Complex realism in social research

This chapter addresses ‘the methodological foundations of applied social science’. It begins with a critique of existing meta-theoretical positions through a consideration of the implications of understanding social research practice as necessarily post-positivist, focusing in particular on the implications of realism for applied social research. It develops an account of ‘complex realism’ based on the implications of understanding the social world as composed of complex open systems. The chapter deals in summary with two opposing methodological positions which have had considerable influence in relation to formal discussions of the methodological foundations of social research. It reviews the arguments about quantity versus quality: asserts that the methodological disputes between quantitative and qualitative modes of social inquiry are always fatuous. It turns to issues surrounding knowing and acting — the content of the Greek term ‘praxis’ which is the foundation of all conceptions of critical social science, particularly but by no means exclusively as informed by the thinking of Marx.

Despite overwhelming consensus among scientists about the reality of anthropogenic climate change (Bray, 2010; Oreskes, 2004), there remains significant reluctance on the part of citizens and politicians to take the action needed to address it. This resistance has been repeatedly identified in social research (Leiserowitz & Maibach, 2010; Leviston, Leitch, Greenhill, Leonard, & Walker, 2011; Lorenzoni & Pidgeon, 2006; McCright & Dunlap, 2011; Reser, Bradley, Glendon, Ellul, & Callaghan, 2012) and is mirrored by the lack of progress made by salient political summits (Rogelj et al., 2010). Perhaps as a response to this, scholarly journals and articles that are focused on climate change are growing. Natural scientists tell us that we know what needs to be done to avert dangerous climate change (IPCC, 2014), and economists tell us that delaying action in the short term will lead to much greater costs in the long term (Stern, 2007). Understanding public responses to climate change and developing solutions to catalyse action is a critical challenge for the social sciences, and we propose that the development and elaboration of a social psychology of climate change would be a cornerstone of such an approach. We do not make the claim that social psychology has all the answers but rather that the theories, models and research methods of social psychology can provide a powerful arsenal to complement the approaches of other disciplines. Researchers have already begun to apply social psychological theory and methods to the issue of climate change, and we highlight in the following sections examples of the insights that have flowed from this. We cannot assume, though, that our theories and findings will automatically generalise to the climate change context. As Moser (2010) has noted, there are unique dimensions to climate change that make it distinct from other environmental, risk and health issues: The causes of climate change are invisible to humans, the impacts are distal and it is complex and riddled with uncertainties. Modern urban humans are to some extent insulated from their physical environment, and the lags between the climate and social systems make it difficult for people to understand their role in influencing climate. These factors suggest the importance of developing a social psychology of climate change, empirically testing, integrating and refining existing theories and models to develop new frameworks. The notion that psychology can play a role in understanding and addressing climate change is not a new one. The American Psychological Association's Task Force on the interface between psychology and global climate change comprehensively detailed the ways in which psychological research can help to understand people's perceptions of the risks of climate change, the contribution of human behaviour to climate change, the psychosocial impacts of climate change, the ways in which people can adapt and cope with climate change and the psychological barriers that could limit climate change action (Swim et al., 2009, 2011). It is also not a new idea that social psychology can play an important role in understanding and addressing environmental problems and solutions (Clayton & Brook, 2005). Social psychology, specifically, has a long tradition of theory and research that is relevant to addressing key climate change questions. Attitudes, social cognition, persuasion and attitude change, social influence, and intragroup and intergroup behaviour, for instance, are fundamental foci for social psychology and have direct relevance for understanding the human and social dimensions of climate change. The time is ripe to understand the range of research that has been developing in social psychology on attitudes, beliefs and actions, to build upon these insights, and integrate them with knowledge from other sciences to develop models and theories indigenous to the climate change context. In the following section, we provide a brief overview of recent social psychological research that addresses three broad themes relevant to understanding and responding to climate change. These themes are as follows: (i) social psychological influences on climate change attitudes and beliefs; (ii) facilitators and barriers to climate change action; and (iii) changing climate change attitudes and behaviour. Although there is some overlap in these themes, as an organising principle they intuitively map on to key questions that arise in relation to climate change. Our aim is to highlight recent examples of social psychological research that provide interesting and important insights in relation to these themes. Swim, Markowitz, and Bloodhart (2012) have noted that much of the social psychological research on climate change has emerged since 2006; we focus in on the most recent of this research that has been published since 2010. We also outline how the studies in the special issue relate to these themes. We recognise that these are not the only areas where social psychological research and theory can make important contributions but they nevertheless relate to key questions that need to be addressed. We conclude the introduction by proposing considerations that social psychologists could take into account in their future research on climate change. A major focus in the climate change literature and the media more broadly has been on describing climate change attitudes and beliefs. In many developed nations, questions about beliefs and attitudes related to climate change have become a standard component of political polling (e.g. Gallup polls and Lowy Institute polls), and there are comprehensive national and cross-national surveys that address this topic. Examples include US research by the Yale Climate Change Communication project (Leiserowitz, Maibach, Roser-Renouf, & Smith, 2010), national surveys conducted in Australia (Leviston et al., 2011; Reser et al., 2012), and the U.K. (Pidgeon, 2012) and the Eurobarometer research conducted in Europe (The European Opinion Research Group, 2002). As the study of attitudes—their conceptualization, measurement, formation, function and relationship with behaviour—has been a cornerstone of social psychological research, social psychology can make important contributions to these assessments. Note that although social psychological theories usually distinguish between attitudes and beliefs, these terms are often used interchangeably in the climate change research domain, and for the sake of simplicity, we will usually use attitudes to encompass both attitudes and beliefs. Recent reviews of the attitude literature from 1996 to 2009 highlight significant trends and directions in this area of research (Ajzen, 2001; Bohner & Dickel, 2011; Crano & Prislin, 2006). These trends include the role of attitude strength and attitude ambivalence, the distinction between implicit and explicit attitudes, the recognition that attitudes have cognitive and affective underpinnings, and the influence of bodily and external physical cues on attitudes. Recent social psychological research on climate change particularly provides examples of the influence of bodily and external cues and the distinction between cognitive and affective aspects of attitudes, and three of the papers in the special issue address the latter issue. The work on internal bodily and external physical cues is a growing research area with a special issue of the European Journal of Social Psychology devoted to the concept of embodied cognition (Schubert & Semin, 2009). As the distal nature of climate change and the relative insulation of humans from their physical environment are thought to be key barriers to greater engagement with climate change (Moser, 2010), it is perhaps not surprising that this area of research has extended into the climate change domain. Cues that help to 'bring to life' the experience of global warming could help to overcome these psychological barriers. Risen and Critcher (2011) have shown that feelings of warmth increased beliefs in global warming and that this effect was mediated through greater ease in constructing more fluent mental images of hot outdoor images. Other studies have shown that people had greater concern about global warming and donated more money to a global warming charity when they thought that the temperature outside was warmer than usual (Li, Johnson, & Zaval, 2011), that embodied temperature influenced concern for global warming and willingness