biosociologyn.
/bʌɪəʊʃɪˈɒlədʒi/, /bʌɪəʊsəʊˌsəʊsɪˈɒlədʒi/, U.S. /ˌbaɪoʊˈˌsoʊsiˈɑlədʒi/, /ˌbaɪoʊˌsoʊʃ(i)ˈɑlədʒi/ Chiefly Social Sciences.
The study of how interacting social and biological factors influence human behaviour; spec. a branch of study which uses knowledge or methods from the life sciences to analyse and interpret social behaviour. Cf. sociobiology n.In later use, considered distinct from sociobiology which seeks to explain the ultimate causes of human and animal behaviour, esp. using evolutionary theory.
ΘΚΠ
society > society and the community > study of society > [noun] > other branches
social history1814
social geography1828
social dynamics1843
social statics1843
socio-economics1893
genetics1896
biosociology1897
social engineering1899
social morphology1899
psychosociology1902
socionomics1902
political sociology1905
sociobiology1912
social planning1913
social constructionist1925
futurology1946
sociobiology1946
structural anthropology1950
squalorology1961
proxemics1963
future research1969
women's studies1969
future study1971
social constructionism1976
social constructivism1981
1897 State Hospitals Bull. (N.Y. State Hospital Commission) 2 462 (title) Notes on criminal anthropology and bio-sociology. Being a Study of Seventy-Three Irish and Irish-American Criminals.
1901 G. Gissing Our Friend the Charlatan ii. 22 ‘It's uncommonly suggestive,’ said Dyce... ‘The best social theory I know. He [sc. J. Izoulet] calls his system Bio-Sociology, a theory of society founded on the facts of biology.’
1931 Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. 37 210 Most progress so far has been made in social psychology, educational psychology, and social biology or bio-sociology, including population and human ecological studies.
1975 Ann. Amer. Acad. Polit. & Social Sci. 417 205 After the Revolution sociology became, by official decree, historical materialism, although such subjects as biosociology (the relationship between organic and social forces) and criminology were temporarily tolerated.
1995 A. Walsh Biosociology: Emerging Paradigm i. 1 Sociobiological explanations are concerned with the ultimate ‘whys’ of a phenomenon in terms of evolved species traits, and biosociology is concerned with the ‘hows’ of a phenomenon in terms of less distal and more proximate causes.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, November 2010; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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