Social Emergence: Societies As Complex Systems - Hardcover

Sawyer, R. Keith

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521844649 ISBN 13: 9780521844642

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2005

Synopsis

Can we understand important social issues by studying individual personalities and decisions? Or are societies somehow more than the people in them? Sociologists have long believed that psychology can't explain what happens when people work together in complex modern societies. In contrast, most psychologists and economists believe that if we have an accurate theory of how individuals make choices and act on them, we can explain pretty much everything about social life. Social Emergence takes a new approach to these longstanding questions. Sawyer argues that societies are complex dynamical systems, and that the best way to resolve these debates is by developing the concept of emergence, focusing on multiple levels of analysis - individuals, interactions, and groups - and with a dynamic focus on how social group phenomena emerge from communication processes among individual members. This book makes a unique contribution not only to complex systems research but also to social theory.

About this title

Review:

'... I enjoyed reading this book. It is clearly written and describes challenging theories in an accessible way. I also found it thought provoking for my own research.' Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation

Book Description:

Sawyer addresses a key issue in sociology, the relation between the individual and the group. He argues that societies are complex dynamical systems, and that the best way to resolve the debates between sociologists, psychologists and economists is by developing the concept of emergence focusing on multiple levels of analysis.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0521844649
• ISBN 13: 9780521844642
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 286