to volunteer for a global warming group (Lewandowski, Ciarocco, & Gately, 2012) and that priming heat-related cognitions resulted in greater belief in global warming and willingness to pay to reduce global warming (Joireman, Truelove, & Duell, 2010). Physical external cues, in this case the presence of bare trees in the laboratory, also increased belief in global warming (Guéguen, 2012). These studies illustrate how subtle cues can influence climate change attitudes in the moment, although the longevity of these effects on attitudes has not been explored. Another important direction in attitude research that has relevance for climate change is the recognition that attitudes have affective as well as cognitive underpinnings. This is important when considering that the high levels of risk associated with climate change means that it could elicit strong emotional responses. Cognitive approaches to understanding attitudes (e.g. expectancy-value models) have been at the forefront of how we understand attitude formation (Ajzen, 2001). From this perspective, attitudes are the outcome of a cognitive process of evaluating beliefs about the attitude object; for example, a person who has positive beliefs about a climate change policy is likely to hold favourable attitudes to that policy. Consistent with the importance of cognitive, rational processes, Tobler, Visschers, and Siegrist (2012) have shown that perceived costs and benefits of climate change policies were significant predictors of support for these policies and, in most cases, were stronger predictors of behavioural willingness and policy support than other variables (e.g. demographics, climate change concern and climate change scepticism). But there is also evidence for the affective basis of attitudes and even for the primacy of affective aspects of attitudes (Verplanken, Jofstee, & Janssen, 1998; Zajonc, 1984). Recent reviews of the attitude literature suggest that, rather than attitudes being determined by one or the other, affect and cognition are both likely to be important for the formation of attitudes (Ajzen, 2001; Crano & Prislin, 2006). For example, whether affective or cognitive aspects of attitude objects are accessed more readily depends on whether the attitude object itself is more affectively or cognitively based (Giner-Sorolla, 2004). Three articles in the current issue pick up on the cognitive and affective aspects of climate change attitudes and perceptions. Although it seems intuitively likely that having greater knowledge about climate change should be related to climate change attitudes, findings in relation to knowledge have been mixed. Some research has shown that knowing more about the causes and consequences of climate change is associated with greater climate change risk judgments (Sunblad, Biel, & Gärling, 2009), whereas other studies have shown no effects or have suggested the possibility that having more knowledge could even be negatively related to climate change beliefs for those with a politically conservative orientation (Malka, Krosnick, & Langer, 2009; McCright & Dunlap, 2011). Yet, Guy, Kashima, Walker, and O'Neill (this issue) point out that knowledge is usually measured with proxy measures such as scientific literacy or self-reported climate change knowledge rather than objective knowledge of climate change, and therefore, it is premature to dismiss the positive relationship between knowledge and attitudes. Their study used an objective measure of climate change knowledge and shows that people who are more knowledgeable have greater belief that climate change is happening, and, moreover, knowledge attenuates the negative relationship between ideology (i.e. individualism) and climate change attitudes. Van der Linden (this issue) specifically addresses how affect and cognition relate to climate change perceptions. The study investigates the relationship between personal experiences of extreme weather events, affect relating to climate change, and climate change risk perceptions. The results of the structural equation modelling of a national British sample provides support for a dual-process model whereby cognitive appraisals activate risk perceptions, and risk and affect mutually reinforce each other in a feedback loop. The paper by Leviston, Price, and Bishop (this issue) explores the role of affect in climate change responses somewhat differently in that it looks at the images people bring to mind when they think about climate change and assesses the affect associated with these images. The research explores whether the types of images that people associate with climate change might be a way of psychologically and affectively engaging or distancing themselves from climate change. It is not enough that people endorse attitudes that are in tune with scientific consensus on climate change; these attitudes need to translate into positive action, whether that is individual private-sphere behaviours such as 'green' consumerism, public-sphere non-activist behaviour such as voting for political parties with environmentally responsible policies or collective environmental activism that seeks to influence decision-makers (Stern, 2000). These types of distinctions are important as the different classes of behaviour might have quite different facilitators and barriers (Stern, 2000). Another important distinction when considering climate-change-related behaviour is the extent to which it is habitual and automatic versus reasoned and deliberative (Ouellette & Wood, 1998). Automaticity of environmentally harmful behaviour poses a serious barrier, whereas automaticity of environmentally protective behaviour makes future behaviour of this type more likely (Van Lange & Joireman, 2008). Yet another potentially important consideration is the goals associated with behaviours (Lindenberg & Steg, 2007). Behaviours can be performed for a range of reasons, and individuals' perception of their own motives could have implications for their future actions. As an example, energy conservation behaviours could be performed primarily to reduce carbon emissions or to save money; the issue with engaging in environmentally protective behaviours for non-environmental reasons is that it could undermine the development of an environmentalist identity (van der Werff, Steg, & Keizer, 2013) and reduce the likelihood of behavioural spillover (Thøgersen & Crompton, 2009). A range of social psychological theories outline the mechanisms that motivate people to take action, and these have had great reach both inside and outside of social psychology. These theories include (but are not limited to) theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991), self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) and perspectives that foreground the role of norms (e.g. norm focus theory; Cialdini, Reno, & Kallgren, 1990) and the social identity perspective (see Hornsey, 2008 for a recent review). The theory of planned behaviour has been used to examine determinants of a range of private-sphere environmental behaviours including employees' energy-saving behaviours (Greaves, Zibarras, & Stride, 2013; Zhang, Wang, & Zhou, 2014), private landholders' carbon sequestration and trading (Thompson & Hansen, 2013), renewable energy use (Alam et al., 2014) and opposition to wind farms (Read, Brown, Thorsteinsson, Morgan, & Price, 2013). Similarly, research drawing on self-determination theory has identified that experiencing more autonomous, self-determined motivation or perceiving that the government is more autonomy supportive is related to public-sphere and private-sphere environmental behaviours (De Groot & Steg, 2010; Lavergne, Sharp, Pelletier, & Holtby, 2010). Perhaps one of the most important contributions of social psychology to understanding human behaviour has been its theorisation of the influence of social norms (e.g. Cialdini et al., 1990). From a social identity perspective, the social groups to which we belong provide guidelines for appropriate behaviour through the internalisation of group norms (Hogg & Abrams, 1988; Hornsey, 2008). We only need to consider the powerful relationship between political party identification and climate change responses to see evidence of this process (Dunlap & McCright, 2008; Fielding, Head, Laffan, Western, & Hoegh-Guldberg, 2012). According to the social identity perspective, group norms are more likely to guide environmental behaviour when the social identity is more central and salient (Fielding, Terry, Masser, & Hogg, 2008; Terry, Hogg, & White, 1999). Furthermore, in salient intergroup contexts, in-group members tend to polarise away from out-group members, and their environmental intentions and behaviour will become more in-group normative (Ferguson, & 2011; & 2012). and (this issue) our understanding of how social identity and associated in-group norms influences climate-change-related behaviour. on social identity to distinguish between dimensions of group identification and whether different dimensions are more likely to guide behaviour. that extent to which group identity is important to the and rather than among group the relationship between group norms and when those behaviours are high Although much of the research to has focused on understanding and private-sphere environmental and (van & have extended their model of with collective to understand responses to climate change (Van & 2008). on a perspective & Swim, 2011), they propose and provide evidence for for people to with the climate and In the case of climate change, is a likely to be by and to the extent that they