Assumptions, Empirical Evidence and Social Science Method

The Social Behavior of Chimpanzees and Bonobos: Empirical Evidence and Shifting Assumptions

Molecular studies indicate that humans, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), and bonobos (P. paniscus) are very closely related in a lineage that split into hominid and The Social Behavior Pan lines approximately 6–7 million years ago, possibly following a divergence from the gorilla lineage about 1– of Chimpanzees 2 million years earlier (Caccone and Powell 1989, Ruvolo et al. 1991). Chimpanzees and...

Computational Text Analysis for Social Science: Model Assumptions and Complexity

Across many disciplines, interest is increasing in the use of computational text analysis in the service of social science questions. We survey the spectrum of current methods, which lie on two dimensions: (1) computational and statistical model complexity; and (2) domain assumptions. This comparative perspective suggests directions of research to better align new methods with the goals of soci...

Government Size and Social Capital in Developing Countries; New Empirical Evidence

Social capital is one of the most important subjects in development economics. It has a crucial role in development process in developing countries. To the best of our knowledge, there is no study about the importance of government size in social capital. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is considering the relationship between government size and social capital in 109 developing countries d...

Statistical Assumptions as Empirical Commitments

Researchers who study punishment and social control, like those who study other social phenomena, typically seek to generalize their findings from the data they have to some larger context: in statistical jargon, they generalize from a sample to a population. Generalizations are one important product of empirical inquiry. Of course, the process by which the data are selected introduces uncertai...

Do Social Media Matter? Initial Empirical Evidence