social structure: Social life is structured along the dimensions of time and space. Specific social activities take place at specific times, and time is divided into periods that are connected with the rhythms of social life—the routines of the day, the month, and the year. Specific social…

Spanish literature: The novel: A second postwar current, “social literature,” or “critical realism,” arrived with the so-called Midcentury Generation, who were adolescents during the war; it expressed more vigorous, if necessarily covert, opposition to the dictatorship. In such works as La hoja roja (1959; “The Red Leaf”), which examines poverty and loneliness among…

Ludwig Erhard: …years he applied his “social market system” to the problems of economic renewal with phenomenal results, achieving what has often been called the German “economic miracle.” Based on free-market capitalism, his system included special provisions for housing, farming, and social programs.

marketing: Social marketing: Social marketing employs marketing principles and techniques to advance a social cause, idea, or behaviour. It entails the design, implementation, and control of programs aimed at increasing the acceptability of a social idea or practice that would benefit the adoptors or society. Social…

Social Democratic Party of Japan: …movement combined to form the Social Mass Party (Shakai Taishūtō) in 1932. The left failed to elect many candidates before World War II, and all of Japan’s traditional parties were dissolved in 1940.

probability and statistics: Social numbers: …first social mechanics and later social physics. He wrote often of the analogies linking this science to the most mathematical of the natural sciences, celestial mechanics. In practice, though, his methods were more like those of geodesy or meteorology, involving massive collections of data and the effort to detect patterns…

social media, a form of mass media communications on the Internet (such as on websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos). Social networking and social media are overlapping concepts, but

Encyclopaedia Britannica defines social media as “a form of mass media communications on the Internet (such as on websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos).” At the start of 2025, 73 percent

social mobility, movement of individuals, families, or groups through a system of social hierarchy or stratification. If such mobility involves a change in position, especially in occupation, but no change in social class, it is called “horizontal mobility.” An example would be a person who moves

social movement, a loosely organized but sustained campaign in support of a social goal, typically either the implementation or the prevention of a change in society’s structure or values. Although social movements differ in size, they are all essentially collective. That is, they result from the

social network, in computers, an online community of individuals who exchange messages, share information, and, in some cases, cooperate on joint activities. Social networking and social media are overlapping concepts, but social networking is usually understood as users building communities among

David Fincher: He then helmed The Social Network (2010), a portrait of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s rise to power. The film was hailed by many critics as a 21st-century analogue to Citizen Kane, and Fincher won the best director Golden Globe and was nominated for an Academy Award.

norm, rule or standard of behaviour shared by members of a social group. Norms may be internalized—i.e., incorporated within the individual so that there is conformity without external rewards or punishments, or they may be enforced by positive or negative sanctions from without. The social unit

social problem novel, work of fiction in which a prevailing social problem, such as gender, race, or class prejudice, is dramatized through its effect on the characters of a novel. The type emerged in Great Britain and the United States in the mid-19th century. An early example is Elizabeth

social structure, in sociology, the distinctive, stable arrangement of institutions whereby human beings in a society interact and live together. Social structure is often treated together with the concept of social change, which deals with the forces that change the social structure and the

A.R. Radcliffe-Brown: …classic formulation and application in The Social Organisation of Australian Tribes (1931). Treating all Aboriginal Australia known at the time, the work cataloged, classified, analyzed, and synthesized a vast amount of data on kinship, marriage, language, custom, occupancy and possession of land, sexual patterns, and cosmology. He attempted to explain…

Charles Horton Cooley: In Social Organization (1909, reprinted 1956), Cooley outlined the objective consequences of his psychological views. He argued that the ideal of the moral unity of society, involving qualities of loyalty, justice, and freedom, was derived from face-to-face relationships in primary groups such as the family and…

parasitism: …other species, is known as social parasitism. (Social parasitism is a condition where a parasitizing ant species depends upon the labour provided by a host ant species within the context of a mixed-species colony.) Parasites may also become parasitized; such a relationship, known as hyperparasitism, may be exemplified by a…

