The ''International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences'', originally edited by

Neil J. Smelser Neil Joseph Smelser (1930–2017) was an American sociologist who served as professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He was an active researcher from 1958 to 1994. His research was on collective behavior, sociological the ...

and

Paul B. Baltes Paul B. Baltes (18 June 1939 – 7 November 2006) was a German psychologist whose broad scientific agenda was devoted to establishing and promoting the life-span orientation of human development. He was also a theorist in the field of the psycholog ...

, is a 26-volume work published by

Elsevier Elsevier () is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as ''The Lancet'', ''Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, '' Trends'', th ...

. It has some 4,000 signed articles (commissioned by around 50 subject editors), and includes 150 biographical entries, 122,400 entries, and an extensive hierarchical subject index. It is also available in online editions. ''Contemporary Psychology'' described the work as "the largest corpus of knowledge about the

social Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...

and behavioral sciences in existence." It was first published in 2001, with a 2nd edition published in 2015. The second edition is edited by James D. Wright.

Subject Classification

Contents include the following broad Subject Classification. Overarching Topics:

Institutions Institutions are humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions a ...

and infrastructure,

History of the social sciences The history of the social sciences has origin in the common stock of Western philosophy and shares various precursors, but began most intentionally in the early 19th century with the positivist philosophy of science. Since the mid-20th century, th ...

and the behavioral sciences, Ethics of research and applications, Biographies, Integrative concepts and issues Methodology:

Statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...

Mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

and

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

s, Logic of inquiry and

research design Research design refers to the overall strategy utilized to carry out research that defines a succinct and logical plan to tackle established research question(s) through the collection, interpretation, analysis, and discussion of data. Incorporat ...

. Disciplines:

Anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

Demography Demography () is the statistics, statistical study of populations, especially human beings. Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and Population dynamics, dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups ...

Economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

Education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...

History History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

Linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

Philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

Political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

Clinical psychology Clinical psychology is an integration of social science, theory, and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and persona ...

and applied psychology,

Cognitive psychology Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning. Cognitive psychology originated in the 1960s in a break from behaviorism, which ...

and cognitive science,

Developmental psychology Developmental psychology is the science, scientific study of how and why humans grow, change, and adapt across the course of their lives. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult deve ...

social psychology Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the r ...

personality psychology Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that examines personality and its variation among individuals. It aims to show how people are individually different due to psychological forces. Its areas of focus include: * construction of a c ...

and motivational psychology,

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 ...

Intersecting Fields: Evolutionary sciences,

Genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...

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 wel ...

and

society A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Socie ...

, Behavioral neuroscience and

cognitive neuroscience Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific field that is concerned with the study of the biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental proces ...

Psychiatry Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry. Initial psych ...

Health Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World Health Organiza ...

Gender studies Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies, concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. The field ...

, Religious studies, Expressive forms,

Environmental science Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physics, biology, and geography (including ecology, chemistry, plant science, zoology, mineralogy, oceanography, limnology, soil science, geology and physical geograp ...

ecological science Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...

Science and technology studies Science and technology studies (STS) is an interdisciplinary field that examines the creation, development, and consequences of science and technology in their historical, cultural, and social contexts. History Like most interdisciplinary fie ...

Area studies Area studies (also known as regional studies) are interdisciplinary fields of research and scholarship pertaining to particular geographical, national/ federal, or cultural regions. The term exists primarily as a general description for what ar ...

and

international studies International relations (IR), sometimes referred to as international studies and international affairs, is the scientific study of interactions between sovereign states. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities between states—such a ...

Applications:

Organizational studies Organization studies (also called organization science or organizational studies) is the academic field interested in a ''collective activity, and how it relates to organization, organizing, and management''. It is "the examination of how individua ...

and management studies,

Media studies Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media Studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but mostly ...

and commercial applications,

Urban studies Urban studies is based on the study of the urban development of cities. This includes studying the history of city development from an architectural point of view, to the impact of urban design on community development efforts. The core theoretica ...

and

Urban planning Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...

Public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public p ...

, Modern cultural concerns

Subclassification of articles with an example

The above Subject Classification is alphabetized with a link for each such general subject at ScienceDirect.Com. Each such link leads to subclassification links for that subject. The

hierarchical classification Hierarchical classification is a system of grouping things according to a hierarchy. In the field of machine learning, hierarchical classification is sometimes referred to as instance space decomposition, which splits a complete multi-class pro ...

of articles for a subject can be used to locate an article. For example, the Economics link above brings up these subclassification links: * Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics * Financial Economics * General Methods and Schools * Industrial Organization and Law and Economics * International Economics, Growth, and Development * Labor Economics * Public and Welfare Economics Each such subclassification link goes to corresponding ''Encyclopedia'' article titles with the author, page numbers, and links to the article Abstract and a View of Related Articles. (The latter is an extensive list of references separate from the Bibliography in the article.) For example, under the Economics link above, the link for "General Methods and Schools" brings up: * Auctions, Pages 917-923, S. Müller , Abstract , View Related Articles * Behavioral Economics, Pages 1094-1100, S. Mullainathan and R. H. Thaler ... * Consumer Economics, Pages 2669-2674, A. P. Barten * Econometric Software, Pages 4058-4065, W. H. Greene * Econometrics, History of, Pages 4065-4069, M. S. Morgan and D. Qin * Economic Education, Pages 4078-4084, W. E. Becker * Economics and Ethics, Pages 4146-4152, J. Broome * Economics, History of, Pages 4152-4158, M. Schabas * Economics, Philosophy of, Pages 4159-4165, D. M. Hausman * Economics: Overview, Pages 4158-4159, O. Ashenfelter * Expectations, Economics of, Pages 5060-5067, G. W. Evans and S. Honkapohja * Experimental Economics, Pages 5100-5108, V. L. Smith * Feminist Economics, Pages 5451-5457, D. Meulders * Firm Behavior, Pages 5676-5681, F. M. Scherer * Game Theory: Noncooperative Games, Pages 5873-5880, E. van Damme * Information, Economics of, Pages 7480-7486, S. S. Lippman and J. J. McCall * Institutional Economic Thought, Pages 7543-7550, G. M. Hodgson * Macroeconomic Data, Pages 9111-9117, T. P. Hill * Market Areas, Pages 9203-9207, J.-C. Thill * Marxian Economic Thought, Pages 9286-9292, R. Bellofiore * Monetary Policy, Pages 9976-9984, B. M. Friedman * Political Economy, History of, Pages 11649-11653, K. Tribe * Post-Keynesian Thought, Pages 11849-11856, G. C. Harcourt * Psychiatric Care, Economics of, Pages 12267-12272, S. Tyutyulkova and S. S. Sharfstein * Psychology and Economics, Pages 12390-12396, K. Fiedler and M. Wänke * Science, Economics of, Pages 13664-13668, W. E. Steinmueller * Search, Economics of, Pages 13760-13768, C. A. Pissarides * Transaction Costs and Property Rights, Pages 15840-15845, O. E. Williamson The abstract for each article can be linked from the article link. An example of an Abstract link is that for the articl
"Economics: Overview"
above.

References

External links

* Official website
2nd ed.1st ed.
{{DEFAULTSORT:International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences American encyclopedias Social sciences literature 21st-century encyclopedias Encyclopedias of science

Subject Classification

Subclassification of articles with an example

See also

References

Further reading

External links