Mechanism (sociology)
（重定向自Social mechanism）
The term social mechanisms and mechanism-based explanations of social phenomenon originate from the philosophy of science.
The core thinking behind the mechanism approach has been expressed as follows by Elster (1989: 3-4): “To explain an event is to give an account of why it happened. Usually… this takes the form of citing an earlier event as the cause of the event we want to explain…. [But] to cite the cause is not enough: the causal mechanism must also be provided, or at least suggested.”