support among Bemba-speakers in the Copperbelt and northern provinces. Although not strongly supported in all areas of the country, only UNIP had a nationwide following. In December 1972, Zambian law established a one-party state, and all other political parties were banned; this was later enshrined in the 1973 constitution. Kaunda, the sole candidate, was elected President in the 1973 elections. Elections also were held for the National Assembly. Only UNIP members were permitted to run, but these seats were sharply contested. President Kaunda's mandate was renewed in December 1978, October 1983, and October 1988 in a "yes" or "no" vote on his candidacy. Growing opposition to UNIP's monopoly on power led to the rise in 1990 of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD). The MMD assembled an increasingly impressive group of important Zambians, including prominent UNIP defectors and labor leaders. During the year, President Kaunda agreed to a referendum on the one-party state but, in the face of continued opposition, dropped the referendum and signed a constitutional amendment making Zambia a multi-party state. Zambia's first multi-party elections for parliament and the presidency since the 1960s were held on October 31, 1991. MMD candidate Frederick Chiluba resoundingly carried the presidential election over Kenneth Kaunda with 81% of the vote. To add to the MMD landslide, in the parliamentary elections the MMD won 125 of the 150 elected seats and UNIP the remaining 25. However, UNIP swept the Eastern Province, gathering 19 of its seats there. By the end of Chiluba's first term (1996), the MMD's commitment to political reform had faded in the face of re-election demands. A number of prominent supporters founded opposing parties. Relying on the MMD's overwhelming majority in parliament, President Chiluba in May 1996 pushed through constitutional amendments that eliminated former President Kaunda and other prominent opposition leaders from the 1996 presidential elections. In the presidential and parliamentary elections held in November 1996, Chiluba was re-elected, and the MMD won 131 of the 150 seats in the National Assembly. Kaunda's UNIP party boycotted the parliamentary polls to protest the exclusion of its leader from the presidential race, alleging in addition that the outcome of the election had been predetermined due to a faulty voter registration exercise. Despite the UNIP boycott, the elections took place peacefully, and five presidential and more than 600 parliamentary candidates from 11 parties participated. Afterward, however, several opposition parties and non-governmental organizations declared the elections neither free nor fair. As President Chiluba began his second term in 1997, the opposition continued to reject the results of the election amid international efforts to encourage the MMD and the opposition to resolve their differences through dialogue. Early in 2001, supporters of President Chiluba mounted a campaign to amend the constitution to enable Chiluba to seek a third term of office. Civil society, opposition parties, and many members of the ruling party exerted sufficient pressure on Chiluba to force him to back away from any attempt at a third term. Presidential, parliamentary, and local government elections were held on 27 December 2001. Eleven parties contested the elections. The elections encountered numerous administrative problems. Opposition parties alleged that serious irregularities occurred. Nevertheless, MMD presidential candidate Levy Mwanawasa, having garnered a plurality of the vote (29%), was declared the victor by a narrow margin, and he was sworn into office on January 2, 2002. Three parties submitted petitions to the High Court, challenging the election results. The petitions remained under consideration by the courts in March 2004. Opposition parties won a majority of parliamentary seats in the December 2001 election, but subsequent by-elections gave the ruling MMD a majority in parliament. During his first months in office, President Mwanawasa encouraged the Zambian Anticorruption Commission to aggressively pursue its mandate. In July 2002, in a speech before the Zambian National Assembly, President Mwanawasa provided details on a number of corruption allegations targeting former President Chiluba, and called for Parliament to consider lifting Chiluba's immunity from prosecution. Mwanawasa appointed a special Task Force to investigate and prosecute corrupt officials. Zambian courts are now hearing cases involving corruption charges against Chiluba and numerous officials from his regime. See List of political parties in Zambia

Government

Constitution

Zambia became a republic immediately upon attaining independence from the UK on October 24th, 1964. The constitution promulgated on August 25, 1973, abrogated the original 1964 constitution. The new constitution and the national elections that followed in December 1973 were the final steps in achieving what was called a "one-party participatory democracy." The 1973 constitution provided for a strong president and a unicameral National Assembly. National policy was formulated by the Central Committee of the United National Independence Party (UNIP), the sole legal party in Zambia. The cabinet executed the central committee's policy. In accordance with the intention to formalize UNIP supremacy in the new system, the constitution stipulated that the sole candidate in elections for the office of president was the person selected to be the president of UNIP by the party's general conference. The second-ranking person in the Zambian hierarchy was UNIP's secretary general. In December 1990, at the end of a tumultuous year that included riots in the capital and a coup attempt, President Kenneth Kaunda signed legislation ending UNIP's monopoly on power. In response to growing popular demand for multi-party democracy, and after lengthy, difficult negotiations between the Kaunda government and opposition groups, Zambia enacted a new constitution in August 1991. The constitution enlarged the National Assembly from 136 members to a maximum of 158 members, established an electoral commission, and allowed for more than one presidential candidate who no longer had to be a member of UNIP. The constitution was amended again in 1996 (see external link http://www.thezambian.com/Constitution/) to set new limits on the presidency (including a retroactive two-term limit, and a requirement that both parents of a candidate be Zambian-born). The National Assembly is comprised of 150 directly elected members, up to eight presidentially-appointed members, and a speaker. There is a House of chiefs.

