Sociology Theory Discussion Module 3

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What You’ll Learn in This Chapter

We’ll examine how people learn about their world and look at the mistakes

they make along the way. We’ll also begin to see what makes science

different from other ways of knowing.

Human Inquiry and Science1

In this chapter . . .

Introduction

Looking for Reality Knowledge from Agreement Reality

Ordinary Human Inquiry

Tradition

Authority

Errors in Inquiry and Some Solutions

What’s Really Real?

The Foundations of Social Science h eory, Not Philosophy or Belief

Social Regularities

Aggregates, Not Individuals

Concepts and Variables

h e Purposes of Social Research

h e Ethics of Human Inquiry

Some Dialectics of Social Research Idiographic and Nomothetic Explanation

Inductive and Deductive h eory

Quantitative and Qualitative Data

Pure and Applied Research

h e Research Proposal

INTRODUCTION

h is book is about knowing things—not so much what we know as how we know it. Let’s start by examining a few things you probably know already.

You know the world is round. You probably also know it’s cold on the dark side of the moon, and you know people speak Japanese in Japan. You know that vitamin C can prevent colds and that unprotected sex can result in AIDS.

How do you know? If you think for a minute, you’ll see you know these things because some- body told them to you, and you believed them. You may have read in National Geographic that people speak Japanese in Japan, and that made sense to you, so you didn’t question it. Perhaps your physics or astronomy instructor told you it was cold on the dark side of the moon, or maybe you read it on the NASA website.

h e decision to have a baby is deeply personal. No one is in charge of who will have babies in the United States in any given

year, or of how many will be born. Whereas you must get a license to marry or go i sh- ing, you do not need a license to have a baby. Many couples delay pregnancy, some pregnancies happen by accident, and some pregnancies are planned. Given all these uncertainties and idiosyncrasies, how can baby food and diaper manufacturers know how much to produce from year to year? By the end of this chapter, you should be able to answer this question.

See the “What do you think? Revisited” box toward the end of the chapter.

What do you think?

Some of the things you know seem obvious to you. If I asked you how you know the world is round, you’d probably say, “Everybody knows that.” h ere are a lot of things everybody knows. Of course, at one time, everyone “knew” the world was l at.

Most of what you know is a matter of agree- ment and belief. Little of it is based on personal experience and discovery. A big part of growing up in any society, in fact, is the process of learning to accept what everybody around you “knows” is so. If you don’t know those same things, you can’t really be a part of the group. If you were to ques- tion seriously that the world is really round, you’d quickly i nd yourself set apart from other people. You might be sent to live in a hospital with others who ask questions like that.

So, most of what you know is a matter of believing what you’ve been told. Understand that there’s nothing wrong with you in that respect.

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LOOKING FOR REALITY 3

agreement you began the i rst time your parents found you sitting in a pile of dirt with half of a wriggling worm dangling from your lips. When they pried your mouth open and reached down your throat for the other half of the worm, you learned that worms are not acceptable food in our society.

Aside from these agreements, what’s wrong with worms? h ey’re probably high in protein and low in calories. Bite-sized and easily packaged, they’re a distributor’s dream. h ey are also a delicacy for some people who live in societies that lack our agreement that worms are disgusting. Some people might love the worms but be turned of by the deep-fried breading.

Here’s a question to consider : “Are worms really good or really bad to eat?” And here’s a more interesting question: “How could you know which was really so?” h is book is about answering the second question.

LOOKING FOR REALITY

Reality is a tricky business. You’ve probably long suspected that some of the things you “know”

h at’s simply the way human societies are struc- tured. h e basis of knowledge is agreement. Because you can’t learn through personal exp- erience and discovery alone all you need to know, things are set up so you can simply believe what others tell you. You know some things through tradition, others from “experts.” I’m not saying you shouldn’t question this received knowledge; I’m just drawing your attention to the way you and society normally get along regarding what’s so.

h ere are other ways of knowing things, however. In contrast to knowing things through agreement, you can know them through direct experience—through observation. If you dive into a glacial stream l owing through the Canadian Rockies, you don’t need anyone to tell you it’s cold.

When your experience conl icts with what everyone else knows, though, there’s a good chance you’ll surrender your experience in favor of the agreement. For example, imagine you’ve come to a party at my house. It’s a high-class af air, and the drinks and food are excellent. In particular, you’re taken by one of the appetizers I bring around on a tray : a breaded, deep- fried tidbit that’s especially zesty. You have a couple—they’re so delicious! You have more. Soon you’re subtly moving around the room to be wherever I am when I arrive with a tray of these nibblies.

Finally, you can contain yourself no longer. “What are they?” you ask. I let you in on the secret: “You’ve been eating breaded, deep- fried worms!” Your response is dramatic: Your stomach rebels, and you promptly throw up all over the living room rug. What a terrible thing to serve guests!

h e point of the story is that both of your feelings about the appetizer were quite real. Your initial liking for them was certainly real, but so was the feeling you had when you found out what you’d been eating. It should be evident, however, that the disgust you felt was strictly a product of the agreements you have with those around you that worms aren’t i t to eat. h at’s an

We learn some things by experience, others by agreement. This young man seems to be learning by personal experience.

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CHAPTER 1 HUMAN INQUIRY AND SCIENCE4

may not be true, but how can you really know what’s real? People have grappled with this question for thousands of years.

Knowledge from Agreement Reality

One answer that has arisen out of that grappling is science, which of ers an approach to both agreement reality and experiential reality. Sci- entists have certain criteria that must be met before they’ll accept the reality of something they haven’t personally experienced. In general, an assertion must have both logical and empirical support: It must make sense, and it must not contradict actual observation. Why do earth- bound scientists accept the assertion that it’s cold on the dark side of the moon? First, it makes sense, because the surface heat of the moon comes from the sun’s rays. Second, the scientii c measurements made on the moon’s dark side coni rm the expectation. So, scientists accept the reality of things they don’t perso- nally experience—they accept an agreement reality—but they have special standards for doing so.

More to the point of this book, however, science of ers a special approach to the discovery of reality through personal experience, that is, to the business of inquiry. Epistemology is the science of knowing; methodology (a subi eld of epistemology) might be called the science of i nding out. h is book is an examination and presentation of social science methodology, or how social scientists i nd out about human social life. You’ll see that some of the methods coincide with the traditional image of science but others have been specially geared to socio- logi cal concerns.

agreement reality Those things we “know” as part and

parcel of the culture we share with those around us.

epistemology The science of knowing; systems of

knowledge.

methodology The science of fi nding out; procedures for

scientifi c investigation.

