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In sociology, social complexity is a
conceptual framework
A conceptual framework is an analytical tool with several variations and contexts. It can be applied in different categories of work where an overall picture is needed. It is used to make conceptual distinctions and organize ideas. Strong conceptu ...
used in the
analysis
Analysis ( : analyses) is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts in order to gain a better understanding of it. The technique has been applied in the study of mathematics and logic since before Aristotle (38 ...
of society. In the sciences, contemporary definitions of
complexity
Complexity characterises the behaviour of a system or model whose components interaction, interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, leading to nonlinearity, randomness, collective dynamics, hierarchy, and emergence.
The term is generall ...
are found in
systems theory
Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structu ...
, wherein the
phenomenon
A phenomenon ( : phenomena) is an observable event. The term came into its modern philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon, which ''cannot'' be directly observed. Kant was heavily influenced by Gottfried W ...
being studied has many parts and many possible arrangements of the parts; simultaneously, what is complex and what is simple are relative and change in time.
Contemporary usage of the term ''complexity'' specifically refers to sociologic theories of society as a
complex adaptive system
A complex adaptive system is a system that is ''complex'' in that it is a dynamic network of interactions, but the behavior of the ensemble may not be predictable according to the behavior of the components. It is ''adaptive'' in that the individ ...
, however, social complexity and its
emergent properties are recurring subjects throughout the historical development of
social philosophy
Social philosophy examines questions about the foundations of social institutions, social behavior, and interpretations of society in terms of ethical values rather than empirical relations. Social philosophers emphasize understanding the social ...
and the study of
social change
Social change is the alteration of the social order of a society which may include changes in social institutions, social behaviours or social relations.
Definition
Social change may not refer to the notion of social progress or sociocult ...
.
[Eve, Raymond, Sara Horsfall and Mary E. Lee (eds.) (1997). ''Chaos, Complexity and Sociology: Myths, Models, and Theories.'' Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.]
Early
theoreticians of sociology, such as
Ferdinand Tönnies
Ferdinand Tönnies (; 26 July 1855 – 9 April 1936) was a German sociologist, economist, and philosopher. He was a significant contributor to sociological theory and field studies, best known for distinguishing between two types of social gro ...
,
Émile Durkheim
David Émile Durkheim ( or ; 15 April 1858 – 15 November 1917) was a French sociologist. Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science, al ...
, and
Max Weber
Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas profo ...
,
Vilfredo Pareto
Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto ( , , , ; born Wilfried Fritz Pareto; 15 July 1848 – 19 August 1923) was an Italian polymath (civil engineer, sociologist, economist, political scientist, and philosopher). He made several important contribut ...
and
Georg Simmel
Georg Simmel (; ; 1 March 1858 – 26 September 1918) was a German sociologist, philosopher, and critic.
Simmel was influential in the field of sociology. Simmel was one of the first generation of German sociologists: his neo-Kantian approach l ...
, examined the exponential growth and interrelatedness of social encounters and
social exchanges. The emphases on the
interconnectivity
In telecommunications, interconnection is the physical linking of a carrier's network with equipment or facilities not belonging to that network. The term may refer to a connection between a carrier's facilities and the equipment belonging t ...
among social relationships, and the emergence of new properties within society, is found in the
social theory
Social theories are analytical frameworks, or paradigms, that are used to study and interpret social phenomena.Seidman, S., 2016. Contested knowledge: Social theory today. John Wiley & Sons. A tool used by social scientists, social theories rela ...
produced in the
subfields of sociology
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the discipline of sociology:
Sociology – the study of society"Comte, Auguste, A Dictionary of Sociology (3rd Ed), John Scott & Gordon Marshall (eds), Oxford Univers ...
.
[Giddens, Anthony (1979). ''Central problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis.'' London: Macmillan.] Social complexity is a basis for the connection of the phenomena reported in
microsociology Microsociology is one of the main levels of analysis (or focuses) of sociology, concerning the nature of everyday human social interactions and agency on a small scale: face to face.Smelser, Neil J. 1997. ''Problematics of Sociology.''. Microsociol ...
and
macrosociology
Macrosociology is a large-scale approach to sociology, emphasizing the analysis of social systems and populations at the structural level, often at a necessarily high level of theoretical abstraction. Though macrosociology ''does'' concern itself ...
