social pathology

American  

noun

1. a social factor, as poverty, old age, or crime, that tends to increase social disorganization and inhibit personal adjustment.

2. the study of such factors and the social problems they produce.

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Example Sentences

“Life at the Bottom” will be republished next month in a 25th-anniversary edition, and he sums up its message: “It is dehumanizing to think of social problems, or social pathology, as if human beings were mere inanimate objects, reacting like billiard balls to other billiard balls, without ideas or agency of their own.”

From The Wall Street Journal

The veteran grassroots activist Bob Woodson has long argued that policymakers would do better to spend less time focused on the social pathology in low-income communities and more on people in those same communities who have beaten the odds.

From The Wall Street Journal

One of the more disturbing rat experiments discussed is a study of the effects of crowding on the development of social pathology.

From New York Times

The challenge is to make sure that the winners aren’t winning by extracting their gains in a way that creates a social pathology that’s bad for everyone.

From Los Angeles Times

The movie is steeped in individual as well as social pathology.

From New York Times