social science

The definition of social science is the study of people and their relationships and interactions in society.

Branches of Social Science

  • Anthropology - the study of the cultural, social, and physical development of humans
  • Economics - the study of the ways in which a society deals with money and the availability of goods
  • History - the study of man’s past and his decisions in order to find relationships between the events and causes for them.
  • Political science - the study of the processes and principles of government and other political institutions
  • Psychology - the study of the mind’s functions as they relate to one’s physical and social environment
  • Sociology - the study of of social behavior and societies
  • Education - the study of how people gain knowledge
  • Geography - the study of the Earth and the way humans are dispersed on it
  • Law - the study of the rules that society lives by and how they are formed or influenced by popular beliefs
  • Linguistics - the study of the structure of language, its syntax, phonology, semantics, phonetics, morphology, and the nature of language and its variations
  • Criminology - the study of the criminal behavior of both individuals and of society
  • Archaeology - the study of past civilizations, with information gleaned from material remains, such as, artifacts, buildings, graves, etc
  • Religion - the relationship between humans and God or gods
(noun)

An example of social science is a group of anthropologists digging up clay water pots from an ancient Egyptian marketplace.

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See social science in Webster's New World College Dictionary

  1. the study of people living together in groups, families, etc., and their customs, activities, etc.
  2. any of several fields of study, as economics, political science, or anthropology, dealing with the structure of society and the activity of its members

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See social science in American Heritage Dictionary 4

noun
  1. The study of human society and of individual relationships in and to society.
  2. A scholarly or scientific discipline that deals with such study, generally regarded as including sociology, psychology, anthropology, economics, political science, and history.

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