they be more likely to take action to reduce their can also be through that to their beliefs about whether group action will be in with climate change. and (this issue) this research by determinants of intentions to in collective climate emotional specifically on and as central and social norms into the Their findings that the perceived norm intentions to take part in a climate perceptions of and group In the section, we a brief overview of theories that could help to understand climate-change-related and these approaches suggest variables to to effect change. For example, research has shown the of to influence environmentally related behaviour et al., 2013; et al., 2010; Cialdini, & 2008; Cialdini, & 2008; & 2013; et al., 2012). In this section, we focus on research that addresses key that might be when to influence climate-change-related attitudes, beliefs and actions. important direction in research has been the of how to climate change to positive in climate change attitudes and beliefs. From a social psychological perspective, one of the of is the role of attitudes in & Dickel, 2011). A of the literature to a effect of attitudes on for versus et al., 2009), and there is evidence that this is more likely when people hold strong attitudes & 2007). This that people's attitudes will influence how they to to change climate-change-related attitudes and beliefs, and research is broadly with this. greater to on climate change with their own & and are more likely to climate when it to their beliefs & 2011; & 2013). In response to this, some have climate to be more when they with the For example, with greater had greater intentions when with that behaviour as the American way of & 2010), and climate greater intentions when with that the positive effects of climate change on the development of new Hornsey, & 2012). the of more we know from the work of and that people are risk and that risk in ways that highlight the of can be more than that focus on In the of climate change where is a of the and (2011) have shown that climate change that the the but the possibility of stronger intentions to and (this issue) on the model of & 2013) to provide a for climate change In they with one of policies that in renewable energy or limit The with the policies was when the with the policy. there was more with a policy of in renewable energy an when it was in terms of whereas greater was for a policy of emissions a when it was as also that the focus of their responses to the Another key issue that be is the possibility of to climate change and the risks to human and from climate change, of and are central to the of climate change. the effects of in relation to health behaviour & & 2000) provide evidence that elicit greater attitude and behaviour change but only when the is by of responses propose that people that response are and they have the to out the they will in behaviours to the there is this in to the such as or The for to climate change is in a study by and greater of climate change among with stronger beliefs who had been with about climate change, whereas this not on more Research has also shown that of to from climate change, particularly can be made more take the perspective of the by climate change (Swim & in to climate change also when social are & 1999). For example, when were to evidence of energy use by their own they were more likely to climate change to causes than when the was about 2013). Furthermore, this greater to causes was negatively associated with climate change concern and support for climate change that help reduce identity can greater engagement with climate change. on the and (2010) that a to reduce the of of climate change and personal with climate change and environmental behaviour. Although can help reduce to climate change, and (this issue) that the for to environmental problems can undermine individuals' willingness to take environmental as progress that can to future environmental and human health problems can reduce the likelihood of engaging in environmentally behaviour. The is perceptions of that a of in an as the idea of scientific progress our the need to through individual actions. The from this research is that it is important not to scientific of the major barriers that has been identified in relation to action to address climate change is the distal nature of the et al., major consequences will in the future and are perceived as more likely to affect other those who are already most This of climate change that that reduce the between and the future or between the and other humans help to overcome this In support of this, that focus on environmental consequences of climate change help climate change engagement & 2013), and to take the perspective of a future human experiencing environmental problems environmental engagement & 2013). The research of and (this issue) to whether our human identity can influence willingness to take environmental Consistent with research, they that are related to greater willingness to in environmental is though, is that priming people who have to think about to have high related to potentially it an intergroup context. This provides evidence of the of about climate change and the need to understand the Social psychology can also point to some and to greater willingness to in to address climate change. and (this issue) that that whether have an versus an can make a to how many behaviours they consider engaging In that had out behaviours they would not consider resulted in being to in more behaviours than an where people consider what they would consider from a In this introduction to the special we highlight areas where social psychological research has important insights to understanding climate change attitudes, beliefs and what influences these and how they can be We used recent social psychological research and the papers from this current issue to illustrate key The strength of a social psychological of climate change is that it can help us to understand the of responses to climate change, for example, how attitudes can be influenced by both affect and cognition, how attitudes and beliefs can responses to climate change and people to climate change with and It can also provide and to the of climate change It is to see the and of social psychological research that addresses important questions related to climate change, although this has been a recent (Swim et al., 2012). we are to to make important contributions to this area of research, though, we propose that social psychologists should consider the following in their future We noted that there are a range of that can take to address climate change, from private-sphere behaviours to non-activist public-sphere behaviours to environmental activism (Stern, 2000). Although all of these approaches can some have greater than & 2009). have greater to influence and and to effect Despite this, social psychological research often investigates private-sphere actions. As a we can our contribution to climate change research by our focus to individual behaviours and public-sphere responses to climate change & 2008). As a we are to what is about climate change. The groups we belong to and the social we can be powerful influences on our attitudes, beliefs and the effect of political identification on climate change attitudes is a of this. area where these have relevance is in the of national and climate change As an example, and (2012) on social identity to the in that when the of individual and other become a identity can that will lead to greater likelihood of The consideration of intergroup and how these or positive responses to climate change (e.g. climate change and introduction of climate change is an area that could provide important A critical distinction made in relation to climate change is between and According to the on Climate Change the to human to reduce the impacts of climate change, whereas the latter to that can be made to human or systems that can help to the or the that would from or climate change and are even the measures will not some of climate change, and is needed to with this (IPCC, Yet the issue of psychological has been in climate change & Swim, 2011). This is for at (i) as noted some of climate change is research on is and (ii) a lack of understanding of could in that to or reduce to climate change that impacts or of other or social & social psychological research is to be a serious to the climate change research greater needs to be focused on of The need to to the distinction between and to the need for social psychologists to work with other disciplines. et we social psychologists to become with the and research of other relevant that address climate change to the relevance and reach of social psychological research in this that solutions to climate change cannot be developed by one the issue systems including and A is and social psychology can make a significant contribution by methods and theories that help social and cognitive In we in this introduction to the special issue to foreground social psychological theories and findings relevant to key climate change questions. Although social psychology can a of and the social psychology of climate change is and more needs to be done we have a of and theories that are to climate change. we this, the of social psychology is likely to be at the of climate We that the special issue can help the progress that has been made and catalyse the development of an indigenous social psychology of climate change. We social psychologists to this that we can be part of the to one of the and environmental of our

