SURI

Social sciences are often also called behavioral sciences. Both terms refer to the use of scientific methods to study the behavior of human beings across a wide range of contexts, cultures, and settings. The social sciences as disciplines deal with "the institutions and functioning of human society and with the interpersonal relationships of individuals as members of society." [Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary]

In recent years, the social sciences have converged with the STEM disciplines. Consequently,there's a lot of social sciences research, studies and materials available in non-social sciences databases. To be a truly good social sciences researcher, one must be flexible and able to adjust to STEM databases.

Social sciences disciplines taught at UC Merced include:

• Economics
• Sociology
• Management
• Psychology
• Political Science
• Anthropology
• Critical Race and Ethnic Studies

To locate databases for any discipline in the social sciences, do the following:

• Go to the UC Merced library webpage: https://library.ucmerced.edu/
• Click "Databases," under the UC Library Search logo. You can also place your cursor over "Our Collections" in the menu bar. This will bring up a menu. Choose "Library Databases."
• Once you're at the A-Z Databases list, use the pulldown menu called "All Subjects." Within this menu, you can choose a grouping of databases in any discipline, including social sciences disciplines. In the example below, the menu shows 18 databases of use to those researching topics in anthropology.

• If you choose Anthropology from the list of subjects above, you'll be taken to a list of databases with materials related to Anthropology. The top of the list features a box with the best databases for Anthropology research. However: always remember that databases other than those directly related to the social sciences may have good information related to the social sciences.

Almost all social sciences databases have a few things in common - and one thing that is DIFFERENT across databases. We'll start with the commonalities.

• RELEVANCE: most databases have a "relevance" option, usually towards the top of the page. This lets you re-sort the results of any search you perform, so that you can choose the way your search results are displayed. "Relevance" is usually the default. With "Relevance," your database search retrieves articles and displays them according to how relevant the article is to the search, with no regard to date, title, or anything else. Additional options for displaying search results can include "Date newest first," which means that the most recently published item will appear first in your list of results, or "Date oldest first," which means that the oldest item will appear first in your search.
   
• PUBLICATION DATE: You can choose a date range for your search results, or limit your results to the last 5-10 years of published materials.
   
• SCHOLARLY ARTICLES: You can also limit your search results to articles published in academic/scholarly journals. Depending on the sort of research you're doing, this can be an extremely useful option. However, be aware: some databases will retrieve items that are published in scholarly journals that are NOT scholarly: book reviews, letters to the editor, job announcements, etc. It's always best to review your search results carefully.

And one item that will vary from database to database:

• THESAURUS (also called SUBJECT GUIDE, SUBJECT TERMS, TERMS, and other descriptors)
  Because every discipline has its own terminology and catchphrases, the list of subject terms will vary widely across databases, which are (despite their interdisciplinary nature) unique to particular disciplines. For example, "teenager" in one database may mean persons between the ages of 13 to 19, but may mean something dfferent in a psychology database, which uses "adolescent" or a specific date range to describe the same concept.

• FOCUS: The social sciences deal uniquely with human behavior. In some social sciences disciplines, research will be conducted on non-human animals or on mathematical models, but the lessons derived from that research will always focus on the application of the research to human behavior.
   
• RESEARCH METHODS:
  • Social sciences researchers are highly collaborative, sharing data sets, survey results, statistical tables, and other data. Many social scientists have conducted research and achieved results without ever compiling data, doing field research, or creating their own surveys, preferring to use data compiled by other entities like the U.S. Census.
  • It's imperative in social sciences research to have the most recent and reliable data available in any situation. Consequently, social sciences research relies greatly on library research, with social sciences researchers seeking the most recently compiled and available data.
     
• INTERDISCIPLINARITY:
  • In recent years, social sciences researchers have come to rely on other social sciences researchers outside their specific discipline. Management researchers look to Psychology to answer questions about groupthink, human resources management, labor management, and other issues. Sociology researchers will look to Anthropology to examine aspects of historical cultures not immediately apparent to contemporary scientists.
  • The social sciences are increasingly reliant on disciplines other than those in the social sciences as well. Social sciences researchers have looked to STEM disciplines and the humanities to answer questions and examine issues that are cannot easily be addressed in a social science paradigm.
  • For both of the above reasons, it's important for a social sciences researcher to be familiar with and comfortable with resources in many disciplines, not only those in their specific area of inquiry.

Here are some examples of non-social sciences databases in which you might find good resources on topics in the social sciences, along with a list of topics:

• IEEE Xplore (an engineering database): management studies; time studies; efficiency studies
• PubMed (a medicine and health sciences database): study of management and economics in health care settings; studies of diseases as they manifest in particular ethnic groups or economic classes
• ACM Digital Library: human-dominated systems

Here are some social sciences databases and some examples of their uses in addressing topics in different social sciences disciplines.

PsycINFO is a psychology database, but it can also be used to research:

• Management questions - labor relations, human relations management, other topics
• Sociology - participant observation, sociolinguistics, human cultures
• Ethnic Studies - psychology of human cultures, ethnocentrism, cross-cultural and comparative psychology

Business Source Complete (BSC) is a database with materials addressing all aspects of business: management, accounting, finance, marketing, and so forth. However, you can also find materials in this database related to:

• Psychology: productivity studies; studies of motivation; substance abuse and its effects in the workplace
• Sociology: interpersonal relations in the workplace; entrepreneurship motivations and development
• Ethnic Studies: diversity in the workplace; hiring a diverse workforce; representation and inclusion in management settings
• Other topics across social sciences disciplines

Sociological Abstracts addresses issues not only in sociology, but anthropology, psychology, ethnic studies, and others. Use it for finding resources on issues in:

• Economics: Marxist analysis of cultural development; Hegelian approaches to cultural analysis
• Anthropology: behavioral anthropology; social constructs of group behavior
• Political Science: group reaction to political candidates; ethnography of political parties