, and thus provides an intellectual
middle-range for sociologists to formulate and develop hypotheses.
Methodologically, social complexity is theory-neutral, and includes the phenomena studied in microsociology and the phenomena studied in macrosociology.
Theoretic background
In 1937, the sociologist
Talcott Parsons
Talcott Parsons (December 13, 1902 – May 8, 1979) was an American sociologist of the classical tradition, best known for his social action theory and structural functionalism. Parsons is considered one of the most influential figures in sociol ...
continued the work of the early theoreticians of sociology with his work on
action theory;
[Parsons, Talcott (1937) and (1949). ''The Structure of Social Action: A Study in Social Theory with Special Reference to a Group of European Writers''. New York, NY: The Free Press.] and by 1951, Parson had developed action theory into formal
systems theory
Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structu ...
in ''The Social System'' (1951).
[Parsons, Talcott (1951). ''The Social System''. New York, NY: The Free Press] In the following decades, the synergy between general
systems thinking
Systems thinking is a way of making sense of the complexity of the world by looking at it in terms of wholes and relationships rather than by splitting it down into its parts. It has been used as a way of exploring and developing effective actio ...
and the development of
social system
In sociology, a social system is the patterned network of relationships constituting a coherent whole that exist between individuals, groups, and institutions. It is the formal structure of role and status that can form in a small, stable group. ...
theories is carried forward by
Robert K. Merton
Robert King Merton (born Meyer Robert Schkolnick; July 4, 1910 – February 23, 2003) was an American sociologist who is considered a founding father of modern sociology, and a major contributor to the subfield of criminology. He served as th ...
in discussions of theories of the
middle-range and
social structure and agency. From the late 1970s until the early 1990s, sociological investigation concerned the properties of systems in which the strong correlation of sub-parts leads to the observation of
autopoetic,
self-organizing
Self-organization, also called spontaneous order in the social sciences, is a process where some form of overall order arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disordered system. The process can be spontaneous when suff ...
,
dynamical
In mathematics, a dynamical system is a system in which a function describes the time dependence of a point in an ambient space. Examples include the mathematical models that describe the swinging of a clock pendulum, the flow of water in a ...
,
turbulent
In fluid dynamics, turbulence or turbulent flow is fluid motion characterized by chaotic changes in pressure and flow velocity. It is in contrast to a laminar flow, which occurs when a fluid flows in parallel layers, with no disruption between t ...
, and
chaotic
Chaotic was originally a Danish trading card game. It expanded to an online game in America which then became a television program based on the game. The program was able to be seen on 4Kids TV (Fox affiliates, nationwide), Jetix, The CW4Kid ...
behaviours that arise from mathematical
complexity
Complexity characterises the behaviour of a system or model whose components interaction, interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, leading to nonlinearity, randomness, collective dynamics, hierarchy, and emergence.
The term is generall ...
, such as the work of
Niklas Luhmann
Niklas Luhmann (; ; December 8, 1927 – November 6, 1998) was a German sociologist, philosopher of social science, and a prominent thinker in systems theory.
Biography
Luhmann was born in Lüneburg, Free State of Prussia, where his father's fa ...
.
One of the earliest usages of the term "complexity", in 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
Behavioral sciences explore the cognitive processes within organisms and the behavioral interactions between organisms in the natural world. It involves the systematic analysis and investigation of human and animal behavior through naturalistic o ...
, to refer specifically to a
complex system
A complex system is a system composed of many components which may interact with each other. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication ...
is found in the study of
modern organizations and
management studies
Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business.
Management includes the activities o ...
. However, particularly in management studies, the term often has been used in a
metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wit ...
ical rather than in a
qualitative or
quantitative
Quantitative may refer to:
* Quantitative research, scientific investigation of quantitative properties
* Quantitative analysis (disambiguation)
* Quantitative verse, a metrical system in poetry
* Statistics, also known as quantitative analysis ...
theoretical manner.