Realism and Complexity in Social Science is an argument for a new approach to investigating the social world, that of complex realism. Complex realism brings together a number of strands of thought, in scientific realism, complexity science, probability theory and social research methodology. It proposes that the reality of the social world is that it is probabilistic, yet there exists enough invariance to make the discovery and explanation of social objects and causal mechanisms possible. This forms the basis for the development of a complex realist foundation for social research, that utilises a number of new and novel approaches to investigation, alongside the more traditional corpus of quantitative and qualitative methods. Research examples are drawn from research in sociology, epidemiology, criminology, social policy and human geography. The book assumes no prior knowledge of realism, probability or complexity and in the early chapters, the reader is introduced to these concepts and the arguments against them. Although the book is grounded in philosophical reasoning, this is in a direct and accessible style that will appeal both to social researchers with a methodological interest and philosophers with an interest in social investigation.

Introduction Peter Piot (Executive Director of UNAIDS) challenged Bangkok International AIDS Conference attendees to think ahead 10 years or more so we will be prepared to meet the challenges that will face us [1]. Over this next decade, many formidable challenges are likely to stem from the interactions of social, ecological, political, and economic change; existing social structures; the changing HIV epidemic, and changes produced by emerging biomedicine and viral evolution. Although some challenges will be unpredictable, we should plan ahead for those we are able to anticipate. This paper identifies important social research issues regarding the changing global epidemic so funding agencies, journal editors, social science communities, individual researchers and students, non-governmental organizations, community-based organizations, and the general public can debate them and, hopefully, act on them. Social change is likely to create complex problems for our response to HIV. Weiss and McMichael [2] demonstrate the acceleration of socially-driven epidemic outbreaks of infectious diseases in recent years. As Rischard has argued [3,4], there is a high probability of massive political, ecological and social changes over the next few years. These threaten large-scale disruption of existing social and risk networks, sexual (and injection) mixing patterns, and sexual and injection behaviors that can impede or facilitate HIV transmission – and thus might generate HIV outbreaks parallel to those that followed the disruption of the USSR or that seem to be resulting from the increasing 'globalization' of India and China [5]. Global warming could produce large-scale population movements with similar results. Our reflections here on social change and other possible transformations have not produced a comprehensive or complete list of social research priorities. We have emphasized 'macro' and middle-level processes focusing on social, economic, political and cultural factors that affect HIV spread and/or that influence responses to the threat of HIV (rather than on small group or individual level processes that focus on the psychological and interpersonal) because we think these have received relatively less attention than is needed. We recognize that other researchers might produce different lists. We also recognize that it is important to foreground the probability that socio-epidemiologic contexts are likely to continue to have great cross-national variation and that 'big events' such as wars and transitions, perhaps in interaction with religious revival movements, can rapidly move countries into crisis conditions that pose the threat of explosive HIV outbreaks. Such changes can occur in countries that currently appear politically and economically stable. (It is useful to remember that few analysts in the early 1980s foresaw either the fall of the USSR or the collapse of apartheid in South Africa). The HIV/AIDS epidemic is itself a 'big event' in localities with high prevalence. While acknowledging the above, we propose six major emerging social research issues or themes. These themes, organized in terms of selected social and epidemiologic processes and situations (although noting that research on each of these topics will have at least some relevance everywhere), concern the following items. Wars, transitions, ecological or economic disruptions. Large-scale HIV epidemics, their related illness and death, and their attendant social instability and social disruption. Government policies that ignore or defy available evidence. Stable societies without generalized epidemics, which face distinctive challenges. Emerging biomedicine and its attendant opportunities and (perhaps unintended) social consequences. Possible failure of previously effective therapies due to viral evolution or disruptions in patterns of social organization. Each of these six themes provokes a number of research questions. To answer these questions, the full armamentarium of social science and social epidemiologic research methods will be needed, including theory development; hypothesis-testing and exploratory studies; ethnographic, quantitative, historical, and comparative designs; and intervention trials. In all of these approaches, involving relevant community members, decision-makers, and other actors as full collaborators or as sources of guidance, inspiration or critique, can be invaluable, including those based on participatory action research and on collaborative systematization of experiences [6–8]. Research has documented the effectiveness of community responses to HIV – often in advance of public health interventions [9]. Working with communities means that interventions are informed by community members and are thus more likely to be perceived as appropriate and taken up. However, throughout the epidemic, there has been a relative lack both of researchers interested in topics like those in these six themes and of funding to conduct such research. We close with thoughts about how to address these problems. Social processes and HIV/AIDS Why should social factors affect HIV/AIDS epidemics? The first reason is that HIV is transmitted through sexual and drug-injection networks, which are fundamentally social phenomena. Social norms about appropriate choice, numbers and timing of partners, and about behaviors with those partners, shape crucial network variables such as concurrent sexual and injection partnerships; partner turnover rates; mixing patterns; the size, centrality and microstructures of community network components; and the extent of quasi-anonymous risk nodes such as group sex parties, bath-houses, and shooting galleries [5,10–16]. Social norms, regulations, educational systems and law enforcement processes affect sexual and drug-taking behaviors [17,18]. Social networks, norms and social support shape how people access, interpret and use HIV-prevention information and education, the extent to which people make use of sexually transmitted disease treatments and HIV therapies, HIV counseling and testing, and affect adherence to therapies [19–21]. Economic and political conditions and dynamics affect what services are available and how inconvenient, costly, or stigmatizing it is to use them [22–31]. Finally, events, including large-scale epidemics themselves, that disrupt local or national social networks, communities, services, or social norms, lead to large-scale migration, or initiate large-scale mixing across new sexual or injecting networks, create the potential for risk behaviors or adherence failures that would have previously been prevented – and these, in turn, might lead to epidemic outbreaks [e.g., 32]. Emerging research issues for different processes and situations (A) Wars, transitions, ecological or economic disruptions Aral [5], Hankins et al. [33], and Friedman and Reid [34] have argued that transitions – like those in the former Soviet Union circa 1990, South Africa in the early 1990s, and Indonesia in the late 1990s – and wars can disrupt risk networks and protective social norms and thus lead to HIV outbreaks. However, such outbreaks are not inevitable. Gisselquist [35] and Spiegel [36] show that many African wars have not increased HIV transmission, and the case of the Philippines