Colombia: Colombia in the 21st century: …the principal founders of the Social Party of National Unity (Partido Social de Unidad Nacional), which was created by supporters of Uribe, most of whom, like Uribe, had left the Liberal Party. In July 2010 relations with Colombia were severed by Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chávez in response to Colombian allegations…

social anxiety disorder (SAD), a type of anxiety disorder characterized by a fear of interacting with people, due to worries over the possibility of being negatively scrutinized and judged by them. Social anxiety disorder (SAD) was once referred to as social phobia; however, the label of “phobia,”

probability and statistics: Social numbers: …first social mechanics and later social physics. He wrote often of the analogies linking this science to the most mathematical of the natural sciences, celestial mechanics. In practice, though, his methods were more like those of geodesy or meteorology, involving massive collections of data and the effort to detect patterns…

Spanish literature: Poetry: Leaders of postwar poesía social (social poetry) are sometimes referred to as a “Basque triumvirate”: Gabriel Celaya, a prewar Surrealist who became a leading spokesman for the opposition to Franco; Blas de Otero, an existentialist writing in the vein of Antonio Machado’s Campos de Castilla; and Ángela Figuera,…

social status, the relative rank that an individual holds, with attendant rights, duties, and lifestyle, in a social hierarchy based upon honour or prestige. Status may be ascribed—that is, assigned to individuals at birth without reference to any innate abilities—or achieved, requiring special

social class, a group of people within a society who possess the same socioeconomic status. Besides being important in social theory, the concept of class as a collection of individuals sharing similar economic circumstances has been widely used in censuses and in studies of social mobility. The

social issue, a state of affairs that negatively affects the personal or social lives of individuals or the well-being of communities or larger groups within a society and about which there is usually public disagreement as to its nature, causes, or solution. The term social issue is frequently

social problem novel, work of fiction in which a prevailing social problem, such as gender, race, or class prejudice, is dramatized through its effect on the characters of a novel. The type emerged in Great Britain and the United States in the mid-19th century. An early example is Elizabeth

Charles Horton Cooley: In his last major work, Social Process (1918, reprinted 1966), he applied the Darwinian principles of natural selection and adaptation to collective (social) existence.

social movement: Relations between structural elements: Values include the program and the ideology. The program is the scheme of change, the new social order that the movement proposes to bring about. The ideology is a body of ideas justifying the program and the strategy of the movement. It usually includes a reinterpretation of history,…

social welfare program, any of a variety of governmental programs designed to protect citizens from the economic risks and insecurities of life. The most common types of programs provide benefits to the elderly or retired, the sick or invalid, dependent survivors, mothers, the unemployed, the

Paraguay: Health and welfare: The state-run Institute of Social Provision (IPS) is funded by contributions from government, employers, and employees. It offers pensions, medical care, and subsidies during illness but reaches only a small percentage of the salaried workers.

social psychology, the scientific study of the behaviour of individuals in their social and cultural setting. Although the term may be taken to include the social activity of laboratory animals or those in the wild, the emphasis here is on human social behaviour. Once a relatively speculative,

Edward A. Ross: …read book by Ross was Social Psychology (1908), one of the first American works written specifically on that discipline. Sin and Society (1907) was his argument in favour of sociological jurisprudence. His Principles of Sociology (1920) was for years a standard introductory textbook.

Social Realism, trend in American art originating in about 1930 and referring in its narrow sense to paintings treating themes of social protest in a naturalistic or quasi-expressionist manner. In a broader sense, the term is sometimes taken to include the more general renderings of American life

American literature: Realism and metafiction: …novelists were reluctant to abandon Social Realism, which they pursued in much more personal terms. In novels such as The Victim (1947), The Adventures of Augie March (1953), Herzog (1964), Mr. Sammler’s Planet (1970), and

