The term standard social science model (SSSM) was first introduced by
John Tooby
John Tooby (July 26, 1952 – November 10, 2023) was an American anthropologist who, together with his psychologist wife Leda Cosmides, pioneered the field of evolutionary psychology.
Biography
Tooby received his PhD in Biological Anthropology ...
and
Leda Cosmides in the 1992 edited volume ''
The Adapted Mind
''The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture'' is a 1992 book edited by the anthropologists Jerome H. Barkow and John Tooby and the psychologist Leda Cosmides.
First published by Oxford University Press, it is w ...
''. They used SSSM as a reference to
social science
Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the ...
philosophies related to the
blank slate,
relativism,
social constructionism
Social constructionism is a term used in sociology, social ontology, and communication theory. The term can serve somewhat different functions in each field; however, the foundation of this Conceptual framework, theoretical framework suggests ...
, and
cultural determinism. They argue that those philosophies, capsulized within SSSM, formed the dominant theoretical
paradigm
In science and philosophy, a paradigm ( ) is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field. The word ''paradigm'' is Ancient ...
in the development of the
social science
Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the ...
s during the 20th century. According to their proposed SSSM paradigm, the mind is a general-purpose cognitive device shaped almost entirely by culture.
After establishing SSSM, Tooby and Cosmides make a case for replacing SSSM with the integrated model (IM), also known as the integrated causal model (ICM), which melds cultural and biological theories for the development of the mind. Supporters of SSSM include those who feel the term was conceived as a point of argument in support of ICM specifically and
evolutionary psychology
Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regard to the ancestral problems they evolved ...
(EP) in general. There are criticisms that the allegation of SSSM is based on a
straw man or
rhetorical technique.
Alleged proponents
Steven Pinker
Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychology, cognitive psychologist, psycholinguistics, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psycholo ...
names several prominent social scientists as proponents of the standard social science model, including
John B. Watson,
Margaret Mead,
Franz Boas,
B. F. Skinner,
Richard Lewontin,
John Money, and
Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould ( ; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American Paleontology, paleontologist, Evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, and History of science, historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely re ...
.
Alternative theoretical paradigm: the integrated model
The authors of ''The Adapted Mind'' have argued that the SSSM is now out of date and that a progressive model for the social sciences requires evolutionarily-informed models of nature-nurture interactionism, grounded in the
computational theory of mind
In philosophy of mind, the computational theory of mind (CTM), also known as computationalism, is a family of views that hold that the human mind is an information processing system and that cognition and consciousness together are a form of comp ...
.
Tooby and Cosmides refer to this new model as the integrated model (IM).
Tooby and Cosmides provide several comparisons between the SSSM and the IM, including the following:
Criticism of the coining of the term
Richardson (2007) argues that, as proponents of evolutionary psychology (EP), evolutionary psychologists developed the SSSM as a
rhetorical technique: "The basic move is evident in Cosmides and Tooby's most aggressive brief for evolutionary psychology. They want us to accept a dichotomy between what they call the "Standard Social Science Model" (SSSM) and the "Integrated Causal Model" (ICM) they favor ... it offers a
false dichotomy between a manifestly untenable view and their own."
Wallace (2010) has also suggested the SSSM to be a false dichotomy and claims that "scientists in the EP tradition wildly overstate the influence and longevity of what they call the Standard Social Science Model (essentially,
behaviorism
Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understand the behavior of humans and other animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex elicited by the pairing of certain antecedent stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that indivi ...
) of human cognition".
Geoffrey Sampson
Geoffrey Sampson (born 1944) is Professor of Natural Language Computing in the Department of Informatics (academic field), Informatics, University of Sussex. argues that the SSSM is based on a
straw man. He views Pinker's claim that the SSSM has been the dominant theoretical paradigm in the social sciences since the 1920s as "completely untenable". In his argument, Sampson cites British education policies in the 20th century that were guided by social scientists and which were based on the belief that children had in-built talents and needs. Thus, he challenges Pinker's assertion that the view of the mind among all social scientists is a
tabula rasa. Moreover, Sampson only conditionally agrees that the scientists Pinker associates with the SSSM, such as Skinner, Watson, and Mead, were influential, stating, "to identify them as responsible for the general tone of intellectual life for eighty years seems comical". Similarly, Neil Levy appears to concur with Sampson's straw man thesis regarding the conception of the SSSM, against which evolutionary psychologists direct much of their criticism. Levy writes: "No-one—not even Skinner and his followers—has ever believed in the blank slate of Pinker's title."
Hilary Rose has criticized Tooby and Cosmides' arbitrary exclusion of
economics
Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...
and
political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...
from their SSSM model, which Rose argues is "rather like excluding physiology and biochemistry from an account of the life sciences". She also states that Tooby and Cosmides have publicly indicted
sociologists
This list of sociologists includes people who have made notable contributions to sociological theory or to research in one or more areas of sociology.
A
* Peter Abell, British sociologist
* Andrew Abbott, American sociologist
* Margaret ...
and
anthropologists of inappropriate separatist behavior towards other academic disciplines while ignoring their newer efforts that demonstrate the complete opposite. Rose notes how sociologists and anthropologists have many new developments that involve study of the
natural sciences
Natural science or empirical science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer ...
and technology. Furthermore, Rose suggests that Tooby and Cosmides' characterization of scientists like Gould, Lewontin,
Steven Rose and
Leon Kamin as SSSM adherents is based on an inaccurate reading of works like ''
The Mismeasure of Man'' and ''
Not in Our Genes'', two books that have explored the interplay between biology and the environment.
Simon Hampton (2004) contends that evolutionary psychologists' account of the SSSM misses the debate on the existence of psychological
instinct
Instinct is the inherent inclination of a living organism towards a particular complex behaviour, containing innate (inborn) elements. The simplest example of an instinctive behaviour is a fixed action pattern (FAP), in which a very short to me ...
s in the early part of the 20th century. He argues:
psychological and behavioural thinkers have for long periods been immersed in the implications of Darwinism. It is plainly and factually incorrect for evolutionary psychology to deny this. And it is disingenuous to down-play it. Evolutionary psychologists who use the term "Standard Social Science Model" and rhetorical equivalents such as "the neo-behaviourist tradition" ... and "the tabula rasa view" ... undermine their own much-vaunted rigor.
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
* Barkow, J., Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. 1992. The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
* Degler, C.N. 1991. In search of human nature: The decline and revival of Darwinism in American social thought. New York: Oxford University Press.
* Harrison, L.E. & Huntington, S.H. 2000. Culture Matters. New York: Basic Books.
* Somit, A. & Peterson, S.A. 2003. Human Nature and Public Policy: An Evolutionary Approach. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Further reading
*
*
External links
* Tooby and Cosmides briefly define the SSSM in their
Evolutionary Psychology Primer
{{Evolutionary psychology
Evolutionary psychology
Social sciences