shows that transitions need not lead to outbreaks either. Furthermore, United States involvement in wars since the early 1990s seems not yet to have accelerated HIV transmission there. Although further research on whether wars or transitions are statistical risk factors for increases may be useful, we suggest that the historical record is strong enough to conclude that both wars and transitions can, on occasion, lead to epidemic outbreaks of HIV – that is, under some conditions, they increase social vulnerability to HIV [37–39]. On the other hand, under other conditions, outbreaks do not occur. This suggests that the following research questions should receive high priority. To identify which pre-existing conditions (including but not limited to gender relationships, sexual culture, and patterns of psychoactive drug use) and social processes can lead to increased HIV vulnerability as a consequence of war, transitions, or, perhaps, of economic breakdown or of ecological change such as global warming [40]. Such research should study how these events: (a) shape norms, behaviors, practices, and sexual, injection and care networks; and (b) affect gender and racial/ethnic power relationships, religious belief systems, poverty, and other middle-level socio-cultural and political economic relationships that influence HIV transmission and the capacity for prevention and care. To consider how affected populations or outsiders might intervene to avert or reduce epidemic outbreaks due to wars, transitions, or other events; and how such responses are shaped by pre-existing social identities, community resilience, patterns of social and political co-operation, and indigenous leadership [41–43]. In terms of research designs, much might be learned from qualitative and quantitative studies that compare countries that did and did not have outbreaks subsequent to such events; that study localities that did not have outbreaks within countries that did; and perhaps by rapid-response research teams that work with local participants and researchers to study emerging prevention efforts, network patterns, behaviors, pockets of emerging high-risk practices, and medical services, together with HIV and sexually transmitted infection rates, during and after wars and transitions. (B) Large-scale HIV epidemics, their related illness and death, and their attendant social instability and social disruption Just as wars, transitions and other processes can disrupt social norms and social, sexual and drug-use networks and communities, HIV/AIDS epidemics large enough to constitute socially-disruptive 'big events' can have similar effects. The research questions that are raised under (A) are also important in these circumstances. The exact definition of 'large enough' probably depends on the rate of spread of HIV over time and also on its socio-economic distribution – and research on how much disruption results from different prevalences and distributions of the virus might be useful. Research is also needed on how to minimize the destruction and maximize the constructive outcomes of social crises that the epidemic produces. Given the extent of HIV in many African countries, and its potential spread in Asia, the emerging social research issues for this context are clearly important [see, for example, 44–51]. These may include the following items. To identify and describe mid-level social forces (such as gender or racial/ethnic power relationships, religious conditions and beliefs, community resilience, and poverty) that create, sustain or reduce high-risk sexual or injection network patterns or behaviors that contribute to high HIV transmission rates – and, most important, to determine how to intervene in these. To describe possible impacts of the epidemic in terms of changes in social, sexual and drug-use networks, norms, culture, gender relationships, community resilience, etc. – and to determine what actions by local and outside agencies and by affected populations can mitigate further infections and social distress. To consider how affected populations and agencies might intervene or organize against individual, community and institutional stigma [52,53]. To determine how populations can be mobilized for risk reduction before mass illness or dying begin. To establish how health systems can be organized for disease control and care in poor countries or under conditions of disruptively high mortality. How can affected and unaffected populations assist in this? How can these efforts be sustained in contexts of socially-disruptive high morbidity and mortality? To determine how to navigate the AIDS crisis so that negative social consequences are minimized and positive social gains initiated or maintained. This question – monumental in scope – has been raised by Mary Crewe and her colleagues [54], and requires both scholarly input and popular action to resolve. (C) Government policies that ignore or defy available evidence Governments' responses to HIV and other health-related issues, and how they are shaped by social structures, competing priorities, and resource availability, are important to study. We emphasize here one aspect of this issue that has been important in the HIV/AIDS epidemic – government policies that ignore or defy available evidence. Since HIV is transmitted by culturally and religiously-sensitive and often, legally prohibited, behaviors, and since government health and policing policies on sex, reproduction, and illicit drug use may themselves contribute to HIV spread and/or to the failure to treat HIV, it is unsurprising that governments sometimes do not implement programs that research has determined to be effective. United States policies on syringe exchange, sex education in schools, programs for sex workers, and intellectual property rights are examples of this [18,55–57], as are the failure of many governments to introduce large-scale methadone programs for opiate users [27] and South Africa's failure for many years to accept that HIV was the proximate cause of the epidemic [58]. Despite this widespread pattern, there has been too little research on the following issues. Why governments ignore and/or flout scientific findings. Effective ways in which internal and external forces can act to change these policies. These are likely to vary depending on the reasons why each government acts this way and on economic, political and other contexts that affect governmental decision-making, including how mass media shape public agendas around HIV/AIDS [59]. (D) Stable societies without generalized epidemics A number of research issues exist for these societies [60,61]. Importantly, although countries such as the Netherlands, Brazil or Saudi Arabia can currently be classified as stable and without generalized HIV epidemics, HIV could spread rapidly under social crises such as those Rischard [3,4] identified, or, indeed, under conditions such as those discussed in the previous section. Furthermore, countries with a stable and comparatively small HIV prevalence may believe that the HIV 'problem' has been solved. Thus, to better manage current issues and to avert possible future disasters, research is needed on the following topics. How to sustain and strengthen cultures that support and care for the sick and that reduce risk behavior and stigmatization over long periods of time; and how to maintain socio-behavioral conditions that limit HIV spread and the rate at which viral mutation reduces the therapeutic efficacy of medications [9,62]. How to develop cultures of risk-reduction and care in countries or localities where stigma is widespread against marginalized groups and/or people infected with HIV [63]. How to mobilize at-risk populations that have not yet created effective cultures of risk reduction and caring. Potential sources of local or national HIV epidemic outbreaks. We suggest that the following questions should be prioritized since they have received less attention than increases in risk behavior: what social and economic processes shape sexual and injection networks in a locality? As economic development projects can disperse and diffuse networks and communities with high HIV prevalence into localities with low infection rates, and since the normative impacts of such relocations can lead to high-risk behaviors, practices, and networks [11,14], what prevention approaches can either prevent these dislocations or mitigate their effects? (E) Emerging biomedicine Medical advances can generate urgent needs for social research. Such