Sociology

Sociology, the scientific study of human social relations or group life. Other disciplines within the social sciences—including economics, political science, anthropology, and psychology—are also concerned with topics that fall within the scope of human society. Sociologists examine the ways in which social structures and institutions—such as class, family, community, and power—and social problems—such as crime and abuse—influence society.
Social interaction, or the responses of individuals to each other, is perhaps the basic sociological concept, because such interaction is the elementary component of all relationships and groups that make up human society. Sociologists who concentrate on the details of particular interactions as they occur in everyday life are sometimes called microsociologists; those concerned with the larger patterns of relations among major social sectors, such as the state and the economy, and even with international relations, are called macrosociologists

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