Standard Social Science Model

The term standard social science model (SSSM) was first introduced by John Tooby and Leda Cosmides in the 1992 edited volume The Adapted Mind. They used SSSM as a reference to social science philosophies related to the blank slate, relativism, social constructionism, and cultural determinism. They argue that those philosophies, capsulized within SSSM, formed the dominant theoretical paradigm in the development of the social sciences during the 20th century. According to their proposed SSSM paradigm, the mind is a general-purpose cognitive device shaped almost entirely by culture. After establishing SSSM, Tooby and Cosmides make a case for replacing SSSM with the integrated model (IM), also known as the integrated causal model (ICM), which melds cultural and biological theories for the development of the mind. Supporters of SSSM include those who feel the term was conceived as a point of argument in support of ICM specifically and evolutionary psychology (EP) in general.

Steven Pinker names several prominent scientists as proponents of the standard social science model, including Franz Boas, Margaret Mead, B. F. Skinner, Richard Lewontin, John Money, and Stephen Jay Gould.

The authors of The Adapted Mind have argued that the SSSM is now out of date and that a progressive model for the social sciences requires evolutionarily-informed models of nature-nurture interactionism, grounded in the computational theory of mind. Tooby and Cosmides refer to this new model as the integrated model (IM).

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