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Legal Behavior
In sociology, legal behavior refers to variations in the methods and degree of governmental social control of behavior. Background In 1976, theoretical sociologist Donald Black introduced a general sociological theory of law in his book ''The Behavior of Law.'' The theory exemplified Black's sociological paradigm known as pure sociology. A central aspect of this paradigm was the reconceptualization of human behavior as the behavior of social life. Thus, the behavior of many individuals may be understood—and more readily explained—as a single phenomenon. One form of social life is law, defined by Black as governmental social control. Social control is any process of defining and responding to deviance. Any increase of governmental social control—be it a call to the police, an arrest, a prosecution, or a conviction—is thus an increase of law. The word "behavior" is used here as it is used in the physical sciences to refer to variation. In this sense, everything ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical research, empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order and social change. While some sociologists conduct research that may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, others focus primarily on refining the Theory, theoretical understanding of social processes and phenomenology (sociology), phenomenological method. Subject matter can range from Microsociology, micro-level analyses of society (i.e. of individual interaction and agency (sociology), agency) to Macrosociology, macro-level analyses (i.e. of social systems and social structure). Traditional focuses of sociology include social stratification, social class, social mobility, sociology of religion, religion, secularization, S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Behavior
Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as well as the inanimate physical environment. It is the computed response of the system or organism to various stimuli or inputs, whether internal or external, conscious or subconscious, overt or covert, and voluntary or involuntary. Taking a behavior informatics perspective, a behavior consists of actor, operation, interactions, and their properties. This can be represented as a behavior vector. Models Biology Although disagreement exists as to how to precisely define behavior in a biological context, one common interpretation based on a meta-analysis of scientific literature states that "behavior is the internally coordinated responses (actions or inactions) of whole living organisms (individuals or groups) to internal and/or external sti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donald Black (sociologist)
__NOTOC__ Donald Black (born 1941) is a University Professor of the Social Sciences at the University of Virginia. Black received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan in 1968, and he taught at Yale University, Yale and Harvard University, Harvard before moving to University of Virginia, Virginia in 1985. Black is the author of ''The Behavior of Law'', ''The Manners and Customs of the Police'', and ''Sociological Justice'', all of which present various aspects of his theory of law. More recently, ''The Social Structure of Right and Wrong'' extends the theory to address conflict management more broadly. It thus focuses on instances where people handle conflicts through means other than the law, such as through gossip, avoidance, suicide, or feuding. Black's latest book, ''Moral Time'', identifies the causes of moral conflict in all human relationships. Black is also the founder of ''pure sociology'', a distinctive theoretical approach that explains human behavior ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pure Sociology
Like rational choice theory, conflict theory, or functionalism, pure sociology is a sociological paradigm — a strategy for explaining human behavior. Developed by Donald Black as an alternative to individualistic and social-psychological theories, pure sociology was initially used to explain variation in legal behavior. Since then, Black and other pure sociologists have used the strategy to explain terrorism, genocide, lynching, and other forms of conflict managementBlack, Donald. 1998. The Social Structure of Right and Wrong. San Diego: Academic Press. as well as science, art, and religion. Epistemology Pure sociology explains social life with its social geometry. Social life refers to any instance of human behavior—such as law, suicide, gossip, or art — while the social geometry of a behavior, also called its social structure, refers to the social characteristics of those involved—such as their degree of past interaction or their level of wealth. To som ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deviance (sociology)
Deviance or the sociology of deviance explores the actions and/or behaviors that violate social norms across formally enacted rules (e.g., crime) as well as informal violations of social norms (e.g., rejecting folkways and mores). Although deviance may have a negative connotation, the violation of social norms is not always a negative action; positive deviation exists in some situations. Although a norm is violated, a behavior can still be classified as positive or acceptable. Social norms differ throughout society and between cultures. A certain act or behaviour may be viewed as deviant and receive sanctions or punishments within one society and be seen as a normal behaviour in another society. Additionally, as a society's understanding of social norms changes over time, so too does the collective perception of deviance. Deviance is relative to the place where it was committed or to the time the act took place. Killing another human is generally considered wrong for example, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Physical Sciences
Physical science is a branch of natural science that studies non-living systems, in contrast to life science. It in turn has many branches, each referred to as a "physical science", together called the "physical sciences". Definition Physical science can be described as all of the following: * A branch of science (a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe)."... modern science is a discovery as well as an invention. It was a discovery that nature generally acts regularly enough to be described by laws and even by mathematics; and required invention to devise the techniques, abstractions, apparatus, and organization for exhibiting the regularities and securing their law-like descriptions." —p.vii, J. L. Heilbron, (2003, editor-in-chief). ''The Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science''. New York: Oxford University Press. . ** A branch of natural science – natu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capital Punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that the person is responsible for violating norms that warrant said punishment. The sentence ordering that an offender is to be punished in such a manner is known as a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is known as an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is ''condemned'' and is commonly referred to as being "on death row". Crimes that are punishable by death are known as ''capital crimes'', ''capital offences'', or ''capital felonies'', and vary depending on the jurisdiction, but commonly include serious crimes against the person, such as murder, mass murder, aggravated cases of rape (often including child sexual abuse), terrorism, aircraft hijacking, war crimes, crimes against h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sociological Theories
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order and social change. While some sociologists conduct research that may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, others focus primarily on refining the theoretical understanding of social processes and phenomenological method. Subject matter can range from micro-level analyses of society (i.e. of individual interaction and agency) to macro-level analyses (i.e. of social systems and social structure). Traditional focuses of sociology include social stratification, social class, social mobility, religion, secularization, law, sexuality, gender, and deviance. As all spheres of human activity are affected by the interplay between social structure and individual agenc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jurisprudence
Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning and analogy, legal systems, legal institutions, and the proper application of law, the economic analysis of law and the role of law in society. Modern jurisprudence began in the 18th century and it was based on the first principles of natural law, civil law, and the law of nations. General jurisprudence can be divided into categories both by the type of question scholars seek to answer and by the theories of jurisprudence, or schools of thought, regarding how those questions are best answered. Contemporary philosophy of law, which deals with general jurisprudence, addresses problems internal to law and legal systems and problems of law as a social institution that relates to the larger political and social context in which it exists.Shi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
