---
title: "Outline of social science"
chunk: 2/6
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_social_science"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:57:28.365284+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

== Branches of social science ==
Anthropology - the study of humans, past and present, that draws and builds upon knowledge from the social sciences and biological sciences, as well as the humanities and the natural sciences. Anthropology of religion – the study of religious institutions about other social institutions, and the comparison of religious beliefs and practices across cultures
Applied anthropology – application of the method and theory of anthropology to the analysis and solution of practical problems. Archaeology – the study of cultures via material remains and environmental data (Outline of archaeology)
Experimental archaeology – Experimental archaeology employs several different methods, techniques, analyses, and approaches to generate and test hypotheses, based upon the archaeological source material, like ancient structures or artifacts. Historical archaeology – a form of archaeology dealing with topics that are already attested in written records. Zooarchaeology – study of faunal remains. Cultural anthropology – a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans, collecting data about the effect of global economic and political processes on local cultural realities. Ethnobiology – the scientific study of dynamic relationships between peoples, biota, and environments, from the distant past to the immediate present. Ethnobotany – is the study of a region's plants and their practical uses through the traditional knowledge of local culture and people. Ethnography – the systematic study of people and cultures. Ethnology – a branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity. Ethnopoetics – method of recording text versions of oral poetry or narrative performances (i.e., verbal lore) that uses poetic lines, verses, and stanzas (instead of prose paragraphs) to capture the formal, poetic performance elements which would otherwise be lost in the written texts. Evolutionary anthropology – an interdisciplinary study of the evolution of human physiology and human behaviour and the relation between hominids and non-hominid primates. Linguistic anthropology – is the interdisciplinary study of how language influences social life. Medical anthropology – an interdisciplinary field that studies "human health and disease, health care systems, and biocultural adaptation". Physical anthropology – the study of the physical development of the human species. Psychological anthropology – interdisciplinary subfield of anthropology that studies the interaction of cultural and mental processes. Urban anthropology
Anthrozoology – study of human-animal interaction. Business studies – an academic area that consists of many sub-areas about the social relationships that compose the human economic systems. Accountancy – the measurement, processing and communication of financial information about economic entities. Finance – a field dealing with the study of investments. Commerce
Management – the administration of an organization, whether it be a business, a not-for-profit organization, or government body. Human resource management – a function in organizations designed to maximize employee performance in service of an employer's strategic objectives. Marketing – the study and management of exchange relationships. Organizational studies – the examination of how individuals construct organizational structures, processes, and practices and how these, in turn, shape social relations and create institutions that ultimately influence people. Operations research –
Economics – analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. It aims to explain how economies work and how economic agents interact. International economics – study of the effects upon economic activity of international differences in productive resources and consumer preferences and the institutions that affect them. Economic methodology – the study of methods, especially the scientific method, about economics, including principles underlying economic reasoning. Behavioural economics – the study of the effects of social, cognitive, and psychological factors on economic decisions. Mathematical economics – application of mathematical methods to represent economic theories and analyze problems posed in economics. Computational economics – research discipline at the interface between computer science and economic and management science. Econometrics – study of statistical methods for dealing with economic data
Experimental economics – application of experimental methods to study economic questions
Microeconomics or price theory – branch of economics that studies the behaviour of individual households and firms in making decisions on the allocation of limited resources
Consumer choice – study of consumers' behaviour
Theory of the firm – study of firms' behaviour
Family economics – study of family behaviours such as marriage through an economic lens
Macroeconomics – branch of economics dealing with the performance, structure, behaviour, and decision-making of the whole economy
Monetary economics – branch of economics that historically prefigured and remains integrally linked to macroeconomics. Financial economics – branch of economics concerned with "the allocation and deployment of economic resources, both spatially and across time, in an uncertain environment". Public economics – the study of government policy through the lens of economic efficiency and equity. Public finance – the study of the role of the government in the economy. Welfare economics – branch of economics that studies economic evaluate well-being
Social choice theory – the branch of economics that studies voting rules and collective decision-making
Economic geography – the study of the location, distribution and spatial organization of economic activities across the world. Labor economics – seeks to understand the functioning and dynamics of the markets for labour. Demographic economics – application of economic methodology to demography
Law and Economics – application of economic methods to the analysis of law. Industrial organization – field of economics that builds on the theory of the firm in examining the structure of, and boundaries between, firms and markets. Business economics – economic study of business
Entrepreneurial Economics – the study of the entrepreneur and entrepreneurship within the economy. Managerial economics – application of economic concepts and economic analysis to the problems of formulating rational managerial decisions. Economic history – study of economies or economic phenomena in the past. Development economics – branch of economics which deals with economic aspects of the development process in low-income countries. Political economy – the study of the production, buying, and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth, including through the budget process. Comparative economics –  comparative study of different systems of economic organization, such as capitalism, socialism, feudalism and the mixed economy. Institutional economics – the study of the role of institutions in shaping economic behaviour. Economic sociology – studies both the social effects and the social causes of various economic phenomena. Environmental economics – subfield of economics concerned with environmental issues. Resource economics –  the study of supply, demand, and allocation of the Earth's natural resources. Energy economics – broad scientific subject area which includes topics related to supply and use of energy in societies
Socioeconomics – considers behavioural interactions of individuals and groups through social capital and social "markets" and the formation of social norms
Economic geography – the subfield of human geography that studies economic activity and factors affecting it. Transport economics – branch of economics that deals with the allocation of resources within the transport sector and has strong linkages with civil engineering. Real estate economics – application of economic techniques to real estate markets. Cognitive science – the interdisciplinary scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works.