In the rest of this chapter, we’ll look at in- quiry as an activity. We’ll begin by examining inquiry as a natural human activity, something you and I have engaged in every day of our lives. Next, we’ll look at some kinds of errors we make in normal inquiry, and we’ll conclude by examining what makes science dif erent. We’ll see some of the ways science guards against common human errors in inquiry.

h e box “Social Research Making a Dif erence” gives an example of controlled social research challenging what “everybody knows.”

Ordinary Human Inquiry

Practically all people exhibit a desire to predict their future circumstances. We seem quite willing, moreover, to undertake this task using causal and probabilistic reasoning. First, we generally recognize that future circumstances are somehow caused or conditioned by present ones. We learn that swimming beyond the reef may bring an unhappy encounter with a shark. As students we learn that studying hard will result in better grades. Second, we also learn that such patterns of cause and ef ect are probabilistic in nature: h e ef ects occur more often when the causes occur than when the causes are absent—but not always. h us, students learn that studying hard produces good grades in most instances, but not every time. We recognize the danger of swimming beyond the reef, without believing that every such swim will be fatal.

As we’ll see throughout the book, science makes these concepts of causality and prob- ability more explicit and provides techniques for dealing with them more rigorously than does casual human inquiry. It sharpens the skills we already have by making us more conscious, rig- orous, and explicit in our inquiries.

In looking at ordinary human inquiry, we need to distinguish between prediction and understanding. Often, we can make predictions without understanding—perhaps you can pre- dict rain when your trick knee aches. And often,

LOOKING FOR REALITY 5

the third-ranked horse in the third race of the day always wins will probably keep betting without knowing, or caring, why it works out that way.

Whatever the primitive drives or instincts that motivate human beings, satisfying them depends heavily on the ability to predict future circumstances. However, the attempt to pre- dict is often placed in a context of knowledge and understanding. If we can understand why things are related to one another, why certain regular patterns occur, we can predict even better than if we simply observe and remem- ber those patterns. h us, human inquiry aims at answering both “what” and “why” questions, and we pursue these goals by observing and i guring out.

As I suggested earlier, our attempts to learn about the world are only partly linked to direct, personal inquiry or experience. Another, much larger, part comes from the agreed-on knowledge that others give us. h is agreement reality both assists and hinders our attempts to i nd out for ourselves. To see how, consider two important sources of our secondhand knowledge—tradition and authority.

Tradition

Each of us inherits a culture made up, in part, of i rmly accepted knowledge about the workings of the world and the values that guide our par- ticipation in it. We may learn from others that eating too much candy will decay our teeth, that the circumference of a circle is approximately twenty-two–sevenths of its diameter, or that masturbation will make you blind. Ideas about gender, race, religion, and dif erent nations that you leaned as you were growing up would i t in this category. We may test a few of these “truths” on our own, but we simply accept the great majority of them, the things that “every- body knows.”

Tradition, in this sense of the term, of ers some clear advantages to human inquiry. By

even if we don’t understand why, we’re willing to act on the basis of a demonstrated predic- tive ability. h e racetrack buf who i nds that

Medication errors in hospitals kill or injure about 770,000 patients each year, and the newly developed Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) systems have been widely acclaimed as the solution to this enormous problem, which stems in part from the traditional system of handwritten prescriptions. Medical science research has generally supported the new technology, but an arti- cle in the Journal of the American Medical Association in March 2005 sent a shock wave through the medical community. h e sociologist Ross Koppel and colleagues used several of the research techniques you’ll be learning in this book to test the ef ectiveness of the new technology. h eir conclusion: CPOE was not nearly as ef ec- tive as claimed; it did not prevent errors in medication (Koppel et al. 2005). As you can imagine, those manufactu- ring and selling the equipment were not thrilled by the research, and it has gene- rated an ongoing discussion within the health care community. At last count, the study had been cited over 20,000 times in other articles, and Koppel has become a sought-after expert in this regard.

Source: Kathryn Goldman Schuyler, “Medi cal Errors:

Sociological Research Makes News,” Sociological Prac-

tice Newsletter (American Sociological Association,

Section on Sociological Practice), Winter 2006, p. 1

Social Research Making a Difference

ISSUES AND INSIGHTS

CHAPTER 1 HUMAN INQUIRY AND SCIENCE6

nutritional value of breakfast cereals or movie actors evaluate the performance of automobiles.

Both tradition and authority, then, are double- edged swords in the search for knowledge about the world. Simply put, they provide us with a starting point for our own inquiry, but they can lead us to start at the wrong point and push us of in the wrong direction.

Errors in Inquiry and Some Solutions

Quite aside from the potential dangers of tradition and authority, we often stumble and fall when we set out to learn for ourselves. Let’s look at some of the common errors we make in our casual inquiries and the ways science guards against those errors.

Inaccurate Observations Quite frequently, we make mistakes in our observations. For example, what was your methodology instructor wearing on the i rst day of class? If you have to guess, that’s because most of our daily observations are casual and semiconscious. h at’s why we often disagree about “what really happened.”

In contrast to casual human inquiry, scien- tii c observation is a conscious activity. Simply making observation more deliberate can reduce error. If you had to guess what your instructor was wearing the i rst day of class, you’d probably make a mistake. If you had gone to the i rst class meeting with a conscious plan to observe and re- cord what your instructor was wearing, however, you’d likely be more accurate. (You might also need a hobby.)

In many cases, both simple and complex mea- surement devices help guard against inaccurate observations. Moreover, they add a degree of pre- cision well beyond the capacity of the unassisted human senses. Suppose, for example, that you had taken color photographs of your instructor that day. (See earlier comment about needing a hobby.)

Overgeneralization When we look for patterns among the specii c things we observe around us, we often assume that a few similar events are

accepting what everybody knows, we avoid the overwhelming task of starting from scratch in our search for regularities and understan- ding. Knowledge is cumulative, and an inherited body of knowledge is the jumping-of point for developing more of it. We often speak of “standing on the shoulders of giants,” that is, of previous generations.

At the same time, tradition may be detri- mental to human inquiry. If we seek a fresh understanding of something everybody already understands and has always understood, we may be marked as fools for our ef orts. More to the point, however, most of us rarely even think of seeking a dif erent understanding of something we all “know” to be true.