Judiciary

The Supreme Court is the highest court and the court of appeal; below it are the high court, magistrate's court, and local courts.

Provinces

Zambia is divided into nine provinces, each administered by an appointed deputy minister who essentially performs the duties of a governor. The 9 provinces are : Luapula province, Northern province, Eastern province, Lusaka province (home of the capital city, Lusaka ), Southern province, Western province, Northwestern province, Copperbelt province and Central province.

Military

The Zambian Defense Force (ZDF) consists of the army, the air force, and Zambian National Service (ZNS). The ZNS, while operating under the Ministry of Defence, is responsible primarily for public works projects. The ZDF is designed primarily for internal defence. The HIV/AIDS epidemic has hit the ZDF especially hard.

Foreign relations

Zambia is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the Commonwealth, the African Union, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), which is headquartered in Lusaka. President Kaunda was a persistent and visible advocate of change in Southern Africa, supporting liberation movements in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and South Africa. Many of these organisations were based in Zambia during the 1970s and 1980s. President Chiluba assumed a somewhat higher profile internationally in the mid- and late 1990s. His government played a constructive regional role sponsoring Angola peace talks that led to the 1994 Lusaka Protocols. Zambia has provided troops to UN peacekeeping initiatives in Mozambique, Rwanda, Angola, and Sierra Leone. Zambia was the first African state to cooperate with the International Tribunal investigation of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. In 1998, Zambia took the lead in efforts to establish a cease-fire in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Zambia was active in the Congolese peace effort after the signing of a cease-fire agreement in Lusaka in July and August 1999, although activity diminished considerably after the Joint Military Commission tasked with implementing the ceasefire relocated to Kinshasa in September 2001.

Education

- Higher Education
- The University of Zambia in Lusaka
- The [http://www.cbu.edu.zm Copperbelt University] in Kitwe
- The [http://www.northrise.org/about/index_01.asp Northrise University] in Ndola State schools are divided into three - Primary (Years 1 to 7), Junior Secondary (Years 8 to 9) and Upper Secondary (Years 10 to 12). Most "Basic" schools teach Years 1 to 9, as Year 9 is considered to be a decent level of schooling for the majority of children; however, schooling is only free up to Year 7 and most children drop out then.

Geography

Ndola Zambia is a landlocked country in southern Africa, with a tropical climate and consists mostly of high plateau with some hills and mountains. Three major rivers run through Zambia: The Kafue, the Luangwa and the Zambezi, the latter forming part of the border with Namibia and the whole border with Zimbabwe.

Economy

Over 70 percent of Zambians live in poverty. Per capita annual incomes are currently at about one-half their levels at independence and, at $395, place the country among the world's poorest nations. Social indicators continue to decline, particularly in measurements of life expectancy at birth (about 37 years) and maternal mortality (729 per 100,000 pregnancies). The country's rate of economic growth cannot support rapid population growth or the strain which HIV/AIDS related issues (i.e., rising medical costs, decline in worker productivity) place on government resources. Zambia is also one of Sub-Saharan Africa's most highly urbanized countries. Almost one-half of the country's 10 million people are concentrated in a few urban zones strung along the major transportation corridors, while rural areas are underpopulated. Unemployment and underemployment are serious problems. HIV/AIDS is the nation's greatest problem, with 17% prevalence among the adult population. HIV/AIDS will continue to ravage Zambian economic, political, cultural, and social development for the foreseeable future. Once a middle-income country, Zambia began to slide into poverty in the 1970s when copper prices declined on world markets. The socialist government made up for falling revenue by increasing borrowing. After democratic multi-party elections, the Chiluba government (1991-2001) came to power in November 1991 committed to an economic reform program. The government was successful in some areas, such as privatization of most of the parastatals, maintenance of positive real interest rates, the elimination of exchange controls, and endorsement of free market princi

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