needs can include finding ways to implement new medical possibilities but also ways to cope with any (often unintended) negative social consequences of new discoveries; for example, the impact of antiretroviral therapy on risk-reduction among gay men in some countries [64]. Although it is impossible to forecast biomedical progress, the following issues should become foci of increased research effort. To investigate impacts of introduction of new treatments and concomitant increases in HIV-testing on stigma and discrimination [65]. To determine how medical technologies such as vaccines, microbicides or pre-exposure prophylaxis affect behavioral prevention measures and political and economic support for prevention programs. This is especially important for middle to low efficacy prevention technologies [66–68]. To consider social and cultural impacts of anti-HIV circumcision programs [69–74]. Although recent findings indicate that circumcision lowers the likelihood of HIV infection [69], there is concern that circumcised men who view themselves as 'protected' might engage in more unsafe sex. Adult circumcision might also carry risks, especially if performed by inadequately trained medical personnel or traditional healers. Furthermore, since circumcision is deeply rooted in religious systems and in some countries, such as India, is a mark of racial/ethnic difference, circumcision programs potentially could discredit or weaken HIV prevention and care efforts. To identify socio-cultural, organizational, and political economic barriers which impede vaccination among 'general' and/or oppressed or marginalized populations [75–77]. (F) Possible future widespread failure of previously-effective therapies due to viral evolution or social disorganization Although none of us like to think about it, the race between our ability to devise new medications and the evolutionary mutability of HIV could quite possibly be lost. This could happen because of possible limits to the menu of therapies, the loss of economic or other capacity to develop new therapies (perhaps due to ecologically-generated socio-economic dislocations or a worldwide depression), or socio-cultural disruption due to wars or widespread assumption of power by religious fundamentalisms [78,79]. These circumstances could result in considerable increases in morbidity and mortality in regions of the world where therapy has been accessible to the infected, and could also arouse blaming and stigmatization of the sick. Social research might find solutions to these potential problems before they arise. We suggest that the following issues should be addressed. How to minimize traumatic despair (under different conditions of community resilience and leadership) if therapeutic failure leads to resumed mass morbidity and mortality among the infected. How to maintain or regenerate risk reduction under these conditions. How to prevent political blaming and restriction of medications under these conditions. Obstacles to conducting such research Throughout the epidemic, research funding has been scarce, as have researchers to conduct such research, and high-status journals willing to publish it. In part, this results from long-standing differences between scientific disciplines [80]. Few laboratory scientists have training in social scientific theory or methodologies or in social or behavioral epidemiology. Epidemiologists are more likely to be familiar with social-psychologically oriented behavioral theories, and to have been trained in epidemiologic approaches that treat the individual as the unit of analysis and theorization. However, such training provides little basis for understanding or evaluating social research at higher levels of analysis or using theoretical frameworks that incorporate central concepts such as history, power, and culture. Furthermore, such research can appear to the untrained to have controversial political implications and thus to be 'unscientific' regardless of whether it is based on scientifically valid methods. Questions of what counts as 'appropriate' methods profoundly shape what we know, which affects what social researchers can do and publish in public health [81]. Sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, and economists often lack training in natural sciences. In many countries, these disciplines emphasize research that develops the social sciences in their own terms – and thus social scientists risk rejection (and reduced career opportunities) if they engage in applied research rather than research on higher-status questions [82]. What do these disjunctures of expertise and interest lead to? Biomedical research funding for HIV, whether provided by governments or pharmaceutical companies, has overwhelmingly concentrated on basic science, clinical research, and epidemiology using the individual as the unit of analysis, and prevention research focusing on behaviors of individuals [83]. Review committees for major funding agencies such as the US National Institutes of Health are almost always comprised of researchers in these specialties. The few social scientists on these committees have usually spent their careers conducting research on behavior change or HIV risk factors at the level of the individual, and thus have difficulty judging proposals on the topics discussed in this article. Editors and reviewers for the major journals in the field, including this one, have similar strengths and weaknesses. Social science funding agencies (which typically disburse much less money) tend to fund research on the 'core problems' of their disciplines (such as social stratification, cultural dynamics, family and interpersonal structures and dynamics, social cohesion, or deviance), rather than applied problems which may be of lower status within the discipline and, arguably, more appropriate for funding by (socially-educated) biomedical agencies. Even such sub-fields as medical sociology and medical anthropology focus on topics such as cultural definitions and beliefs about illness and health; differences in morbidity and mortality by stress level, socio-economic status, gender, or race/ethnicity; and the formal organization and financing of medical services – rather than on social epidemiology, urban health, or questions of prevention or care for infectious diseases. Thus, these issues receive little research funding; and social scientists who study them risk both failing to obtain funding and stigmatization within their professions [84,85]. We have no magic solution. What we do suggest is that the institutions of HIV research, including funders, journals, and academic institutions, acknowledge the seriousness of the problem. The mutual causal interactions between social, political and economic processes and the ever-changing HIV/AIDS epidemic that are discussed in this review are extremely important. They could determine the fates of millions of people and perhaps even the socio-cultural survival of some nations or ethnic groups. We propose that serious discussions be initiated among those funders, journal editors, and social researchers who have engaged with these issues to establish strategies for incorporating social researchers within the structures of the field, and to identify ways that relevant research results can influence by and community-based organizations, and affected A number of and mid-level social factors shape HIV transmission and care by risk networks, behaviors, and the and of sexually transmitted infections and HIV and care. Social processes such as wars and transitions, as as the interactions among emerging rates of disease viral and the social to these, need to be so we can and reduce the that AIDS The relative lack of this of research has the response – both individual and – to the the issues discussed in this paper do not include all of the important social research issues that need to be addressed. important research is at the and individual levels of important social research issues will that as yet be To the extent that and social research, and so social researchers to the field, we will be more likely to identify these issues and conduct the research in time to maximize and minimize The to acknowledge from and The would like to acknowledge support from a number of was by National on projects and to and among and its norms risk in social and for and HIV and by the of Health and was by the Research Social of HIV/AIDS and was by National on norms risk in social support was provided by International and Research HIV