Authority

Despite the power of tradition, new knowledge appears every day. Aside from our personal in- quiries, we benei t throughout life from new dis- coveries and understandings produced by others. Often, acceptance of these new acquisitions depends on the status of the discoverer. You’re more likely to believe the epidemiologist who declares that the common cold can be trans- mitted through kissing, for example, than to beli- eve your uncle Pete saying the same thing.

Like tradition, authority can both assist and hinder human inquiry. We do well to trust the judgment of the person who has special training, expertise, and credentials in a given matter, espe- cially in the face of controversy. At the same time, inquiry can be greatly hindered by the legitimate authority who errs within his or her own special province. Biologists, after all, do make mistakes in the i eld of biology.

Inquiry is also hindered when we depend on the authority of experts speaking outside their realm of expertise. For example, consider the political or religious leader with no bioche- mical expertise who declares that marijuana is a dange rous drug. h e advertising industry plays heavily on this misuse of authority by, for example, having popular athletes discuss the

LOOKING FOR REALITY 7

Sometimes a research design will specify in advance the number and kind of observations to be made, as a basis for reaching a conclusion. If you and I wanted to learn whether women were more likely than men to support the legality of abortion, we’d commit ourselves to making a specii ed number of observations on that question in a research project. We might select a thousand people to be interviewed on the issue. Alternately, when making direct observations of an event, such as an animal-rights demonstration, social scientists make a special ef ort to i nd “deviant cases”—those who do not i t into the general pattern.

Illogical Reasoning h ere are other ways of handling observations that contradict our con- clusions about the way things are in daily life. Surely one of the most remarkable creations of the human mind is “the exception that proves the rule.” h is idea makes no sense at all. An exception can draw attention to a rule or to a supposed rule (in its original meaning, “prove” meant “test”), but in no system of logic can it validate the rule it con- tradicts. Yet we often use this pithy saying to brush away contradictions with a simple stroke of illogic.

What statisticians have called the gambler’s fallacy is another illustration of illogic in day-to- day reasoning. A consistent run of either good or bad luck is presumed to foreshadow its opposite. An evening of bad luck at poker may kindle the belief that a winning hand is just around the cor- ner; many a poker player has stayed in a game much too long because of that mistaken belief. (A more reasonable conclusion is that they are not very good at poker.)

Although all of us sometimes fall into embar- rassingly illogical reasoning in daily life, scientists avoid this pitfall by using systems of logic con- sciously and explicitly. Chapter 2 will examine the logic of science in more depth. For now, it’s enough to note that logical reasoning is a con- scious activity for scientists, who have colleagues around to keep them honest.

evidence of a general pattern. h at is, we tend to overgeneralize on the basis of limited obser- vations. h is can misdirect or impede inquiry.

Imagine that you’re a reporter covering an animal-rights demonstration. You have just two hours to turn in your story. Rushing to the scene, you start interviewing people, asking them why they’re demonstrating. If the i rst two demonstrators you interview give you essen- tially the same reason, you might simply assume that the other 3,000 would agree. Unfortunately, when your story appeared, your editor would get scores of letters from protesters who were there for an entirely dif erent reason.

Scientists guard against overgeneralization by seeking a sui ciently large sample of observa- tions. h e replication of inquiry provides ano- ther safeguard. Basically, this means repeating a study and checking to see if the same results occur each time. h en, as a further test, the study can be repeated under slightly varied conditions.

Selective Observation One danger of overgen- eralization is that it can lead to selective observa- tion. Once you have concluded that a particular pattern exists and have developed a general understanding of why it does, you’ll tend to focus on future events and situations that i t the pattern, and you’ll ignore those that don’t. Racial and ethnic prejudices depend heavily on selective observation for their persistence.

In another example, here’s how Lewis Hill recalls growing up in rural Vermont:

Haying began right after the Fourth of July. h e

farmers in our neighborhood believed that anyone

who started earlier was sure to suf er all the storms

of late June in addition to those following the holi-

day which the oldtimers said were caused by all the

noise and smoke of gunpowder burning. My mother

told me that my grandfather and other Civil War

veterans claimed it always rained hard after a big

battle. h ings didn’t always work out the way the

older residents promised, of course, but everyone

remembered only the times they did. (2000:35) replication Repeating an experiment to expose or reduce

error.

CHAPTER 1 HUMAN INQUIRY AND SCIENCE8

to conclude that “some tribes I could name are pretty stupid.” For them, the tree was still wicked, and they expected some misguided people to be moving to Toad City.

The Modern View What philosophers call the modern view accepts such diversity as legitimate, a philosophical “dif erent strokes for dif erent folks.” As a modern thinker you would say, “I regard the spirits in the tree as evil, but I know others regard them as good. Neither of us is right or wrong. h ere are simply spirits in the tree. h ey are neither good nor evil, but dif erent people have dif erent ideas about them.”

It’s probably easy for you to adopt the modern view. Some might regard a dandelion as a beautiful l ower whereas others see only an annoying weed. To the premoderns, a dandelion has to be either one or the other. If you think it is a weed, it is really a weed, even though some people have a warped sense of beauty. In the modern view, a dandelion is simply a dandelion. h e concepts “beautiful l ower” and “annoying weed” are subjective points of view imposed on the plant. Neither is a quality of the plant itself, just as “good” and “evil” were concepts imposed on the spirits in the tree.

The Postmodern View Philosophers also speak of a postmodern view of reality. In this view, neither the spirits nor the dandelion exists. All that’s “real” are the images we get through our points of view. Put dif erently, there’s nothing out there—it’s all in here. As Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, “h ere’s no there, there.”

No matter how bizarre the postmodern view may seem to you on i rst rel ection, it has a cer- tain ironic inevitability. Take a moment to notice the book you’re reading; notice specii cally what it looks like. As you’re reading these words, it probably looks like Figure 1-1a.

But does Figure 1-1a represent the way your book “really” looks? Or does it merely represent what the book looks like from your current point of view? Surely, Figures 1-1b, c, and d are equally valid representations. But these views of the

h ese, then, are a few of the ways we go astray in our attempts to know and understand the world, and some of the ways that science protects us from these pitfalls. Accurately observing and understanding reality is not an obvious or trivial matter. Indeed, it’s more complicated than I’ve suggested.

What’s Really Real?

