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Behavioralism
Behavioralism is an approach in the philosophy of science, describing the scope of the fields now collectively called the behavioral sciences; this approach dominated the field until the late 20th century. Behavioralism attempts to explain human behavior from an unbiased, neutral point of view, focusing only on what can be verified by direct observation, preferably using statistical and quantitative methods. In doing so, it rejects attempts to study internal human phenomena such as thoughts, subjective experiences, or human well-being. The rejection of this paradigm as overly-restrictive would lead to the rise of cognitive approaches in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Origins From 1942 through the 1970s, behavioralism gained support. It was probably Dwight Waldo who coined the term for the first time in a book called "Political Science in the United States" which was released in 1956. It was David Easton however who popularized the term. It was the site of discussion ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Post-behavioralism
Post-behavioralism (or post-behaviouralism) also known as neo-behavioralism (or neo-behaviouralism) was a reaction against the dominance of behavioralism, behavioralist methods in the study of politics. One of the key figures in post-behaviouralist thinking was David Easton who was originally one of the leading advocates of the "behavioral revolution". Post-behavioralists claimed that despite the alleged value-neutrality of behavioralist research it was biased towards the status quo and social preservation rather than social change. Key tenets *Post-behavioralism challenged the idea that academic research had to be value neutral and argued that values should not be neglected. *Post-behavioralism claimed that behavioralism's bias towards observable and measurable phenomena meant that too much emphasis was being placed on easily studied trivial issues at the expense of more important topics. *Research should be more relevant to society and intellectuals have a positive role to play in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Merriam
Charles Edward Merriam Jr. (1874–1953) was an American professor of political science at the University of Chicago, founder of the behavioral approach to political science, a trainer of many graduate students, a prominent intellectual in the Progressive Movement, and an advisor to several US Presidents. Upon his death, ''The New York Times'' called him "one of the outstanding political scientists in the country"."Dr. C.E. Merriam, Noted Educator," ''New York Times,'' January 9, 1953. Early life and education Charles Merriam was born in Hopkinton, Iowa, on November 15, 1874,Manning, ''Historical Dictionary of American Propaganda,'' 2004, p. 182.Bishop and Gilbert, ''Chicago's Accomplishments and Leaders,'' 1932, p. 341.Kloppenberg and Fox, ''A Companion to American Thought,'' 1995, p. 449. to Charles Edward Merriam and Margaret Campbell Kirkwood Merriam. The Merriams traced their lineage to immigrants who settled in Massachusetts in 1638.Reagan, ''Designing a New America: The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 field of sociology, the original "science of society", established in the 18th century. It now encompasses a wide array of additional academic disciplines, including anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, linguistics, management, communication studies, psychology, culturology, and political science. The majority of positivist social scientists use methods resembling those used in the natural sciences as tools for understanding societies, and so define science in its stricter modern sense. Speculative social scientists, otherwise known as interpretivist scientists, by contrast, may use social critique or symbolic interpretation rather than constructing empirically falsifiable theories, and thus treat science in its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 individual's history, including especially reinforcement and punishment contingencies, together with the individual's current motivational state and controlling stimuli. Although behaviorists generally accept the important role of heredity in determining behavior, deriving from Skinner's two levels of selection: phylogeny and ontogeny. they focus primarily on environmental events. The cognitive revolution of the late 20th century largely replaced behaviorism as an explanatory theory with cognitive psychology, which unlike behaviorism views internal mental states as explanations for observable behavior. Behaviorism emerged in the early 1900s as a reaction to depth psychology and other traditional forms of psychology, which often had diffic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Easton
David Easton (June 24, 1917 – July 19, 2014) was a Canadian-born American political scientist. From 1947 to 1997, he served as a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. At the forefront of both the behavioralist and post-behavioralist revolutions in the discipline of political science during the 1950s and 1970s, Easton provided the discipline's most widely used definition of politics as the authoritative allocation of values for the society. He was renowned for his application of systems theory to the study of political science. Policy analysts have utilized his five-fold scheme for studying the policy-making process: input, conversion, output, feedback and environment. Gunnell argues that since the 1950s the concept of "system" was the most important theoretical concept used by American political scientists. The idea appeared in sociology and other social sciences but it was Easton who specified how it could be best applied to behavioral research on pol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Behaviourism