By the mid-1990s, the "complexity turn"
[Urry, John (2005). "The Complexity Turn." ''Theory, Culture and Society'', 22(5): 1–14.] in social sciences begins as some of the same tools generally used in
complexity science
A complex system is a system composed of many components which may interact with each other. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication s ...
are incorporated into the social sciences. By 1998, the international, electronic periodical, ''
Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation
The ''Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation'' (JASSS) is a quarterly Peer review, peer-reviewed academic journal created by Nigel Gilbert (University of Surrey). The current editor is Flaminio Squazzoni. The journal publishes arti ...
'', had been created. In the last several years, many publications have presented overviews of complexity theory within the field of sociology. Within this body of work, connections also are drawn to yet other theoretical traditions, including
constructivist epistemology
Constructivism is a view in the philosophy of science that maintains that scientific knowledge is constructed by the scientific community, which seeks to measure and construct models of the natural world. According to the constructivist, natura ...
and the philosophical positions of
phenomenology
Phenomenology may refer to:
Art
* Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties
Philosophy
* Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...
,
postmodernism
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or Rhetorical modes, mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by philosophical skepticism, skepticis ...
and
critical realism.
Methodologies
![Penrose tiling](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Penrose_tiling.gif)
Methodologically, social complexity is theory-neutral, meaning that it accommodates both local and global approaches to sociological research.
The very idea of social complexity arises out of the
historical-comparative methods of early sociologists; obviously, this method is important in developing, defining, and refining the theoretical construct of social complexity. As complex social systems have many parts and there are many possible relationships between those parts, appropriate methodologies are typically determined to some degree by the research level of analysis
differentiated by the researcher according to the level of description or explanation demanded by the research hypotheses.
At the most localized level of analysis,
ethnographic
Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...
,
participant- or non-participant observation,
content analysis
Content analysis is the study of documents and communication artifacts, which might be texts of various formats, pictures, audio or video. Social scientists use content analysis to examine patterns in communication in a replicable and systematic ...
and other
qualitative research
Qualitative research is a type of research that aims to gather and analyse non-numerical (descriptive) data in order to gain an understanding of individuals' social reality, including understanding their attitudes, beliefs, and motivation. This ...
methods may be appropriate. More recently, highly sophisticated
quantitative research
Quantitative research is a research strategy that focuses on quantifying the collection and analysis of data. It is formed from a deductive approach where emphasis is placed on the testing of theory, shaped by empiricist and positivist philosop ...
methodologies are being developed and used in sociology at both local and global
levels of analysis. Such methods include (but are not limited to)
bifurcation diagram
In mathematics, particularly in dynamical systems, a bifurcation diagram shows the values visited or approached asymptotically (fixed points, periodic orbits, or chaotic attractors) of a system as a function of a bifurcation parameter in the syst ...
s,
network analysis Network analysis can refer to:
* Network theory, the analysis of relations through mathematical graphs
** Social network analysis, network theory applied to social relations
* Network analysis (electrical circuits)
See also
*Network planning and ...
,
non-linear
In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and many other ...
modeling, and
computational
Computation is any type of arithmetic or non-arithmetic calculation that follows a well-defined model (e.g., an algorithm).
Mechanical or electronic devices (or, historically, people) that perform computations are known as ''computers''. An espe ...
models including
cellular automata
A cellular automaton (pl. cellular automata, abbrev. CA) is a discrete model of computation studied in automata theory. Cellular automata are also called cellular spaces, tessellation automata, homogeneous structures, cellular structures, tessel ...
programming,
sociocybernetics
Sociocybernetics is an interdisciplinary science between sociology and general systems theory and cybernetics. The International Sociological Association has a specialist research committee in the area – RC51 – which publishes the (electron ...
and other methods of
social simulation
Social simulation is a research field that applies computational methods to study issues in the social sciences. The issues explored include problems in computational law, psychology, organizational behavior, sociology, political science, econom ...