Philosophers sometimes use the term naive real- ism to describe the way most of us operate in our daily lives. When you sit at a table to write, you probably don’t spend a lot of time thinking about whether the table is really made up of atoms, which in turn are mostly empty space. When you step into the street and see a city bus hurtling down on you, it’s not the best time to rel ect on methods for testing whether the bus really exists. We all live with a view that what’s real is pretty obvious—and that view usually gets us through the day.

Even so, I hope you can see that the nature of “reality” is perhaps more complex than we tend to assume. As a philosophical backdrop for the discussions to follow, let’s look at what are some- times called premodern, modern, and postmod- ern views of reality (W. Anderson 1990).

The Premodern View h is view of reality has guided most of human history. Our early ances- tors assumed that they saw things as they really were. In fact, this assumption was so fundamen- tal that they didn’t even see it as an assumption. No cavemom said to her cavekid, “Our tribe makes an assumption that evil spirits reside in the Old Twisted Tree.” No, she said, “STAY OUT OF THAT TREE OR YOU’LL TURN INTO A TOAD!”

As humans evolved and became aware of their diversity, they came to recognize that oth- ers did not always share their views of things. h us, they may have discovered that another tribe didn’t believe that the tree was wicked; in fact, the second tribe believed that the tree spirits were holy and benei cial. h e discovery of this diversity led members of the i rst tribe

LOOKING FOR REALITY 9

like? Unfortunately, we can’t easily portray the third point of view without knowing something about the personal feelings, beliefs, past experiences, and so forth that you would bring to your task as “outside” observer. (h ough I call you an outside observer, you are, of course, observing from inside your own mental system.)

To take an extreme example, if you were a coni rmed male chauvinist, you’d probably see the fight pretty much the same way the husband saw it. On the other hand, if you were com- mitted to the view that men are unreasonable bums, you’d see things the way the wife saw them.

But imagine instead that you see two un rea- sonable people quarreling irrationally with each other. Would you see them both as irresponsible jerks, equally responsible for the conl ict? Or would you see them as two people facing a dii cult human situation, each doing the best he or she can to resolve it? Imagine feeling compassion for them and noticing how each of them attempts to end the hostility, even though the gravity of the problem keeps them i ghting.

a. b.

c. d.

FIGURE 1-1 A Book. All of these are the same

book, but it looks different when viewed from different

locations, perspectives, or “points of view.”

book dif er so much from each other. Which is the “reality”?

As this example illustrates, there is no answer to the question, “What does the book really look like?” All we can of er is the dif erent ways it looks from dif erent points of view. h us, according to the postmodern view, there is no “book,” only various images of it from dif erent points of view. And all the dif erent images are equally “true.”

Now let’s apply this logic to a social situation. Imagine a husband and wife arguing. When she looks at her quarreling husband, Figure 1-2 is what the wife sees. Take a minute to imagine what you would think and feel if you were the woman in this drawing. How would you explain to your best friend what had happened? What solutions to the conl ict would seem appropriate if you were this woman?

What the woman’s husband sees is another matter altogether, as shown in Figure 1-3. Take a minute to imagine the situation from his point of view. What thoughts and feelings would you have? How would you tell your best friend about it? What solutions would seem appropriate?

Now suppose you’re an outside observer watching this interaction. What would it look

FIGURE 1-2 Wife’s Point of View. There is no

question in the wife’s mind as to who is right and

rational and who is out of control.

CHAPTER 1 HUMAN INQUIRY AND SCIENCE10

Let’s turn now to the foundations of the social science approaches to understanding. From there we can examine the specii c research tech- niques social scientists use.

THE FOUNDATIONS

OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

h e two pillars of science are logic and obser- vation. A scientii c understanding of the world must (1) make sense and (2) correspond with what we observe. Both elements are essential to science and relate to three major aspects of the overall scientii c enterprise: theory, data collection, and data analysis.

In the most general terms, scientii c theory deals with logic, data collection with observa- tion, and data analysis deals with patterns in what is observed and, where appropriate, the comparison of what is logically expected with what is actually observed. h ough most of this textbook deals with data collection and data analysis—demonstrating how to conduct em- pirical research—recognize that social science involves all three elements. As such, Chapter 2 of this book concerns the theoretical context of research; Parts 2 and 3 focus on data collection; and Part 4 of ers an introduction to the analy- sis of data. Figure 1-4 of ers a schematic view of how the book addresses these three aspects of social science.

Let’s turn now to some of the fundamental issues that distinguish social science from other ways of looking at social phenomena.

Theory, Not Philosophy or Belief

Social science theory has to do with what is, not with what should be. For many centuries, however, social theory has combined these two orientations. Social philosophers liberally mixed their observations of what happened around them, their speculations about why, and their ideas about how things ought to be. Although

Notice how dif erent these several views are. Which is a “true” picture of what is happening between the wife and the husband? You win the prize if you notice that your own point of view would again color your perception of what is happening here.

h e postmodern view represents a critical dilemma for scientists. While their task is to ob- serve and understand what is “really” happening, they are all human and, as such, have personal orientations that color what they observe and how they explain it. h ere is ultimately no way people can totally step outside their humanness to see and understand the world as it “really” is. h ere are only our several subjective views.

We’ll return to this discussion in Chapter 2 when we focus on specii c scientii c paradigms. Ultimately, what you’ll see is that (1) established scientii c procedures sometimes allow us to deal ef ectively with this dilemma—that is, we can study people and help them through their dii culties without being able to view “reality” directly—and (2) the philosophical stances I’ve presented suggest a powerful range of possibil- ities for structuring research.

FIGURE 1-3 Husband’s Point of View. There is no

question in the husband’s mind as to who is right and

rational and who is out of control.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE 11

Data Analysis

Data Collection

Chapters 13–14

Data processing

Chapter 7

Sampling

Chapters 4– 6

Planning to do

research

Chapters 8–12

Observation

Theory

Chapters 2– 3

Religious affiliation

Education Voting behavior

Social class

Prejudice

Application

Part 4

x

ya

b

c d g

y

x

34% 78%

66% 22%

FIGURE 1-4 Social Science = Theory + Data Collection + Data Analysis. This fi gure offers a schematic

overview of the major stages of social research, indicating where each is discussed in this book.

CHAPTER 1 HUMAN INQUIRY AND SCIENCE12

Social science, then, can help us know only what is and why. We can use it to determine what ought to be, but only when people agree on the criteria for deciding what’s better than something else—an agreement that seldom occurs. With that understood, let’s turn now to some of the fundamental bases upon which social science allows us to develop theories about what is and why.