Richard Quinney: In The Social Reality of Crime (1970), for example, he concluded that public conceptions of crime are constructed in the political arena to serve political purposes. Taking a neo-Marxist approach in Critique of Legal Order (1974), he introduced a theory of legal order intended to demystify…

education: Social-reconstructionist education: A different social-reconstructionist movement was that of the kibbutzim (collective farms) of Israel. The most striking feature of kibbutz education was that the parents forgo rearing and educating their offspring themselves and instead hand the children over to professional educators, sometimes immediately after birth. The kibbutzim type…

Ottoman Empire: Reform efforts: The Ottoman reforms introduced during the 17th century were undertaken by Sultans Osman II (ruled 1618–22) and Murad IV (1623–40) and by the famous dynasty of Köprülü grand viziers who served under Mehmed IV (1648–87)—Köprülü Mehmed Paşa

Social Register, annually published directory purporting to list the socially prestigious members of society in 13 selected U.S. cities. It is administered and published in New York City by the Social Register Association, which refuses any interviews about its publication and which will not

Frankfurt School: …of researchers associated with the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, who applied Marxism to a radical interdisciplinary social theory. The Institute for Social Research (Institut für Sozialforschung) was founded by Carl Grünberg in 1923 as an adjunct of the University of Frankfurt; it was the first…

anarchism: Anarchism in East Asia: …was the idea of “social revolution”—i.e., the idea that revolutionary political change cannot occur without radical changes in society and culture, specifically the elimination of social institutions that are inherently coercive and authoritarian, such as the traditional family. Although some anarchists in East Asia sought to create revolution through…

Turkmenistan: Soviet era: …of sporadic fighting between the Social Revolutionary Transcaspian Provincial Government and the Bolshevik troops trying to penetrate from Tashkent. The Social Revolutionaries were for a time supported by a small British force of 1,200 men with its headquarters in northeastern Iran. The British force was withdrawn in April 1919, and…

social science, any branch of academic study or science that deals with human behaviour in its social and cultural aspects. Usually included within the social sciences are cultural (or social) anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, and economics. The discipline of historiography is

philosophy of social science, branch of philosophy that examines the concepts, methods, and logic of the social sciences. The philosophy of social science is consequently a metatheoretical endeavour—a theory about theories of social life. To achieve their end, philosophers of social science

George W. Bush: Social Security and immigration: The major domestic initiative of Bush’s second term was his proposal to replace Social Security (the country’s system of government-managed retirement insurance) with private retirement savings accounts. The measure attracted little support, however, mainly because it would have required significant cuts…

The Social Security trust fund has been paying out more in benefits than it collects in employee taxes since 2010, and it is projected to run short of money by 2033. One proposal to replace the current government-administered system is the partial privatization of Social Security, which would allow

social security, any of the measures established by legislation to maintain individual or family income or to provide income when some or all sources of income are disrupted or terminated or when exceptionally heavy expenditures have to be incurred (e.g., in bringing up children or paying for

New Zealand: Nationalism and war: In 1938 the Social Security Act provided a state medical service, extended the pension system, and increased benefits. The expansion of secondary industry was accelerated after the outbreak of World War II in 1939.

Social Security Act, (August 14, 1935), original U.S. legislation establishing a permanent national old-age pension system through employer and employee contributions; the system was later extended to include dependents, the disabled, and other groups. Responding to the economic impact of the Great

Eveline M. Burns: Her landmark textbook, Social Security and Public Policy (1956), investigates the factors involved in economic policy decisions through comparative analysis. Throughout her career, in addition to teaching and writing books, Burns contributed numerous articles to professional journals and served as a consultant to several federal agencies. She held…

On October 24, 2025, the Social Security Administration released its cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for 2026. Beginning in January 2026, Social Security recipients will see a 2.8% increase in their monthly payments—slightly higher than the 2.5% adjustment in 2025—to help offset inflation. In

cybercrime: Identity theft and invasion of privacy: …official identity card but a Social Security number that has long served as a de facto identification number. Taxes are collected on the basis of each citizen’s Social Security number, and many private institutions use the number to keep track of their employees, students, and patients. Access to an individual’s…

progressive tax: For example, social security taxes in the United States are levied only up to an inflation-adjusted wage cap, meaning that wages beyond the cap are free of this particular tax. Considered on its own, then, the social security tax appears regressive because low-wage earners pay proportionately more…

social service, any of numerous publicly or privately provided services intended to aid disadvantaged, distressed, or vulnerable persons or groups. The term social service also denotes the profession engaged in rendering such services. The social services have flourished in the 20th century as

Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge: …in the pages of the Social Service Review, a highly regarded journal of which she was cofounder in 1927 and which she edited until 1948.

social settlement, a neighbourhood social welfare agency. The main purpose of a social settlement is the development and improvement of a neighbourhood or cluster of neighbourhoods. It differs from other social agencies in being concerned with neighbourhood life as a whole rather than with

Emma Goldman: …were published in 1914 as The Social Significance of the Modern Drama. She also lectured on “free love,” by which she meant an uncoerced attachment between two persons for whom conventions of law and church were irrelevant, and she was jailed briefly in 1916 for speaking out on birth control.

infancy: …all normal infants show a social smile that invites adults to interact with them, and at about six months of age infants begin to respond socially to particular people to whom they have become emotionally attached.

social science: Heritage of the Enlightenment: …of what might be called social speciation—that is, the emergence of one institution from another in time and of the whole differentiation of function and structure that goes with this emergence.

Herbert Spencer: Life and works: In 1851 he published Social Statics, which contained in embryo most of his later views, including his argument in favour of an extreme form of economic and social laissez-faire. About 1850 Spencer became acquainted with the novelist George Eliot, and his philosophical conversations with her led some of their…

social science: Social statistics and social geography: Two final 19th-century trends to become integrated into the social sciences in the 20th century are social statistics and social (or human) geography. At that time, neither achieved the notability and acceptance in colleges and universities that such fields as…

social status, the relative rank that an individual holds, with attendant rights, duties, and lifestyle, in a social hierarchy based upon honour or prestige. Status may be ascribed—that is, assigned to individuals at birth without reference to any innate abilities—or achieved, requiring special

African dance: The social context: In societies that stress horizontal stratification into age sets, the qualities proper to a particular age are expressed in dances, as in those that keep young men physically fit and teach them the discipline necessary in warfare. The dances of young Zulu and Ndebele men in Southern Africa recall the…

social structure, in sociology, the distinctive, stable arrangement of institutions whereby human beings in a society interact and live together. Social structure is often treated together with the concept of social change, which deals with the forces that change the social structure and the

social structure: Structure and social organization: Murdock, in his book Social Structure (1949), examined kinship systems in preliterate societies and used social structure as a taxonomic device for classifying, comparing, and correlating various aspects of kinship systems.

Fran Lebowitz: Books and writer’s blockade: …soon followed by another collection, Social Studies (1981). Both books were best sellers, and it was not long before Lebowitz signed a publisher’s contract, with a hefty advance, to write a novel called Exterior Signs of Wealth. However, she was gripped by writer’s block, and she never finished the novel.…

consumer surplus, in economics, the difference between the price a consumer pays for an item and the price he would be willing to pay rather than do without it. As first developed by Jules Dupuit, French civil engineer and economist, in 1844 and popularized by British economist Alfred Marshall, the

Talcott Parsons: In The Social System (1951), he turned his analysis to large-scale systems and the problems of social order, integration, and equilibrium. He advocated a structural-functional analysis, a study of the ways in which the interrelated and interacting units that form the structures of a social system…

systems theory, in social science, the study of society as a complex arrangement of elements, including individuals and their beliefs, as they relate to a whole (e.g., a country). The study of society as a social system has a long history in the social sciences. The conceptual origins of the

Ernst Troeltsch: Life and works: …his best known work, Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen. In that work he explored the relationships between and within social and cultural groups in the context of the social ethics of the Christian churches, denominations, and sects. In 1915, realizing that his strength lay more in the philosophy…

