Discuss_the_View_That_Sociology_Is_More_Than_Just_Common_Sense

Discuss the view that sociology is more than just common sense. Sociology is one of a group of subjects known as the social sciences. Sociologists focus on the study of certain aspects of human behaviour and create theories to explain the workings and patterns found in society. Yet human behaviour is something we all have experience and at least some knowledge about. In our daily lives, we rely on common sense to get us through many different situations, however while sometimes accurate, it is not reliable, as it’s based on beliefs and theories rather than statistics, evidence and facts. Evidence of sociology has been found from as early as the 14th century in medieval Islam as well as samples of individuals traced back to 1086 and the Doomsday book . Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) and Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) are two of the most popular and influencial 19th century sociologists. There are many theories researched by quantitative and qualitative methods. Positivism, anti-positivism and functionalism are the key research models that I shall be discussing. Within this essay, I will be discussing the view that sociology is more than just common sense. Methodology is the research methods used for collecting data. This can be achieved using the quantitative design: using statistics and documents. Or the qualitative design: using experiments and observation to collect data. Science has several key features: the hypothetico-deductive method, the principle of falsification, the use of experiments and quantitative methods, the possibility of replication and attempts at objectivity. ‘Science is not what you study but how you study it’. Science bases its explanations on reason, logic and evidence rather than belief, faith, personal experience and ideology. The hypothetico-deductive method states exactly what will happen in particular circumstances and enables predictions to be made which are tested. Sociology is an evidence based subject which studies behaviour which can also be carried out by observation and experiments. The hypothetico-deductive method compares hypotheses against empirical evidence. However, any hypothesis can be proved false by just a single observation. For example; ‘strawberries are red’. Seeing just one black one proves the hypotheses wrong. ‘For knowledge to be scientific it must be able to be falsified by empirical testing and experimentation.’ Therefore the longer a theory has stood up to researches without being falsified, the more likely it is true. Positivism applies the logic, methods and procedures of the natural sciences to the study of society with very little alteration. However, sociology does not always produce results that are as accurate and repeatable as those produced by natural scientists because sociologists are unable to control the variables in the circumstances they study but natural scientists are able to do so within their laboratories. Although many sociologists argue the procedures of the natural sciences can be applied to society as people are natural beings, showing that behaviour in social world is governed by laws in the same way as behaviour in a natural world. Durkheim suggests that a law is a social fact which shapes the way people act however, he argued that social facts such as customs, belief systems and social institutions should be considered as ‘things’ in a similar way as objects and events in the natural world. Also, people cannot do exactly as they wish without coming up against a range of social sanctions which limit the opportunities for antisocial behaviour. Positivists use the hypothetico-deductive method as they believe human behaviour is a response to observable social situations and that social behaviour is determined and can be explained in terms of cause and effect relationships. They use the methodology of science as they base their results on direct observation, statistics and quantitative methods of data collection to study society. Sociologists focus on the causes of events in society. For example, Durkheim tried to find out the social reasons behind suicide in 1897. Positivists believe this can lead to a discovery of laws of human behaviour. Interpretivists argue that the methods of natural sciences are unsuitable or insufficient for the study of society because there are fundamental differences between the social world and natural or physical world and sociology therefore cannot copy the approach methodology or aims of natural sciences. ‘Unlike matter (rocks, atoms, molecules etc.) human beings have consciousness – they have free will, feelings, motives and intentions for things they do. They see, interpret, experience, define the world and act in terms of the meanings they give to situations.’ The aim of sociological research should be to understand the meanings and motives of social action which is only possible by using the qualitative design. Interpretivists suggest that human beings would object to being boiled, weighed, wired, prodded with sticks, interrogated or observed in laboratories. They say that people also behave differently when knowing they are being observed (known as the Hawthorne effect) therefore results will not give a true picture of how people behave in society. Sociology studies society in its normal state, not in artificial conditions of a laboratory. People can also behave differently in different situations on different occasions. For example, as Durkheim studied, not everyone will commit suicide facing the same circumstances. Positivists and Interpretivists have different ideas about the nature of society. For positivists, society has a reality external to individuals. For Interpretivists, society is a socially created set of meanings shared by a social group. They both use different methods of research to gain knowledge about society. Therefore, there are conflicting views on proper sociological evidence and different explanations of human behaviour. Overall, from my research I have found out that sociology is more than just common sense. Science is not always about what you study but how you study it, therefore methodology is frequently used in sociology, carried out by qualitative and quantitative data. Science and sociology are very similar and they both base their results on evidence and proof. For example, sociology studies human behaviour by observation and experiments and equally science is formulated in the same way which builds on research from scientists in the past and creates a rounded body of evidence for us to use. Therefore this is plain to see that sociology is a science not just somebody’s interpretation and common sense.