.
Complex social network analysis
Complex
social network
A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...
analysis is used to study the dynamics of large, complex social networks.
Dynamic network analysis
Dynamic network analysis (DNA) is an emergent scientific field that brings together traditional social network analysis (SNA), link analysis (LA), social simulation and multi-agent systems (MAS) within network science and network theory. Dynamic ne ...
brings together traditional
social network analysis
Social network analysis (SNA) is the process of investigating social structures through the use of networks and graph theory. It characterizes networked structures in terms of ''nodes'' (individual actors, people, or things within the network) a ...
,
link analysis
In network theory, link analysis is a data-analysis technique used to evaluate relationships (connections) between nodes. Relationships may be identified among various types of nodes (objects), including organizations, people and transactions. Li ...
and
multi-agent system
A multi-agent system (MAS or "self-organized system") is a computerized system composed of multiple interacting intelligent agents.Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Jang, I.; Arvin, F.; Lanzon, A.,A Decentralized Cluster Formation Containment Framework fo ...
s within
network science
Network science is an academic field which studies complex networks such as telecommunication networks, computer networks, biological networks, cognitive and semantic networks, and social networks, considering distinct elements or actors repre ...
and
network theory
Network theory is the study of graphs as a representation of either symmetric relations or asymmetric relations between discrete objects. In computer science and network science, network theory is a part of graph theory: a network can be defi ...
. Through the use of key concepts and methods in
social network analysis
Social network analysis (SNA) is the process of investigating social structures through the use of networks and graph theory. It characterizes networked structures in terms of ''nodes'' (individual actors, people, or things within the network) a ...
,
agent-based modeling
An agent-based model (ABM) is a computational model for simulating the actions and interactions of autonomous agents (both individual or collective entities such as organizations or groups) in order to understand the behavior of a system and wha ...
, theoretical
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
, and modern
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 ...
(particularly
graph theory
In mathematics, graph theory is the study of ''graphs'', which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects. A graph in this context is made up of '' vertices'' (also called ''nodes'' or ''points'') which are conne ...
and
fractal geometry
In mathematics, a fractal is a geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scales, as illu ...
), this method of inquiry brought insights into the dynamics and structure of social systems. New computational methods of localized social network analysis are coming out of the work of
Duncan Watts
Duncan James Watts (born February 20, 1971) is a sociologist and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He was formerly a principal researcher at Microsoft Research in New York City, and is known for his work on small-world networks.
...
,
Albert-László Barabási
Albert-László Barabási (born March 30, 1967) is a Romanian-born Hungarian-American physicist, best known for his discoveries in network science and network medicine.
He is Distinguished University Professor and Robert Gray Professor of Netwo ...
,
Nicholas A. Christakis,
Kathleen Carley
Kathleen M. Carley is an American social scientist specializing in dynamic network analysis. She is a professor in the School of Computer Science in the Institute for Software Research at Carnegie Mellon University and also holds appointments in ...
and others.
New methods of global network analysis are emerging from the work of
John Urry and the sociological study of globalization, linked to the work of
Manuel Castells
Manuel Castells Oliván (; ; born 9 February 1942) is a Spanish sociologist. He is well known for his authorship of a trilogy of works, entitled The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. He is a scholar of the information society, co ...
and the later work of
Immanuel Wallerstein
Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein (; September 28, 1930 – August 31, 2019) was an American sociologist and economic historian. He is perhaps best known for his development of the general approach in sociology which led to the emergence of his worl ...
. Since the late 1990s, Wallerstein increasingly makes use of complexity theory, particularly the work of
Ilya Prigogine
Viscount Ilya Romanovich Prigogine (; russian: Илья́ Рома́нович Приго́жин; 28 May 2003) was a physical chemist and Nobel laureate noted for his work on dissipative structures, complex systems, and irreversibility.
Biogra ...
