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| Ecological-evolutionary theory |
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| Theories of sociocultural systems that stress their origin, maintenance, and change by focusing on the relationships of the system to their social and physical environments. |
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| Theories of cumulative sociocultural change that generally hold that human societies move from simple to complex forms of organization. |
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| The combining of elements from separate sources to produce a coherent whole. Much of macro social theory consists of the synthesis of the ideas and insights of many theorists. |
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| A distinctive kind of change associated with systems composed of multiple, interrelated parts. Within these systems, some parts change while others remain unchanged. |
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| Weber's term for the process by which modes of precise calculation based on observation and reason increasingly dominate the social world. |
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| A group that is relatively large and whose members interact on the basis of narrow roles rather than on an intimate basis and are usually organized around a specific task. |
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| A typically small group of individuals standing in an enduring personal relationship to one another. |
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| Communications technology |
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| Technology used to extend the transmission of information between individuals and groups over both distance and time. |
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| A belief in the centrality and primary importance of the individual and the importance of self-sufficiency and independence. |
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| The interface between a sociocultural system and its environment. |
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| The application of logic, reason, and knowledge to the problems of exploiting raw materials from the environment. |
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| A process of human selection of successive generations of animals or plants for desirable characteristics such as size, taste, or ease of care. |
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| The transmission of cultural elements between sociocultural systems. |
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| The symbolic universe—the shared meanings, ideas, beliefs, values, and ideologies that people associate with the physical and social world. |
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| A society whose mode of production is based on agriculture (crop growing) primarily through the use of human and animal energy. |
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| The technology and practices employed for expanding, limiting, and maintaining population size. |
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