Robert K. Merton: In Social Theory and Social Structure (1949; rev. ed. 1968), Merton developed a theory of deviant behaviour based on different types of social adaptation. He defined the interrelationship between social theory and empirical research, advancing a structural-functional approach to the study of society and creating the…

group therapy: Social, or milieu, therapy for institutionalized patients represents an extension of group therapeutic principles to make the mental hospital a therapeutic community, all aspects of which will help to restore the patients’ mental health. This involves the creation of a positive, supportive atmosphere and a…

rite of passage: Ceremonies of social transformation: Ceremonies of social transformation include all the life-cycle ceremonies, since these involve social transitions for the subjects of the ritual and also for other persons. A man or woman who dies, for example, assumes a new social role as a spirit…

collective behavior: Social unrest: The general condition of the community in which milling is both frequent and widespread and in which rumor is recurrent is the crucible in which the more highly organized forms of collective behavior develop. This condition, known as social unrest, can lead to…

Social War, (90–89 bc), rebellion waged by ancient Rome’s Italian allies (socii) who, denied the Roman franchise, fought for independence. The allies in central and southern Italy had fought side by side with Rome in several wars and had grown restive under Roman autocratic rule, wanting instead

Isocrates: Isocrates as rhetorician: …was divided first by the Social War, precipitated by the Athenian policy of sending cleruchies (colonizing groups) to Samos, the subjection of Cos and Naxos to Athenian jurisdiction, and the arbitrary demands of Athenian generals for money, and then by the Sacred War, fought as a result of the refusal…

social weaver, any of a number of small African birds of the family Ploceidae (order Passeriformes) that are extremely gregarious. This name is given particularly to Philetairus socius, which makes an “apartment house” in a tree: dozens of pairs of these little black-chinned birds cooperate

International Council on Social Welfare: …and local organizations dedicated to social welfare, social development, and social justice. It was founded in Paris in 1928. Its international headquarters are in Utrecht, Neth., and Kampala, Ugan.

social welfare program, any of a variety of governmental programs designed to protect citizens from the economic risks and insecurities of life. The most common types of programs provide benefits to the elderly or retired, the sick or invalid, dependent survivors, mothers, the unemployed, the

social service, any of numerous publicly or privately provided services intended to aid disadvantaged, distressed, or vulnerable persons or groups. The term social service also denotes the profession engaged in rendering such services. The social services have flourished in the 20th century as

social service: Modern evolution: …public assistance officials and the social workers of today in his command of statutory financial aid. The voluntary charitable agencies of the time differed on the relative merits of deterrent poor-law services on the one hand, implying resistance to the growth of statutory welfare, and on the provision of alternative…

Louis Blanc: Theory of socialism.: …work for everyone by establishing “social workshops” financed by the state. These workshops, controlled by the workers themselves, would gradually take over most production until a socialist society would come into being. Blanc did not believe in human equality. But he did not agree with the followers of the socialist…

Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party, Marxist revolutionary party ancestral to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Founded in 1898 in Minsk, the Social-Democratic Party held that Russia could achieve socialism only after developing a bourgeois society with an urban proletariat. It rejected

Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party, Marxist revolutionary party ancestral to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Founded in 1898 in Minsk, the Social-Democratic Party held that Russia could achieve socialism only after developing a bourgeois society with an urban proletariat. It rejected

economic development: Surplus resources and disguised unemployment: …for the construction of major social-overhead-capital projects arises from an inadequate consideration of the problem of providing the necessary subsistence fund to maintain the workers during what may be a considerably long waiting period before these projects yield consumable output. This may be managed somehow for small-scale local-community projects when…

infant stimulation program: Forms of stimulation and administration: …“infant-centred” and to incorporate a social-psychological component (SPC). Infant-centred programs focus on the infant’s communication to the caregiver about the types and amounts of sensory stimulation that the infant can tolerate—e.g., an infant’s eye-to-eye contact with a caregiver indicates tolerance of the stimulation, whereas the infant’s looking away from the…

education: Social-reconstructionist education: A different social-reconstructionist movement was that of the kibbutzim (collective farms) of Israel. The most striking feature of kibbutz education was that the parents forgo rearing and educating their offspring themselves and instead hand the children over to professional educators, sometimes immediately after birth. The kibbutzim type…

strain theory, in sociology, proposal that pressure derived from social factors, such as lack of income or lack of quality education, drives individuals to commit crime. The ideas underlying strain theory were first advanced in the 1930s by American sociologist Robert K. Merton, whose work on the