The world today is witnessing an explosion of social science research. Unlike other disciplines in the natural sciences, social science research has attracted much attention due to its dynamism and complexity (Dube and Pare, 2003). As modern societies become more complex in their structure, needs and demands, social problems have also become more complex. As a result, several social theories and social research methods have been developed and continue to develop in an effort to understand diverse social problems. Presently, social research is in the process of rapid change. This chapter focuses on current methodological issues and emerging trends in social science research. It argues that the challenge for social scientists and researchers worldwide is to continue in the search for a unified consensus on what methodology might have the power and refinement to connect a proposed grand theory with the various midrange theories which, with considerable success, would continue to provide usable frameworks for increasing the overall knowledge of society. Social research is experiencing a paradigm shift that calls for the re-examination of current methodologies. The present review helps identify current methodological issues and trends in social science research. It is important that as social researchers, we should understand the philosophical, theoretical, and methodological debates influencing our work and careers, their implications for research and our place within them.

Part 1 Social research and educational change, Bruce J. Biddle and Don S. Anderson. Part 2 Can social research have an effect?: basic and applied social psychology, Dorwin Cartwright the national interest in the support of basic research, Robert McCormich Adams et al what ails education research, Chester E. Finn Jr. postpositivist criticisma, reform associations and uncertinties about social research, Thomas D. Cook dilemmas in social research, Hubert M. Blalock Jr. why isn't educational research more useful?, Henry M. Levin erosion of the education research infrastructure - a reply to Finn, Richard J. Shavelson and David C. Berliner. Part 3 Models for social research: science and behavioural research, Fred N. Kerlinger paradigm and practice - on the impact of basic research in education, J.W. Getzels social policy research and societal decision making, James S. Coleman reforming educational policy with applied social research, David K. Cohen and Michael S. Garet social psychology as history, Kenneth J. Gergen what is a constructivist paradigm?, Egon G. Guba and Yvonna S. Lincoln. Part 4 Knowledge generation and knowledge distribution: the many meanings of research utilization, Carol H. Weiss knowledge creep and decision accretion, Carol H. Weiss the use of social research knowledge at the national level, Nathan Caplan research and policymaking in education - some possible links, T. Neville Postlethwaite if dissemination is the solution, what is the problem?, Jack Knott and Aaron Wildavsky research models - insiders, gadflies, limestone, Patricia Thomas. Part 5 Research, ideology and educational impact: Brown Vs Board of Education, Irving Louis Horowitz and James Everett Katz special commissions and educational policy in the U.S.A. and U.K., Maurice Kogan and J. Myron Atkin some historical facts about IQ testing, Leon Kamin does evaluation make a difference?, Marvin C. Alkin et al the self-fulfillment of the self-fulfilling prophecy, Samuel S. Wineberg the Manchester statistical society and the foundation of social science research, R.J.W. Selleck.

