People · Interaction · Institutions · Populations

Social Sciences

Study human behavior and collective life by changing the scale of the question. The disciplines below are entry points, not sealed boxes: most social questions cross more than one scale.

One human system · many useful zoom levels

Change the scale, and a different kind of question comes into focus.

Psychology may begin with one person; sociology may begin with groups; economics may move between individual choices and institutions. The map below shows useful starting scales without pretending those boundaries are rigid.

01
one person

Individual

What is happening within one mind, body, decision, or developmental history?

02
03
04
How to use the map

Start with the question, not the department name.

A migration question can involve geography, economics, politics, sociology, language, and psychology at once. Pick the field whose tools best match the part of the problem you want to inspect, then cross-link when the question changes scale.

Scale is a lens

The same event can look psychological up close, institutional from the middle distance, and cultural or geographic when you zoom out.