Social Science and the Environment
•	The Return of Environment
•	Behaviorism
•	Freud
•	Emigration
•	Cultural anthropology
•	Liberal values
•	Standard Social Science Model
•	How important is environment?
Long Tradition of Emphasizing Environment
•	Usually submerged by vague heredity claims
•	Enlightenment
•	Environment was important in shaping people
•	Cultural differences were mostly learned
•	People could learn to be “better” humans
•	Hence progress is possible
•	But only with right environments
•	And scientific knowledge of how they affect people
Environmental factors Submerged in 19th Century
•	Support for existing class and status differences
•	Impressive developments in biology
•	The Darwinian “permission”
Changes in Perspective in Early 20th Century
•	Vacuous  biological explanations
•	Behaviorism and the new science
•	Freud and psychoanalysis
•	The immigrant experience
•	Rediscovery of culture
•	Liberal values
•	Standard Social Science Model
The Failure of Biological Explanations
•	Instincts derived from loose Darwinian view
•	Instinct for functional motives
•	But multiplied 
•	Rediscovery of genes
•	Initially gave support to heredity arguments
•	But then group differences seen as too simple
The Rise of Behaviorism
•	Began around 1915
•	Watson
•	Pavlov
•	Promised a full science of human behavior
•	Continuities between animals and humans in terms of process
•	Functional relationships between stimuli and responses
•	Dominant in psychology 1920-1960
•	Also “leaked” into other social sciences
Freud and Psychoanalysis I
•	Product of Enlightenment
•	Progress (as rationality) an important goal
•	Always favored ego over id
•	Biological influences conceived as instincts
•	Initially sex and hunger
•	Then sex and aggression
•	Hobbesian view of human nature
Freud and Psychoanalysis II
•	Complex interactions of biology and culture
•	Channeling of instincts through various means – learned
•	Superego as culturally imported control
•	In practice environmental influences crucial
•	Early experience especially important
•	Environment just as controlling as biology
Influences of Psychoanalysis
•	Influences broad and deep for a while but not lasting
•	Affected all social sciences
•	And huge influence on popular culture
•	Influence waned buy 1950 or 1960
•	Complexity of theory and subsequent amendments
•	Failures of prediction and explanation

The Emigrant Experience
•	Initially immigrants treated as lower humanity
•	But many children achieved quickly
•	Became impossible to treat them as genetically inferior
•	Much early 20th century social science written by immigrant or sons of same
The Rediscovery of Culture
•	Franz Boas (1858-1942)
•	German, trained in geography and geology
•	Columbia University
•	Emphasized historical analysis
•	Emphasized importance of culture, especially group differences
•	No real systematic theory
•	Importance
•	Began anthropological tradition in US
•	Students
Ruth Benedict (1887-1948)
•	Patterns of Culture (1934)
•	Culture was integrated and consistent
•	Consistent with temperament of people
•	Described cultures in terms of dominant personality patterns
•	Much criticized
•	Too general
•	Missed important contrary evidence
Margaret mead (1901-1978)
•	Coming of Age in Samoa (1928)
•	Study of adolescence
•	Argued that stresses we see are largely cultural
•	Sex among adolescents
•	Much criticized
•	Accuracy of observations
•	Spent little time there
•	Great popularizer
Alfred Kroeber (1876-1960)
•	Superorganic culture
•	Divorced culture from individual
•	Thus hard to reconcile culture and human nature
•	Divorced from biology
Liberal Values
•	Progressive era emphasized progress
•	Manipulating environment seen as easiest way to so this
•	And biological explanations had been associated with conservative practices
•	Nazi Germany
The Standard Social Science Model
•	There are few important biological causes of human behavior
•	Culture and its agents can easily overcome or channel those that are
•	Human nature is a fiction
•	Differences people people are largely, perhaps wholly learned
•	Individual differences within groups
•	Group, national, and race differences
How Important is Environment?
•	For contemporary events very important
•	Much behavior controlled by situation
•	Norms
•	Laws
•	Reputation
•	Interacts with personal dispositions
•	Does environment shape dispositions?
Environment in Developmental Perspective
•	Learning of specialized products important
•	Less clear how important general dispositions
•	Hard to find evidence
•	Why?
•	Environments “mirror” biology
•	Single events
•	Maybe environment less important that people think