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Jan 22, 2020 · Learn what a theoretical perspective is and how it shapes sociological research. Explore four major perspectives: functionalism, interactionism, conflict, and symbolic interaction.
- Ashley Crossman
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- Macro and Micro Approaches. Although this may be overly simplistic, sociologists’ views basically fall into two camps: macrosociology and microsociology.
- Functionalism. Functionalism, also known as the functionalist perspective, arose out of two great revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. The first was the French Revolution of 1789, whose intense violence and bloody terror shook Europe to its core.
- Conflict Theory. In many ways, conflict theory is the opposite of functionalism but ironically also grew out of the Industrial Revolution, thanks largely to Karl Marx (1818–1883) and his collaborator, Friedrich Engels (1820–1895).
- Symbolic Interactionism. Whereas the functionalist and conflict perspectives are macro approaches, symbolic interactionism is a micro approach that focuses on the interaction of individuals and on how they interpret their interaction.
Learn about the different approaches and frameworks that sociologists use to understand and explain social phenomena. This web page is part of a free textbook on sociology, but it has a glitch and cannot be accessed.
Learn how to choose a theoretical perspective for qualitative research and explore common types and selection criteria. A theoretical perspective helps to frame the research question, guide the methodology, and interpret the findings.
- Behaviorist Perspective. If your layperson’s idea of psychology has always been about people in laboratories wearing white coats and watching hapless rats try to negotiate mazes in order to get to their dinner, then you are probably thinking about behavioral psychology.
- Psychodynamic Perspective. Who hasn’t heard of Sigmund Freud? So many expressions of our daily life come from Freud’s theories of psychoanalysis – subconscious, denial, repression, and anal personality, to name only a few.
- Humanistic Perspective. Humanistic psychology is a psychological perspective that emphasizes the study of the whole person (know as holism). Humanistic psychologists look at human behavior, not only through the eyes of the observer, but through the eyes of the person doing the behaving.
- Cognitive Perspective. Psychology was institutionalized as a science in 1879 by Wilhelm Wundt, who found the first psychological laboratory. His initiative was soon followed by other European and American Universities.
Feb 20, 2021 · Theories have different scales. Macro-level theories, such as structural functionalism and conflict theory, attempt to explain how societies operate as a whole. Micro-level theories, such as symbolic interactionism, focus on interactions between individuals.
Jan 22, 2023 · In sociology, a few theories provide broad perspectives that help explain many different aspects of social life, and these are called paradigms. Paradigms are philosophical and theoretical frameworks used within a discipline to formulate theories, generalizations, and the experiments performed in support of them.