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 individual's history, including especially reinforcement and punishment contingencies, together with the individual's current motivational state and controlling stimuli. Although behaviorists generally accept the important role of heredity in determining behavior, deriving from Skinner's two levels of selection: phylogeny and ontogeny. they focus primarily on environmental events. The cognitive revolution of the late 20th century largely replaced behaviorism as an explanatory theory with cognitive psychology, which unlike behaviorism views internal mental states as explanations for observable behavior. Behaviorism emerged in the early 1900s as a reaction to depth psychology and other traditional forms of psychology, which often had difficul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature, legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, including a Lower house, lower body, the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives, and an Upper house, upper body, the United States Senate, U.S. Senate. They both meet in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. Members of Congress are chosen through direct election, though vacancies in the Senate may be filled by a Governor (United States), governor's appointment. Congress has a total of 535 voting members, a figure which includes 100 United States senators, senators and 435 List of current members of the United States House of Representatives, representatives; the House of Representatives has 6 additional Non-voting members of the United States House of Representatives, non-voting members. The vice president of the United States, as President of the Senate, has a vote in the Senate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comparative Politics
Comparative politics is a field in political science characterized either by the use of the '' comparative method'' or other empirical methods to explore politics both within and between countries. Substantively, this can include questions relating to political institutions, political behavior, conflict, and the causes and consequences of economic development. When applied to specific fields of study, comparative politics may be referred to by other names, such as comparative government (the comparative study of forms of government). Definition Comparative politics is the systematic study and comparison of the diverse political systems in the world. Comparative politics analyzes differences in political regimes, governance structures, electoral systems, policy outcomes, and public administration across countries, regions, or time periods. It is comparative in searching to explain why different political systems have similarities or differences and how developmental changes came ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Postpositivism
Postpositivism or postempiricism is a metatheoretical stance that critiques and amends positivism and has impacted theories and practices across philosophy, social sciences, and various models of scientific inquiry. While positivists emphasize independence between the researcher and the researched person (or object), postpositivists argue that theories, hypotheses, background knowledge and values of the researcher can influence what is observed. Postpositivists pursue objectivity by recognizing the possible effects of biases. While positivists emphasize quantitative methods, postpositivists consider both quantitative and qualitative methods to be valid approaches. Philosophy Epistemology Postpositivists believe that human knowledge is based not on a priori assessments from an objective individual, but rather upon human '' conjectures''. As human knowledge is thus unavoidably conjectural, the assertion of these conjectures are ''warranted'', or more specifically, justified ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bernard Crick
Sir Bernard Rowland Crick (16 December 1929 – 19 December 2008) was a British political theorist and democratic socialist whose views can be summarised as "politics is ethics done in public". He sought to arrive at a "politics of action", as opposed to a "politics of thought" or of ideology, and he held that He was a leading critic of behaviouralism. Crick is today popularly remembered for having written the first version of the controversial Life in the UK test, a requirement to obtain British citizenship but criticised since its inception for its factual errors and misrepresentations. Career Crick was born at 77, Circle Gardens, Merton, London, the son of Harry Edgar Crick (died 1968), an insurance official, and Florence Clara, née Cook (died 1987). He was educated at Whitgift School in Croydon.''Who's Who 2007'', London : A. & C. Black, 2007 : 519 He read Economics at University College London, obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree, before transferring to the Londo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naive Empiricism
Naivety (also spelled naïvety), naiveness, or naïveté is the state of being naive. It refers to an apparent or actual lack of experience and sophistication, often describing a neglect of pragmatism in favor of moral idealism. A ''naïve'' may be called a ''naïf''. Etymology In its early use, the word ''naïve'' meant "natural or innocent", and did not connote ineptitude. As a French adjective, it is spelled ''naïve'', for feminine nouns, and ''naïf'', for masculine nouns. As a French noun, it is spelled ''naïveté''. It is sometimes spelled "naïve" with a diaeresis, but as an unitalicized English word, "naive" is now the more usual spelling. "naïf" often represents the French masculine, but has a secondary meaning as an artistic style. "Naïve" is pronounced as two syllables, in the French manner, and with the stress on the second one. Culture The naïf appears as a cultural type in two main forms. On the one hand, there is 'the satirical naïf, such as Candide'. No ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christian Bay
Christian Bay (1921 – May 8, 1990) was a Canadian political theorist and the chairman of the political science department at the University of Alberta in Canada. He formed the ideological basis for the Caucus for a New Political Science of the APSA and an important critique of Behavioral Politics. He is associated with Normative Political Science and the New institutionalism approach of politics. Bay was born in Oslo and received his Ph.D. at the University of Oslo in 1959, with his book ''The Structure of Freedom'' serving as his doctoral dissertation. This work was a psychological study of the quest for freedom and later that year earned him the Woodrow Wilson Foundation's 1959 book award. Bay went on to teach in the United States at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley before becoming chairman of the political science department at the University of Alberta in Edmonton in 1966. He joined the University of Toronto The University of Toront ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
