# What's the difference between SOCIOLOGY and ANTHROPOLOGY?



## conscius (Apr 20, 2010)

Both fields are pretty big. For instance, anthropology seems to have a lot of sub-fields, like physical anthro, cultural anthro, etc. 

I used to think anthropology was like sociology except that they study OTHER cultures. But apparently that's no longer true. You don't have to go to Africa to study anthropology. Neither are the methods are necessarily different, both fields using various methods to study phenomena. 

American Anthropological Association says "Today's anthropologists do not just work in exotic locations. They can be found in corporations, all levels of government, educational institutions and non-profit associations. " Also "Anthropologists want to know why things happen. For example, we know how AIDS is spreading but do we know why? Anthropologists tackle big human problems, such as overpopulation, warfare, and poverty."

What do Anthropologists do?

But poverty, warfare, overpopulation, are these not also what sociologists study? 

American Sociological Association says about sociology: "Sociology is:
-the study of society
-a social science involving the study of the social lives of people, groups, and societies
-the study of our behavior as social beings, covering everything from the analysis of short contacts between anonymous individuals on the street to the study of global social processes
- the scientific study of social aggregations, the entities through which humans move throughout their lives
-an overarching unification of all studies of humankind, including history, psychology, and economics"

American Sociological Association: What is Sociology?

Can anybody who studies in these fields help me find some solid differences or way to differentiate them, the kinds of questions they ask, their methods and approach, and their body of knowledge? Thank you.


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## Zamyatin (Jun 10, 2014)

Without going too much into the nuance, sociology focuses much more heavily on exploring and understanding the underlying processes of social behavior and life, while anthropology is interested in describing the behaviors themselves. In general, anthropology focuses on _how_ things are, while sociology focuses on _why_ things are. Something like the difference between an economist and a market analyst.

That's not to say there isn't a lot of overlap. There is a lot, especially in certain parts of sociology/anthropology like ethnography, which is somewhere in between the two disciplines. In general though, anthropology tends to take a bigger picture perspective of human civilization, describing the way things work in a specific context and then comparing that to other contexts, while sociology tends to be more localized, interested in the dynamics that cause a certain social phenomenon, (usually) with less interest in being generalizable across other contexts. On a macro to micro scale, anthropology would be on the macro end, sociology in the middle, and psychology at the micro end of the spectrum.

It's hard to generalize these two disciplines though, since they're positively huge. A social psychologist wouldn't have that much in common with someone that specialized in gender studies, and the two would study quite different things than someone in economic sociology, despite the fact that they're all considered sociologists. There is a growing subfield of sociologists that focus on biological determinants of social behaviors, which crosses over into biology, physiology, and evolutionary psychology, while a political sociologist would have a lot in common with political scientists and other politically-oriented academic disciplines and someone in economic sociology would obviously work closely with more orthodox economists. There are very few distinct lines between fields within the social sciences.

If you're asking this because you're trying to decide on what to study, find out what interests you most about the social sciences, and then examine what your university offers. In general though, if you're interested in what most people would think of when they hear the term "social sciences", you'll probably be better off in sociology than anthropology, as most anthropology programs focus a lot on the history of human development, the biological evolution of humanity, the long-term evolution of culture, and human culture in the abstract. It doesn't have anywhere near as strong a focus on the present as the typical sociology program. It also helps that a sociology degree is worth more on the job market than an anthropology degree.


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