Social Regularities

In large part, social science theory aims to i nd patterns in social life. h at aim, of course, applies to all science, but it sometimes presents a barrier to people when they i rst approach social science.

Actually, the vast number of formal norms in society create a considerable degree of regularity. For example, only people who have reached a certain age can vote in elections. In the U.S. military, until recently only men could partici- pate in combat. Such formal prescriptions, then, regu late, or regularize, social behavior.

Aside from formal prescriptions, we can observe other social norms that create more regularities. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to vote for Republican candidates. University professors tend to earn more money than do unskilled laborers. Men earn more than do women. (We’ll look at this pattern in more depth later in the book.) h e list of regularities could go on and on.

h e objection that there are always ex- ceptions to any social regularity is also inappro- priate. It doesn’t matter that a particular woman earns more money than a particular man if men earn more than women overall. h e pattern still exists. Social regularities represent probabilistic patterns; a general pattern need not be rel ected in 100 percent of the observable cases.

h is rule applies in physical science as well as social science. In genetics, for example, the mating of a blue-eyed person with a brown-eyed person will probably result in a brown-eyed child. h e birth of a blue-eyed child does not challenge the observed regularity, however, because the

modern social scientists may do the same from time to time, realize that social science has to do with how things are and why.

h is means that scientii c theory—and science itself—cannot settle debates on value. Science cannot determine whether capitalism is better or worse than socialism except in terms of agreed- on criteria. To determine scientii cally whether capitalism or socialism most supports human dignity and freedom, we would i rst have to agree on some measurable dei nitions of dignity and freedom. Our conclusions would depend totally on this agreement and would have no general meaning beyond it.

By the same token, if we could agree that suicide rates, say, or giving to charity were good measures of a religion’s quality, then we could determine scientii cally whether Buddhism or Christianity is the better religion. Again, our conclusion would be inextricably tied to the given criterion. As a practical matter, people seldom agree on criteria for determining issues of value, so science is seldom useful in settling such debates. In fact, questions like these are so much a matter of opinion and belief that scientii c inquiry is often viewed as a threat to what is “already known.”

We’ll consider this issue in more detail in Chapter 12, when we look at evaluation research. As you’ll see, social scientists have become increasingly involved in studying programs that rel ect ideological points of view, such as ai rmative action or welfare reform. One of the biggest problems researchers face is getting people to agree on criteria of success and failure. Yet such criteria are essential if social science research is to tell us anything useful about matters of value. By analogy, a stopwatch can’t tell us if one sprinter is better than another unless we i rst agree that speed is the critical criterion.

theory A systematic explanation for the observations that

relate to a particular aspect of life: juvenile delinquency,

for example, or perhaps social stratifi cation or political

revolution.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE 13

TABLE 1-1 Birthrates, United States: 1980–2006

1980 15.9

1981 15.8

1982 15.9

1983 15.6

1984 15.6

1985 15.8

1986 15.6

1987 15.7

1988 16.0

1989 16.4

1990 16.7

1991 16.2

1992 15.8

1993 15.4

1994 15.0

1995 14.6

1996 14.4

1997 14.2

1998 14.3

1999 14.2

2000 14.4

2001 14.1

2002 13.9

2003 14.1

2004 14.0

2005 14.0

2006 14.2

Note: Live births per 1,000 population.

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States

(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Offi ce, 2009), Table 77, p. 63.

geneticist states only that the brown-eyed of spring is more likely and, further, that brown- eyed of spring will be born in a certain percent- age of the cases. h e social scientist makes a similar, probabilistic prediction—that women overall tend to earn less than men. And the social scientist asks why this is the case.

Aggregates, Not Individuals

Social regularities do exist, then, and are worthy of theoretical and empirical study. As such, social scientists study primarily social patterns rather than individual ones. h ese patterns rel ect the aggregate or collective actions and situations of many individuals. Although social scientists often study motivations and actions that af ect individ- uals, they seldom study the individual per se. h at is, they create theories about the nature of group, rather than individual, life. Where psychologists focus on what happens inside individuals, so- cial scientists study what goes on between them: examining everything from couples, small groups, organizations, and on up to whole societies and even interactions among societies.

Sometimes the collective regularities are amazing. Consider the birthrate, for example. People have babies for an incredibly wide range of personal reasons. Some do it because their parents want them to. Some think of it as a way of completing their womanhood or manhood. Others want to hold their marriages together. Still others have babies by accident.

If you have had a baby, you could probably tell a much more detailed, idiosyncratic story. Why did you have the baby when you did, rather than a year earlier or later? Maybe your house burned down and you had to delay a year before you could af ord to have the baby. Maybe you felt that being a family person would demonstrate maturity, which would support a promotion at work.

Everyone who had a baby last year had a dif erent set of reasons for doing so. Yet, despite this vast diversity, despite the idiosyncrasy of each individual’s reasons, the overall birthrate

in a society (the number of live births per 1,000 population) is remarkably consistent from year to year. See Table 1-1 for recent birthrates in the United States.

If the U.S. birthrate were 15.9, 35.6, 7.8, 28.9, and 16.2 in i ve successive years, demographers would begin dropping like l ies. As you can see, however, social life is far more orderly than that. Moreover, this regularity occurs without societywide regulation. As mentioned earlier, no one plans how many babies will be born or determines who will have them. (See the box

CHAPTER 1 HUMAN INQUIRY AND SCIENCE14

belong.” You’re likely to hear that comment in terms of what you know about the speaker. If it’s your old uncle Harry who is also strongly opposed to daylight saving time, zip codes, and personal computers, you’re likely to think his latest pronouncement simply i ts into his rather dated point of view about things in general.

If, on the other hand, the statement issues forth from a politician who is trailing a female challenger and who has also begun making statements about women being emotionally uni t for public oi ce and not understanding politics, you may hear his latest comment in the context of this political challenge.

In both examples, you’re trying to under- stand the thoughts of a particular individual. In social science, researchers go beyond that level of understanding to seek insights into classes or types of individuals. Regarding the two exam- ples just described, they might use terms such as old-fashioned or bigot to describe the kind of person who made the comment. In other words, they try to place the individual in a set of similar individuals, according to a particular, dei ned concept.

By examining an individual in this way, social scientists can make sense out of more than one person. In understanding what makes the bigoted politician think the way he does, they’ll also learn about other people who are “like him.” In other words, they have not been studying bigots as much as bigotry.