. Dynamic social network analysis is linked to a variety of methodological traditions, above and beyond
systems thinking
Systems thinking is a way of making sense of the complexity of the world by looking at it in terms of wholes and relationships rather than by splitting it down into its parts. It has been used as a way of exploring and developing effective actio ...
, including
graph theory
In mathematics, graph theory is the study of ''graphs'', which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects. A graph in this context is made up of '' vertices'' (also called ''nodes'' or ''points'') which are conne ...
, traditional
social network
A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...
analysis in sociology, and
mathematical sociology
Mathematical sociology or the sociology of mathematics is an interdisciplinary field of research concerned both with the use of mathematics within sociological research as well as research into the relationships that exist between maths and socie ...
. It also links to
mathematical chaos and
complex dynamics
Complex dynamics is the study of dynamical systems defined by Iterated function, iteration of functions on complex number spaces. Complex analytic dynamics is the study of the dynamics of specifically analytic functions.
Techniques
*General
**Mo ...
through the work of
Duncan Watts
Duncan James Watts (born February 20, 1971) is a sociologist and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He was formerly a principal researcher at Microsoft Research in New York City, and is known for his work on small-world networks.
...
and
Steven Strogatz
Steven Henry Strogatz (), born August 13, 1959, is an American mathematician and the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Applied Mathematics at Cornell University.
He is known for his work on nonlinear systems, including contributions to the study o ...
, as well as fractal geometry through
Albert-László Barabási
Albert-László Barabási (born March 30, 1967) is a Romanian-born Hungarian-American physicist, best known for his discoveries in network science and network medicine.
He is Distinguished University Professor and Robert Gray Professor of Netwo ...
and his work on
scale-free networks
A scale-free network is a network whose degree distribution follows a power law, at least asymptotically. That is, the fraction ''P''(''k'') of nodes in the network having ''k'' connections to other nodes goes for large values of ''k'' as
:
P(k ...
.
Computational sociology
The development of
computational sociology
Computational sociology is a branch of sociology that uses computationally intensive methods to analyze and model social phenomena. Using computer simulations, artificial intelligence, complex statistical methods, and analytic approaches like soc ...
involves such scholars as
Nigel Gilbert
Geoffrey Nigel Gilbert (born 21 March 1950) is a British sociologist and a pioneer in the use of agent-based models in the social sciences. He is the founder and director of the ''Centre for Research in Social Simulation'' ( University of Sur ...
,
Klaus G. Troitzsch,
Joshua M. Epstein
Joshua Morris Epstein is Professor of Epidemiology at the New York University College of Global Public Health. Formerly Professor of Emergency Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, with joint appointments in the departments of Applied Mathematic ...
, and others. The foci of methods in this field include
social simulation
Social simulation is a research field that applies computational methods to study issues in the social sciences. The issues explored include problems in computational law, psychology, organizational behavior, sociology, political science, econom ...
and
data-mining, both of which are sub-areas of computational sociology. Social simulation uses computers to create an artificial laboratory for the study of complex social systems;
data-mining uses machine intelligence to search for non-trivial patterns of relations in large, complex, real-world databases. The emerging methods of
socionics
Socionics, in psychology and sociology, is a pseudoscientific theory of information processing and personality types. It incorporates Carl Jung's work on '' Psychological Types'' with Antoni Kępiński's theory of information metabolism. Socio ...
are a variant of computational sociology.
[Epstein, Joshua M. (2007). ''Generative Social Science: Studies in Agent-Based Computational Modeling''. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.]
Computational sociology is influenced by a number of micro-sociological areas as well as the macro-level traditions of systems science and systems thinking. The micro-level influences of
symbolic interaction
Symbolic interactionism is a sociological theory that develops from practical considerations and alludes to particular effects of communication and interaction in people to make images and normal implications, for deduction and correspondence w ...
,
exchange
Exchange may refer to:
Physics
*Gas exchange is the movement of oxygen and carbon dioxide molecules from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Places United States
* Exchange, Indiana, an unincorporated community
* ...
, and
rational choice
Rational choice theory refers to a set of guidelines that help understand economic and social behaviour. The theory originated in the eighteenth century and can be traced back to political economist and philosopher, Adam Smith. The theory postula ...
