And when your interests change, your studies can follow along. For example, I've published articles and conducted research on topics as diverse as adopting children to teaching about the elderly, and from stressed out workers to doing survey research, plus more. Sociology grew out of, and overlaps with, many disciplines like economics, history, political science, anthropology, and psychology. The field of social psychology has even developed as a sort of hybrid of psychology and sociology. Much of the richness of sociology comes from this unique and broad perspective.
Sociology is one of the youngest academic disciplines.
As Macionis explains, although philosophers and theologians had been interested in the nature of society throughout history, they had typically focused on what the ideal society would be like. During the 1800s, sociologists began to think about society in new ways. They were interested in studying how society actually was. Their major goal was to understand how society operated. Sharing Comte's belief, many early sociologists came from other disciplines and made significant efforts to bring about social change.