Bigotry here is spoken of as a variable because it varies. Some people are more bigoted than others. Social scientists are interested in under- standing the system of variables that causes bigotry to be high in one instance and low in another.

h e idea of a system composed of variables may seem rather strange, so let’s look at an analogy. h e subject of a physician’s attention is the patient. If the patient is ill, the physician’s purpose is to help that patient get well. By contrast, a medical researcher’s subject matter is dif erent: the variables that cause a disease, for example. h e medical researcher may study the

“Birthrate Implications” for a look at how the analysis of birthrates can serve many purposes.)

Social science theories try to explain why ag- gregated patterns of behavior are so regular even when the individuals participating in them may change over time. We could say that social scien- tists don’t seek to explain people per se. h ey try instead to understand the systems in which peo- ple operate, which in turn explain why people do what they do. h e elements in such a system are not people but variables.

Concepts and Variables

Our most natural attempts at understanding are usually concrete and idiosyncratic. h at’s just the way we think.

Imagine that someone says to you, “Women ought to get back into the kitchen where they

Birthrate Implications

Take a minute to rel ect on the practical implications of the data you’ve just seen. h e “What do you think?” box for this chapter asked how baby food and diaper manufacturers could plan production from year to year. h e consistency of U.S. birth- rates suggests this is not the problem it might have seemed. Who else might benei t from this kind of analysis? What about health care workers and educators? Can you think of anyone else? What if we organized birthrates by re- gion of the country, by ethnicity, by income level, and so forth? Clearly, these additional analyses could make the data even more useful. As you learn about the options avai- lable to social researchers, I think you’ll gain an appreciation for the practical value that research can have for the whole society.

APPLYING CONCEPTS IN EVERYDAY LIFE

THE FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE 15

lie behind social science concepts are fairly clear. Other times they aren’t.

h e relationship between attributes and vari - ables is more complicated in the case of explana- tion and gets to the heart of the variable language of scientii c theory. Here’s a simple example, invol- ving two variables, education and prejudice. For the sake of simplicity, let’s assume that the variable education has only two attributes: educated and uneducated. (Chapter 5 will address the issue of how such things are dei ned and measured.) Similarly, let’s give the variable prejudice two attributes: prejudiced and unprejudiced.

physician’s patient, but only as a carrier of the disease.

Of course, medical researchers care about real people, but in the actual research, patients are directly relevant only for what they reveal about the disease under study. In fact, when researchers can study a disease meaningfully without involving actual patients, they do so.

Social research involves the study of variables and the attributes that compose them. Social sci- ence theories are written in a language of vari- ables, and people get involved only as “carriers” of those variables. Here’s a closer look at what social scientists mean by variables and attributes.

Attributes or values are characteristics or qualities that describe an object—in this case, a person. Examples include female, Asian, alienated, conservative, dishonest, intelligent, and farmer. Anything you might say to describe yourself or someone else involves an attribute.

Variables, on the other hand, are logical sets of attributes. h us, for example, male and female are attributes, and sex is the variable composed of these two attributes. h e variable occupation is composed of attributes such as farmer, professor, and truck driver. Social class is a variable composed of a set of attributes such as upper class, middle class, and lower class. Sometimes it helps to think of attributes as the categories that make up a variable. See Figure 1-5 for a schematic review of what social scientists mean by variables and attributes.

h e relationship between attributes and variables lies at the heart of both description and explanation in science. For example, we might describe a college class in terms of the variable sex by reporting the observed frequencies of the attributes male and female: “h e class is 60 percent men and 40 percent women.” An unemployment rate can be thought of as a description of the variable employment status of a labor force in terms of the attributes employed and unem- ployed. Even the report of family income for a city is a summary of attributes composing that variable: $3,124; $10,980; $35,000; and so forth. Sometimes the meanings of the concepts that

attribute A characteristic of a person or a thing.

variable A logical set of attributes. The variable sex is

made up of the attributes male and female.

Young, middle-aged, old

Female, male

Plumber, lawyer,

data-entry clerk . . .

African American, Asian,

Caucasian, Latino . . .

Upper, middle, lower . . .

Liberal, conservative

Age

Gender

Occupation

Race/ethnicity

Social class

Political views

Variable Attributes

Race/ethnicity

Social classY oun

g

Upper class

Fe ma

le Polit

ical view

s

Liberal Plumber

G ender

Occupation

Afr ica

n A me

rica n

Age

Some Common Social Concepts

FIGURE 1-5 Variables and Attributes. Variables

like education and prejudice and their attributes (edu-

cated/uneducated, prejudiced/unprejudiced) provide

the foundation for examining causal relationships in

social research.

CHAPTER 1 HUMAN INQUIRY AND SCIENCE16

P re

ju d

ic e

d

UneducatedEducated

U n

p re

ju d

ic e d

P re

ju d

ic e

d

UneducatedEducated

U n

p re

ju d

ic e d

FIGURE 1-6 Illustration of Relationship between Two Variables (Two Possibilities). Variables such as

education and prejudice and their attributes (educated/uneducated, prejudiced/unprejudiced) are the foundation

for the examination of causal relationships in social research.

Now let’s suppose that 90 percent of the uneducated are prejudiced, and the other 10 per- cent are unprejudiced. And let’s suppose that 30 percent of the educated people are prejudiced, and the other 70 percent are unprejudiced. h is is illustrated graphically in Figure 1-6a.

Figure 1-6a illustrates a relationship or associ- ation between the variables education and preju- dice. h is relationship can be seen in terms of the pairings of attributes on the two variables. h ere are two predominant pairings: (1) those who are

educated and unprejudiced and (2) those who are uneducated and prejudiced. Here are two other useful ways of viewing that relationship.

First, let’s suppose that we play a game in which we bet on your ability to guess whether a person is prejudiced or unprejudiced. I’ll pick the people one at a time (not telling you which ones I’ve picked), and you have to guess whether each person is prejudiced. We’ll do it for all 20 people in Figure 1-6a. Your best strategy in this case would be to guess prejudiced each time,

THE FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE 17

because 12 out of the 20 are categorized that way. h us, you’ll get 12 right and 8 wrong, for a net success of 4.

Now let’s suppose that when I pick a person from the i gure, I have to tell you whether the person is educated or uneducated. Your best strategy now would be to guess prejudiced for each uneducated person and unprejudiced for each educated person. If you follow that strategy, you’ll get 16 right and 4 wrong. Your improvement in guessing prejudice by knowing education illustrates what it means to say that variables are related.