, along with the micro-level focus of computational political scientists, such as
Robert Axelrod
Robert Marshall Axelrod (born May 27, 1943) is an American political scientist. He is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Michigan where he has been since 1974. He is best known for his interdisciplinary work o ...
, helped to develop computational sociology's
bottom-up,
agent-based approach to modeling complex systems. This is what
Joshua M. Epstein
Joshua Morris Epstein is Professor of Epidemiology at the New York University College of Global Public Health. Formerly Professor of Emergency Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, with joint appointments in the departments of Applied Mathematic ...
calls
generative science.
Other important areas of influence include
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 ...
,
mathematical modeling
A mathematical model is a description of a system using mathematical concepts and language. The process of developing a mathematical model is termed mathematical modeling. Mathematical models are used in the natural sciences (such as physics, b ...
and computer
simulation
A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of Conceptual model, models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or proc ...
.
Sociocybernetics
Sociocybernetics
Sociocybernetics is an interdisciplinary science between sociology and general systems theory and cybernetics. The International Sociological Association has a specialist research committee in the area – RC51 – which publishes the (electron ...
integrates sociology with
second-order cybernetics
Second-order cybernetics, also known as the cybernetics of cybernetics, is the recursive application of cybernetics to itself and the reflexive practice of cybernetics according to such a critique. It is cybernetics where "the role of the observer ...
and the work of
Niklas Luhmann
Niklas Luhmann (; ; December 8, 1927 – November 6, 1998) was a German sociologist, philosopher of social science, and a prominent thinker in systems theory.
Biography
Luhmann was born in Lüneburg, Free State of Prussia, where his father's fa ...
, along with the latest advances in
complexity science
A complex system is a system composed of many components which may interact with each other. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication s ...
. In terms of scholarly work, the focus of sociocybernetics has been primarily conceptual and only slightly methodological or empirical. Sociocybernetics is directly tied to
systems thought inside and outside of sociology, specifically in the area of second-order cybernetics.
Areas of application
In the first decade of the 21st century, the diversity of areas of application has grown as more sophisticated methods have developed. Social complexity theory is applied in studies of social
cooperation
Cooperation (written as co-operation in British English) is the process of groups of organisms working or acting together for common, mutual, or some underlying benefit, as opposed to working in competition for selfish benefit. Many animal a ...
and
public goods
In economics, a public good (also referred to as a social good or collective good)Oakland, W. H. (1987). Theory of public goods. In Handbook of public economics (Vol. 2, pp. 485-535). Elsevier. is a good that is both non-excludable and non-riva ...
;
altruism
Altruism is the principle and moral practice of concern for the welfare and/or happiness of other human beings or animals, resulting in a quality of life both material and spiritual. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures and a core as ...
;
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 ...
; global civil society
collective action
Collective action refers to action taken together by a group of people whose goal is to enhance their condition and achieve a common objective. It is a term that has formulations and theories in many areas of the social sciences including psych ...
and
social movement
A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of group action and may ...
s;
social inequality
Social inequality occurs when resources in a given society are distributed unevenly, typically through norms of allocation, that engender specific patterns along lines of socially defined categories of persons. It posses and creates gender c ...
; workforce and
unemployment
Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for Work (human activity), w ...
;
policy analysis
Policy analysis is a technique used in the public administration sub-field of political science to enable civil servants, nonprofit organizations, and others to examine and evaluate the available options to implement the goals of laws and elected ...
;
health care systems
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 ...
; and
innovation
Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a new or changed entity ...
and
social change
Social change is the alteration of the social order of a society which may include changes in social institutions, social behaviours or social relations.
Definition
Social change may not refer to the notion of social progress or sociocult ...
, to name a few. A current international scientific research project, the
Seshat: Global History Databank, was explicitly designed to analyze changes in social complexity from the
Neolithic Revolution
The Neolithic Revolution, or the (First) Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement, making an incre ...
until the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
.