Thorvald Stauning: After leading the Social Democratic Party to its greatest electoral victory in 1935, Stauning benefitted from improving economic conditions in the late 1930s. He failed in 1939, however, to gain a constitutional reform to create a unicameral parliamentary system. Although his government signed a nonaggression treaty with Germany…

socialism, social and economic doctrine that calls for public rather than private ownership or control of property and natural resources. According to the socialist view, individuals do not live or work in isolation but live in cooperation with one another. Furthermore, everything that people

Jean-Luc Godard: Later work and awards of Jean-Luc Godard: …experimental collage Film socialisme (2010; Film Socialism); and Adieu au langage (2014; Goodbye to Language), a fragmented narrative about a man, a woman, and a dog, filmed in 3-D. Le Livre d’image (2018; The Image Book) is a cinematic essay, featuring a montage of film clips, photographs, and wartime footage,…

Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov: Formulation of Russian Marxism: In two major works, Socialism and Political Struggle (1883) and Our Differences (1885), he launched a destructive critique of populism and laid the ideological basis of Russian Marxism. Russia, he argued, had been caught up in a capitalistic development that was altering its social structure and creating the conditions…

communism: Stalinism: …was the idea of “socialism in one country”—i.e., building up the industrial base and military might of the Soviet Union before exporting revolution abroad. To this end, Stalin rescinded the NEP, began the collectivization of Soviet agriculture, and embarked on a national program of rapid, forced industrialization. Specifically, he…

Socialist Party of America, U.S. national political party founded in 1901 from the merger of the Social Democratic Parties of Chicago and Springfield, Massachusetts, and other independent state socialist groups. The party attracted a membership of immigrant and American-born workers, farmers,

Mao Zedong: Retreat and counterattack: …a struggle, primarily through the Socialist Education Movement in the countryside, and it was over the guidelines for that campaign that the major political battles were fought within the Chinese leadership. At the end of 1964, when Liu Shaoqi refused to accept Mao’s demand to direct the main thrust of…

philosophical feminism: Feminist social and political philosophy: …to address women’s concerns, the socialist feminists Alison Jaggar and Iris Marion Young appropriated Marxist categories, which were based on labour and economic structures. Criticizing traditional Marxism for exaggerating the importance of waged labour outside the home, socialist feminists insisted that the unpaid caregiving and homemaking that women are expected…

Lee Kuan Yew: Early life and political beginnings: …the party to form the Barisan Sosialis (“Socialist Front”), and Lee subsequently cut his remaining ties with the communists. Henceforth Lee and his fellow moderates within the PAP would dominate Singaporean politics.

Second International, federation of socialist parties and trade unions that greatly influenced the ideology, policy, and methods of the European labour movement from the last decade of the 19th century to the beginning of World War I. The Second International was founded at a congress in Paris in

Socialist International (SI), association of national socialist parties that advocates a democratic form of socialism. After World War II the reinstitution of an international federation of working-class parties took place in gradual stages. First, an information and liaison office was established

Daniel De Leon: In 1890 he joined the Socialist Labor Party. Within a few years he became one of the leading figures in the party, editing its newspaper and helping to transform it into a disciplined national organization. He excoriated the labour union leadership of the day as insufficiently radical and in 1895…

Wilhelm Liebknecht: …Lassalleans and Liebknechtians as the Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands (Socialist Labour Party) at Gotha in 1875. The Gotha Program, a compromise between the positions of the two parties—although criticized by Marx for its call for government-aided productive organizations—remained the charter of German socialism until the adoption of the Erfurt Program in…