Second, by contrast, let’s consider how the 20 people would be distributed if education and prejudice were unrelated to each other. h is is illustrated in Figure 1-6b. Notice that half the people are educated, and half are uneducated. Also notice that 12 of the 20 (60 percent) are pre- judiced. Given that 6 of the 10 people in each group are prejudiced, we conclude that the two variables are unrelated to each other. Knowing a person’s education would not be of any value to you in guessing whether that person was prejudiced.

We’ll be looking at the nature of relationships among variables in some depth in Part 4 of this book. In particular, we’ll see some of the ways relationships can be discovered and interpreted in research analysis. A general understanding of relationships now, however, will help you appre- ciate the logic of social science theories.

h eories describe the relationships we might logically expect among variables. Often, the expectation involves the idea of causation. A person’s attributes on one variable are expected to cause, predispose, or encourage a particular attribute on another variable. In Figure 1-6a, something about being educated apparently leads people to be less prejudiced than if they are uneducated.

As I’ll further discuss later in the book, edu- cation and prejudice in this example would be regarded as independent and dependent vari- ables, respectively. Because prejudice depends on something, we call it the dependent variable, which depends on an independent variable, in

independent variable A variable with values that are not problem-

atical in an analysis but are taken as simply given. An independent

variable is presumed to cause or determine a dependent variable. If

we discover that religiosity is partly a function of sex—women are more

religious than are men—sex is the independent variable and religios-

ity is the dependent variable. Note that any given variable might be

treated as independent in one part of an analysis and dependent in

another part of it. Religiosity might become an independent variable in

an explanation of crime.

dependent variable A variable assumed to depend on or be caused

by another (called the independent variable). If you fi nd that income

is partly a function of amount of formal education, income is being

treated as a dependent variable.

this case education. Although the educational levels of the people being studied vary, that vari- ation is independent of prejudice.

Notice, at the same time, that educational variations can be found to depend on something else—such as the educational level of our sub jects’ parents. People whose parents have a lot of edu- cation are more likely to get a lot of education than are those whose parents have little education. In this relationship, the subject’s education is the dependent variable, the parents’ education the independent variable. We can say the independent variable is the cause, the dependent variable the ef ect. (See the box on page 18 for more.)

At this point, we can see that our discussion of Figure 1-6 involved the interpretation of data. We looked at the distribution of the 20 people in terms of the two variables. In constructing a social science theory, we would derive an expectation regarding the relationship between the two variables, based on what we know about each. We know, for example, that education exposes people to a wide range of cultural variation and to diverse points of view—in short, it broadens their perspectives. Prejudice, on the other hand, represents a narrower perspective. Logically, then, we might expect education and prejudice to be somewhat incompatible. We might there- fore arrive at an expectation that increasing edu- cation would reduce the occurrence of prejudice, an expectation that our observations would support.

CHAPTER 1 HUMAN INQUIRY AND SCIENCE18

that homo sexuality was always wrong. How- ever, this response is strongly related to the re- spondents’ education, as Table 1-2 indicates.

Notice that the theory has to do with the two variables education and prejudice, not with peo- ple as such. People are the carriers of those two variables, so we can see the relationship between the variables only when we observe people. Ultimately, however, the theory uses a language of variables. It describes the associations that we might logically expect to exist between par- ticular attributes of dif erent variables. (You can do this data analysis for yourself with nothing more than a connection to the Internet. See the box “Analyzing Data Online.”)

The Purposes of Social Research

Although Chapter 4 will examine the various purposes of social research in some detail, pre- viewing them here will be useful. To begin, some- times social research is a vehicle for exploring something—that is, mapping out a topic that may warrant further study later. h is could involve looking into a new political or religious group, learning something about the use of a new street drug, and so forth. h e methods vary greatly and the conclusions are usually suggestive rather than dei nitive. Still, careful exploratory social research can dispel some misconceptions and help focus future research.

Some social research is done for the purpose of describing the state of social af airs: What is the unemployment rate? What is the racial

TABLE 1-2 Education and Antigay Prejudice

Level of Education

Percent Saying Homosexuality

Is Always Wrong

Less than high school graduate 72

High school graduate 61

Junior college 52

Bachelor’s degree 43

Graduate degree 32

Because Figure 1-6 has illustrated two possi- bilities—that education reduces the likelihood of prejudice or that it has no ef ect—you might be interested in knowing what is actually the case. h ere are, of course, many types of prejudice. For this illustration, let’s consider prejudice against gays and lesbians. Over the years, the General Social Survey (GSS) has asked respon- dents whether a homosexual relationship be- tween two adults is “always wrong, almost always wrong, sometimes wrong, or not wrong at all.” In 2006, 56 percent of those interviewed said

Independent and Dependent Variables

Let’s talk about dating. Some dates are great and some are awful; others are some- where in between. So the quality of dates is a variable and “great,” “OK,” and “awful” might be the attributes making up that variable. (If dating isn’t a relevant activity for you right now, perhaps you can pretend or substitute something similar.) Now have you noticed something in parti- cular that seems to af ect the quality of dif erent dates? Perhaps it will have some- thing to do with the kind of person you dated, your activities on the date, something about your behavior, the amount of money spent, and so forth. Can you give it a name, identifying that factor as a variable, then can you identify a set of attributes comprising that variable? Which of these two—the quality of dates and your second variable—is the indepen- dent variable and which is the dependent variable? (When we get to Chapter 12, on evaluation research, you’ll learn ways of determining whether the variable you identii ed really matters.)

APPLYING CONCEPTS IN EVERYDAY LIFE

THE FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE 19

You can test the relationship between pre judice and education for yourself if you have a con- nection to the Internet. We’ll come back to this method for analyzing data later, in Chapter 14, but here’s a quick peek in case you’re interested.

If you go to sda.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin32/ hsda?harcsda+gss06, you’ll i nd yourself at a web page with a column listing variables on the left side and an empty form on the right. In the i gure, I’ve shown you how to i ll out this form to i nd questionnaire items dealing with attitudes about homosexuality.

First, I’ve worked my way into the list of variables to i nd the specii c name needed—in this case, HOMOSEX. In the form below, I’ve

provided that name for the i rst variable. I’ve also provided the second variable, DEGREE, indicat- ing that we want to analyze dif erences in atti- tudes for dif erent educational levels. Finally, I’ve indicated that we want to do this analysis in the GSS survey conducted in 2006.