Een zoektocht naar de identiteit van het sociaalwerkonderzoek: een reflectie over de kenmerken van een academische discipline

National Health Service England (NHSE) plans to eliminate Hepatitis C (HCV) in England by 2025. Although HCV is the focus of this specific NHSE programme, there is also an opportunity...

Chapter 5 returns the focus to the social sciences. The injection of resources into Ireland’s scientific research infrastructure at the end of the 1950s created two new social science research producers – the Rural Economy Division of An Foras Taluntais and the Economic Research Institute. In the former rural sociology took a recognised place alongside a variety of other agriculture-relevant disciplines. In the latter the distinction between the economic and the social was a blurred and indistinct one. During the first half 1960s the unenclosed field of social research was to be the subject of a series of proposals from actors located within the Catholic social movement to a variety of government departments for the creation of research centres or institutes. This chapter details these proposals and the fate of consistent refusal with which they met. Empirical social research in Ireland was funded and organised in a manner that effectively excluded the participation of any Catholic social movement actor without a university base when the government approved the transformation of the Economic Research Institute into the Economic and Social Research Institute. This approval for a central social research organisation was crucially linked to the project of extending the scope of government programming to encompass social development as well as economic expansion.

This paper presents a meta-analysis of social research on water, offering a novel methodological contribution to the study of emerging interdisciplinary research fields. We propose and implement a mixed methods framework that integrates quantitative network analysis with qualitative research, aiming to enhance both to give access to new emerging empirical fields and enhance the analytical depth of empirical social research. Drawing on a dataset of publications from the Web of Science over four distinct time intervals, we identify thematic clusters through keyword co-occurrence networks that reveal the evolving structure and internal dynamics of the field. Our findings show a clear trend toward increasing interdisciplinarity, responsiveness to global events, and contemporary challenges such as the emergence of COVID-19 and the continued centrality of topics related to water management and evaluation. By uncovering latent structures, our approach not only maps the field’s development but also lays the foundation for targeted qualitative analysis of articles representative of identified clusters. This methodological design contributes to the broader discourse on mixed methods research in the social sciences by demonstrating how computational tools can enhance the transparency and reliability of qualitative inquiry without sacrificing its interpretive richness. Furthermore, this study opens new avenues for critically reflecting on the epistemic culture of social water research, particularly in relation to its proximity to applied science and governance-oriented perspectives. The proposed method holds potential relevance for both academic researchers and decision makers in the water sector, offering a means to systematically access dispersed knowledge and identify underrepresented subfields. Overall, the study showcases the potential of mixed methods designs for navigating and structuring complex interdisciplinary research landscapes.

In this review essay I offer a critical assessment of the work of David Byrne, an applied social scientist who is one of the leading advocates of the use of complexity theory in the social sciences and who has drawn on the principles of critical realism in developing an ontological position of ‘complex realism’. The key arguments of his latest book, Applying Social Science: The Role of Social Research in Politics, Policy and Practice constitute the frame of the review; however, since these overlap with those of his previous books, Interpreting Quantitative Data and Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences, I consider all three books together. I identify aspects of Byrne’s ontological position that are in tune with the principles of original and dialectical critical realism and aspects that are not. I argue that these inconsistencies, which Byrne must resolve if he is to take his understanding of complexity further, stem from the residual influence of various forms of irrealism in his thinking.

The objective of the paper is to reflect on the affordances of different techniques for making Twitter collections and to suggest the use of a random sampling technique, made possible by Twitter’s Streaming API (Application Programming Interface), for baselining, scoping, and contextualising practices and issues. It discusses this technique by analysing a one per cent sample of all tweets posted during a 24-hour period and introducing a number of analytical directions considered useful for qualifying some of the core elements of the platform, in particular hashtags. To situate the proposal, the report first discusses how platforms propose particular affordances but leave considerable margins for the emergence of a wide variety of practices. This argument is then related to the question of how medium and sampling technique are intrinsically connected. Background Social media platforms present numerous challenges to empirical research, making it different from researching cases in offline environments, but also different from studying the “open” Web. Because of the limited access possibilities and the sheer size of platforms like Facebook or Twitter, the question of delimitation, i.e. the selection of subsets to analyse, is particularly relevant. Whilst sampling techniques have been thoroughly discussed in the context of social science research, sampling procedures in the context of social media analysis are far from being fully understood. Even for Twitter, a platform having received considerable attention from empirical researchers due to its relative openness to data collection, methodology is largely emergent. In particular the question of how smaller collections relate to the entirety of activities of the platform is quite unclear. Recent work comparing case based studies to gain a broader picture and the development of graph theoretical methods for sampling are certainly steps in the right direction, but it seems that truly large-scale Twitter studies are limited to computer science departments, where epistemic orientation can differ considerably from work done in the humanities and social sciences.

Book reviews

For those of us engaged in the feminist project of seeking to understand social relations, social formations and subjectivities, the cultural turn has posed radical challenges and opened up new ways of thinking. If the terrain that I am calling ‘feminist social research’ – a transdisciplinary space of theoretical and empirical inquiry into the contemporary and historical sphere of the social – rapidly expanded through the 1970s and 1980s, its development soon became ineluctably enmeshed with the deconstructive, post-structuralist questioning of modernist social science and the turn towards culture inaugurated by writers such as Roland Barthes (1972), Clifford Geertz (1975), Jacques Derrida (1976), Marshall Sahlins (1976), Raymond Williams (1977) and, perhaps most significantly, Michel Foucault (1967, 1970, 1972, 1973). Over the past 30 years, across much of the critically orientated social sciences there has been a fundamental epistemological reorientation, from an emphasis on explanation and causation to a focus on practices of interpretation, in which culture is placed centre stage, and social arrangements, events, material artefacts, belief systems, and research data about all of these, are treated as texts. A new emphasis on the entanglement of power and knowledge, the problematisation of the relationship between the researcher and the researched, and the fundamentally political issue of representation, of speaking for others, provoked a new self-reflexivity within disciplines and amongst individual researchers. In this context, Stuart Hall and the Birmingham School (e.g. Hall and Jefferson, 1976; Hall et al., 1978) initiated the new field of cultural studies, drawing on, but also transcending, its roots in Marxist theory and sociology. Alongside the expansion of cultural studies, across the Anglophone academy feminist, lesbian and gay, queer, post-colonial and critical race scholarship has proliferated, both forming the new ‘interdisciplines’ that cross the boundaries between the social sciences and the humanities, and impacting – to a greater or lesser extent – upon the traditional core disciplines of the social sciences. In each of these new areas, the study of culture has been seen as inextricably bound up with the analysis of the social, and the possibility of social explanation has been placed in question. A body of cultural theory that explores social, political, economic and psychic life, and their spatial and historical dimensions, through the lens of culture, has grown out of the new interdisciplines and across the transformed disciplines of the humanities and social sciences. As a result, the distinctive focus and task of critical social research has become profoundly uncertain.

Purpose Despite the increase in empirical studies of social enterprise in management and organization research, the lack of a cohesive knowledge base in this area is concerning. In this chapter, we propose that the underdevelopment of the attendant research infrastructure is an important, but oft-overlooked, barrier to the development of this body of empirical research. Design/methodology We explore this proposition through a review of 55 empirical studies of social enterprises published in the last fifteen years, in which we examine the mix and trajectory of research methods used and the research infrastructure on which these studies depend. Findings We find that empirical research has used social enterprise largely as a context for theory development, rather than deductively testing, and thus building upon, existing theories. The latter pattern is due largely to the absence of two key dimensions of infrastructure: well-defined samples, and consistent, operational measures of social enterprise success. Finally, we identify present trends along both dimensions that contribute to changing the research infrastructure for empirical social enterprise research. Originality/value Our analysis highlights the critical need for research infrastructure to advance empirical research on social enterprise. From this perspective, research infrastructure-building provides an important opportunity for researchers interested in social enterprise and others interested in enabling high-quality empirical research in this setting.