As a
middle-range theoretical platform, social complexity can be applied to any research in which
social interaction
A social relation or also described as a social interaction or social experience is the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences, and describes any voluntary or involuntary interpersonal relationship between two or more individuals ...
or the outcomes of such interactions can be observed, but particularly where they can be
measured and expressed as
continuous
Continuity or continuous may refer to:
Mathematics
* Continuity (mathematics), the opposing concept to discreteness; common examples include
** Continuous probability distribution or random variable in probability and statistics
** Continuous ...
or
discrete
Discrete may refer to:
*Discrete particle or quantum in physics, for example in quantum theory
* Discrete device, an electronic component with just one circuit element, either passive or active, other than an integrated circuit
*Discrete group, a ...
data points. One common criticism often cited regarding the usefulness of complexity science in sociology is the difficulty of obtaining adequate data. Nonetheless, application of the concept of social complexity and the analysis of such complexity has begun and continues to be an ongoing field of inquiry in sociology. From
childhood
A child (plural, : children) is a human being between the stages of childbirth, birth and puberty, or between the Development of the human body, developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers ...
friendships and
teen pregnancy
Teenage pregnancy, also known as adolescent pregnancy, is pregnancy in a female adolescent or young adult under the age of 20. This includes those who are Legal adult, legally considered adults in their country. The WHO defines adolescence as the ...
to
criminology
Criminology (from Latin , "accusation", and Ancient Greek , ''-logia'', from λόγος ''logos'' meaning: "word, reason") is the study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is an interdisciplinary field in both the behavioural and so ...
and
counter-terrorism
Counterterrorism (also spelled counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, incorporates the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, business, and intelligence agencies use to combat or el ...
, theories of social complexity are being applied in almost all
areas of sociological research.
In the area of
communications research and
informetrics
Informetrics is the study of quantitative aspects of information, it is an extension and evolution of traditional bibliometrics and scientometrics. Informetrics uses bibliometrics and scientometrics methods to study mainly the problems of literat ...
, the concept of self-organizing systems appears in mid-1990s research related to scientific communications.
Scientometrics
Scientometrics is the field of study which concerns itself with measuring and analysing scholarly literature. Scientometrics is a sub-field of informetrics. Major research issues include the measurement of the impact of research papers and academi ...
and
bibliometrics
Bibliometrics is the use of statistical methods to analyse books, articles and other publications, especially in regard with scientific contents. Bibliometric methods are frequently used in the field of library and information science. Biblio ...
are areas of research in which discrete data are available, as are several other areas of social communications research such as
sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural Norm (sociology), norms, expectations, and context (language use), context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on languag ...
.
Social complexity is also a concept used in
semiotics
Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes ( semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something ...
.
[Dimitrov, Vladimir and Robert Woog (1997). "Studying Social Complexity: From Soft to Virtual Systems Methodology.]
Complex Systems, 11:(6)
See also
Social science
*
Complex society
A complex society is a concept that is shared by a range of disciplines including anthropology, archaeology, history and sociology to describe a stage of social formation. The concept was formulated by scholars attempting to understand how modern ...
*
Complexity economics
Complexity economics is the application of complexity science to the problems of economics. It sees the economy not as a system in equilibrium, but as one in motion, perpetually constructing itself anew.Beinhocker, Eric D. The Origin of Wealth: Ev ...
*
Complexity theory and organizations
Complexity theory and organizations, also called complexity strategy or complex adaptive organizations, is the use of the study of complexity systems in the field of strategic management and organizational studies. It draws from research in t ...
*
Differentiation (sociology)
In system theory. "differentiation" is the increase of subsystems in a modern society to increase the complexity of a society. Each subsystem can make different connections with other subsystems, and this leads to more variation within the system ...
*
Econophysics
Econophysics is a Heterodox economics, heterodox interdisciplinary research field, applying theories and methods originally developed by physicists in order to solve problems in economics, usually those including uncertainty or stochastic processes ...
*
Engaged theory
Engaged theory is a methodological framework for understanding social complexity. It takes social life or social relations as its base category, with 'the social' always understood as grounded in 'the natural', including humans as embodied beings. ...
