Social norms are shared standards of acceptable behavior by groups. Social norms can both be informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society, as well as be codified into rules and laws. Social normative influences or social norms, are deemed to be powerful drivers of human behavioural changes and well organized and incorporated by major theories which explain human behaviour. Institutions are composed of multiple norms. Norms are shared social beliefs about behavior; thus, they are distinct from "ideas", "attitudes", and "values", which can be held privately, and which do not necessarily concern behavior. Norms are contingent on context, social group, and historical circumstances.
Neo institutionalism is an approach to the study of institutions that focuses on the constraining and enabling effects of formal and informal rules on the behavior of individuals and groups. New institutionalism traditionally encompasses three major strands: sociological institutionalism, rational choice institutionalism, and historical institutionalism. New institutionalism originated in work by sociologist John Meyer published in 1977.
Economic sociology is the study of the social cause and effect of various economic phenomena. The field can be broadly divided into a classical period and a contemporary one, known as "new economic sociology".
Barry Wellman is an American-Canadian sociologist and is the co-director of the Toronto-based international NetLab Network. His areas of research are community sociology, the Internet, human-computer interaction and social structure, as manifested in social networks in communities and organizations. His overarching interest is in the paradigm shift from group-centered relations to networked individualism. He has written or co-authored more than 300 articles, chapters, reports and books. Wellman was a professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Toronto for 46 years, from 1967 to 2013, including a five-year stint as S.D. Clark Professor.
Nan Lin is the Oscar L. Tang Family Professor of Sociology of the Trinity College, Duke University. He is most notable for his research and writing on social networks and social capital.
Harrison Colyar White is the emeritus Giddings Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. White played an influential role in the “Harvard Revolution” in social networks and the New York School of relational sociology. He is credited with the development of a number of mathematical models of social structure including vacancy chains and blockmodels. He has been a leader of a revolution in sociology that is still in process, using models of social structure that are based on patterns of relations instead of the attributes and attitudes of individuals.
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 society.
In sociology, social psychology studies the relationship between the individual and society. Although studying many of the same substantive topics as its counterpart in the field of psychology, sociological social psychology places relatively more emphasis on the influence of social structure and culture on individual outcomes, such as personality, behavior, and one's position in social hierarchies. Researchers broadly focus on higher levels of analysis, directing attention mainly to groups and the arrangement of relationships among people. This subfield of sociology is broadly recognized as having three major perspectives: Symbolic interactionism, social structure and personality, and structural social psychology.
Social network analysis (SNA) software is software which facilitates quantitative or qualitative analysis of social networks, by describing features of a network either through numerical or visual representation.
Sociology is the scientific and systematic study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. Regarded as a part of both the social sciences and humanities, sociology uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order and social change. Sociological subject matter ranges from micro-level analyses of individual interaction and agency to macro-level analyses of social systems and social structure. Applied sociological research may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, whereas theoretical approaches may focus on the understanding of social processes and phenomenological method.
Sociological institutionalism is a form of new institutionalism that concerns "the way in which institutions create meaning for individuals." Its explanations are constructivist in nature. According to Ronald L. Jepperson and John W. Meyer, Sociological institutionalism
treats the “actorhood” of modern individuals and organizations as itself constructed out of cultural materials – and treats contemporary institutional systems as working principally by creating and legitimating agentic actors with appropriate perspectives, motives, and agendas. The scholars who have developed this perspective have been less inclined to emphasize actors’ use of institutions and more inclined to envision institutional forces as producing and using actors. By focusing on the evolving construction and reconstruction of the actors of modern society, institutionalists can better explain the dramatic social changes of the contemporary period – why these changes cut across social contexts and functional settings, and why they often become worldwide in character.
A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors, sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for analyzing the structure of whole social entities as well as a variety of theories explaining the patterns observed in these structures. The study of these structures uses social network analysis to identify local and global patterns, locate influential entities, and examine network dynamics.
Edward Otto Laumann is an American sociologist. He is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago. Laumann earned his Ph.D. in the Harvard Department of Social Relations in 1964, where he worked with George Homans, Talcott Parsons, and Harrison White. He served as Dean of the social sciences and Provost at Chicago. He is best known for his work on social stratification, urban sociology, organizational sociology, health and aging, and is widely recognized as a pioneer in the areas of social network analysis and the sociology of sexuality. In 2013, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Ronald Breiger is an American sociologist and a Regents Professor, a professor of sociology and government and public policy, an affiliate of the interdisciplinary graduate program in statistics and data science, and an affiliate of the interdisciplinary graduate program in applied mathematics at the University of Arizona. Prior to coming to Arizona he served on the faculties of Harvard University and Cornell University. He is well cited in the fields of social networks, social stratification, mathematical sociology, organizational sociology and cultural sociology and, with Linton Freeman, edited the influential academic journal Social Networks from 1998 to 2006. In 2005 he was the recipient of the Georg Simmel Distinguished Career Award of the International Network for Social Network Analysis,. In 2018 he received the James S. Coleman Distinguished Career Achievement Award of the American Sociological Association (ASA) Section on Mathematical Sociology. In 2020 he was the recipient of the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Award of the ASA Section on Methodology, recognizing a scholar who has made a career of outstanding contributions to methodology in sociology.
Structural holes is a concept from social network research, originally developed by Ronald Stuart Burt. A structural hole is understood as a gap between two individuals who have complementary sources to information. The study of structural holes spans the fields of sociology, economics, and computer science. Burt introduced this concept in an attempt to explain the origin of differences in social capital. Burt’s theory suggests that individuals hold certain positional advantages/disadvantages from how they are embedded in neighborhoods or other social structures.
Arnout van de Rijt is Professor of Sociology at the European University Institute (EUI). Van de Rijt is known for his work on the Matthew effect and social network evolution. He is editor-in-chief of the journal Sociological Science. He is president of the International Network of Analytical Sociology.
Hayagreeva "Huggy" Rao is an American academic. He is the Atholl McBean Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Frédéric Godart is a French sociologist and researcher who is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at INSEAD in Fontainebleau (France). His work is on the dynamics of creative industries, and fashion and luxury. He is co-editor-in-chief of Poetics: Journal of Empirical Research on Culture, the Media and the Arts. Godart's 2012 book is called Unveiling Fashion: Business, Culture, and Identity in the Most Glamorous Industry.
Peter Marsden is an American sociologist. He is the Edith and Benjamin Geisinger Professor of Sociology at Harvard University.