* ''
Network Analysis and Ethnographic Problems
''Network Analysis and Ethnographic Problems: Process Models of a Turkish Nomad Clan'' is an anthropological and complexity science book by social anthropologists Douglas R. White, University of California, Irvine, and Ulla Johansen of the Uni ...
''
*
Personal information management
Personal information management (PIM) is the study of the activities people perform in order to acquire or create, store, organize, maintain, retrieve, and use information items such as documents (paper-based and digital), web pages, and email mes ...
General
*
Aggregate data
Aggregate data is high-level data which is acquired by combining individual-level data. For instance, the output of an industry is an aggregate of the firms’ individual outputs within that industry. Aggregate data are applied in statistics, da ...
*
Artificial neural network
Artificial neural networks (ANNs), usually simply called neural networks (NNs) or neural nets, are computing systems inspired by the biological neural networks that constitute animal brains.
An ANN is based on a collection of connected unit ...
*
Cognitive complexity
Cognitive complexity describes cognition along a simplicity-complexity axis. It is the subject of academic study in fields including personal construct psychology, organisational theory and human–computer interaction.
History
First proposed ...
*
Computational complexity theory
In theoretical computer science and mathematics, computational complexity theory focuses on classifying computational problems according to their resource usage, and relating these classes to each other. A computational problem is a task solved by ...
*
Dual-phase evolution
*
Evolutionary programming Evolutionary programming is one of the four major evolutionary algorithm paradigms. It is similar to genetic programming, but the structure of the program to be optimized is fixed, while its numerical parameters are allowed to evolve.
It was first ...
*
Game theory
Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions among rational agents. Myerson, Roger B. (1991). ''Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict,'' Harvard University Press, p.&nbs1 Chapter-preview links, ppvii–xi It has appli ...
*
Generic-case complexity Generic-case complexity is a subfield of computational complexity theory that studies the complexity of computational problems on "most inputs".
Generic-case complexity is a way of measuring the complexity of a computational problem by neglecting a ...
*
Multi-agent system
A multi-agent system (MAS or "self-organized system") is a computerized system composed of multiple interacting intelligent agents.Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Jang, I.; Arvin, F.; Lanzon, A.,A Decentralized Cluster Formation Containment Framework fo ...
*
Systemography
Systemography or SGR is a process where phenomena regarded as complex are purposefully represented as a constructed model of a general system. It may be used in three different ways: conceptualization, analysis, and simulation. The work of Jean- ...
References
{{Reflist, 35em
Further reading
* Byrne, David (1998). ''Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences.'' London: Routledge.
* Byrne, D., & Callaghan, G. (2013). Complexity theory and the social sciences: The state of the art. Routledge.
* Castellani, Brian and Frederic William Hafferty (2009)
''Sociology and Complexity Science: A New Area of Inquiry'' (Series: Understanding Complex Systems XV). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.* Eve, Raymond, Sara Horsfall and Mary E. Lee (1997). ''Chaos, Complexity and Sociology: Myths, Models, and Theories.'' Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
* Jenks, Chris and John Smith (2006). ''Qualitative Complexity: Ecology, Cognitive Processes and the Re-Emergence of Structures in Post-Humanist Social Theory.'' New York, NY: Routledge.
* Kiel, L. Douglas (ed.) (2008)
''Knowledge Management, Organizational Intelligence, Learning and Complexity.'' UNESCO (EOLSS): Paris, France.* Kiel, L. Douglas and Euel Elliott (eds.) (1997). ''Chaos Theory in the Social Sciences: Foundations and Applications.'' The University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor, MI.
*
Leydesdorff, Loet (2001). ''A Sociological Theory of Communication: The Self-Organization of the Knowledge-Based Society''. Parkland, FL: Universal Publishers.
*
Urry, John (2005). "The Complexity Turn." ''Theory, Culture and Society'', 22(5): 1–14.
Complex systems theory
Self-organization
Nonlinear systems
Sociological theories
Sociological terminology