If you’re interested in trying this, i ll out the form as I have done. h en, click the button marked “Run the Table” at the bottom of the form, and you’ll get a colorful table with the results. Once you’ve done that, why not substi- tute other variables you might be interested in? Or see if the relationship between HOMOSEX and DEGREE was pretty much the same in, say, 1996.

Analyzing Data Online

ISSUES AND INSIGHTS

CHAPTER 1 HUMAN INQUIRY AND SCIENCE20

of hooking up. For example, the students’ beliefs about their peers’ behavior strongly inl uenced how they hooked up. h us, it would be dii cult to categorize this study as exploratory, descrip- tive, or explanatory, as it has elements of all three.

Later in this chapter, we’ll compare pure and applied research. It’s worth noting here, though, that the purpose of some research is limited to understanding, whereas other research ef orts are deliberately intended to bring about social change, creating a more workable or just society.

The Ethics of Human Inquiry

Most of this book is devoted to the logic and techniques of doing social research, but you’ll soon discover an ethical dimension running throughout the discussion. You’ll learn that medical, social, and other studies of human beings have often used methods later condemn- ed as unethical. In Chapter 3 and throughout the book, we examine the various concerns that distinguish ethical from unethical research.

h e ethical concerns will make more sense to you as you learn more about the actual tech- niques of doing research. Be sure to consider this important issue as you read each chapter.

SOME DIALECTICS

OF SOCIAL RESEARCH

h ere is no one way to do social research. (If there were, this would be a much shorter book.) In fact, much of the power and potential of social research lies in the many valid approaches it comprises.

Four broad and interrelated distinctions un- derlie these approaches. h ough these distinc- tions can be seen as competing choices, a good social researcher thoroughly learns each. h is is what I mean by the “dialectics” of social research: a fruitful tension between these complementary concepts.

composition of a city? What percentage of the population holds a particular political view or plans to vote for a certain candidate? Careful empiri- cal description takes the place of speculation and impressions.

Often, social research aims at explaining something—providing reasons for phenomena, in terms of causal relationships. Why do some cities have higher unemployment rates than others? Why are some people more prejudiced than others? Why are women likely to earn less than men for doing the same job? Ordinary, everyday discourse of ers an abundance of answers to such questions, but some of those answers are simply wrong. Explanatory social research provides explanations that are more trustworthy.

While some studies focus on one of these three purposes, a given study often has elements of all three. For example, when Kathleen A. Bogle (2008) undertook in-depth interviews of college students to study the phenomenon of “hook- ing up,” she uncovered some aspects that might not have been expected, fuli lling an exploratory purpose. When two people “hook up,” does that mean they have sex? Bogle found substantial ambiguities in that regard; some students felt that sex was part of the dei nition of that dating form, whereas others did not.

Her study also provides excellent descrip- tions of the students’ various experiences of hooking up. While her in-depth interviews with 76 students at two universities in one region of the country do not allow us to draw quantita- tive conclusions about all college students in the United States, they provide an excellent qualitative description of the phenomenon, not just norms but wild variations as well. Not everyone will have Stephen’s experience of his partner throwing up on him during sex, or having her call him “Anthony” at a critical moment. (You’ll learn more about the differ- ence between “qualitative” and “quantitative” research later.)

Finally, her interviews also point to some of the causes, or explanations, of dif erent kinds

SOME DIALECTICS OF SOCIAL RESEARCH 21

Idiographic and Nomothetic Explanation

All of us go through life explaining things. We do it every day. You explain why you did poorly or well on an exam, why your favorite team is winning or losing, why you may be having trouble getting dates. In our everyday explanations, we engage in two distinct forms of causal reasoning, though we do not ordinarily distinguish them.

Sometimes we attempt to explain a single sit- uation in idiosyncratic detail. h us, for example, you may have done poorly on an exam because (1) you had forgotten there was an exam that day, (2) it was in your worst subject, (3) a trai c jam made you late for class, (4) your roommate had kept you up the night before the exam with loud music, (5) the police kept you until dawn de- manding to know what you had done with your roommate’s stereo—and with your roommate, for that matter—and (6) a band of coyotes ate your textbook. Given all these circumstances, it is no wonder that you did poorly.

h is type of causal reasoning is called an idiographic explanation. Idio- in this context means unique, separate, peculiar, or distinct, as in the word idiosyncrasy. When we have com- pleted an idiographic explanation, we feel that we fully understand the causes of what happened in this particular instance. At the same time, the scope of our explanation is limited to the case at hand. Although parts of the idiographic explanation might apply to other situations, our intention is to explain one case fully.

Now consider a dif erent kind of explanation. Every time you study with a group, you do better on an exam than when you study alone. Your favorite team does better at home than on the road. Athletes get more dates than do members of the biology club. Notice that this type of explanation is more general, covering a wider range of experience or observation. It speaks implicitly of the relationship between variables: for example, (1) whether or not you study in a group and (2) how well you do on the exam. h is type of explanation—labeled nomothethic—

idiographic An approach to explanation in which we seek

to exhaust the idiosyncratic causes of a particular condition

or event. Imagine trying to list all the reasons why you chose

to attend your particular college. Given all those reasons,

it’s diffi cult to imagine your making any other choice.

nomothetic An approach to explanation in which we seek

to identify a few causal factors that generally impact a class

of conditions or events. Imagine the two or three key factors

that determine which colleges students choose, such as

proximity, reputation, and so forth.

seeks to explain a class of situations or events rather than a single one. Moreover, it seeks to explain “economically,” using only one or just a few explanatory factors. Finally, it settles for a partial rather than a full explanation.

In each of these examples, you might qualify your causal statements with on the whole, usu- ally, all else being equal, and the like. h us, you usually do better on exams when you’ve studied in a group, but not always. Similarly, your team has won some games on the road and lost some at home. And the gorgeous head of the biology club may get lots of dates, while the defensive lineman Pigpen-the-Terminator may spend a lot of Saturday nights alone punching heavy farm equipment. Such exceptions are acceptable within a broader range of overall explanation. As we noted earlier, patterns are real and important even when they are not perfect.

Both the idiographic and the nomothetic approaches to understanding can serve you in your daily life. h e nomothethic patterns you discover might of er a good guide for planning your study habits, but the idiographic explana- tion is more convincing to your parole oi cer.

By the same token, both idiographic and nomo- thetic reasoning are powerful tools for social research. Researchers who seek an exhaustive understanding of the inner workings of a particu- lar juvenile gang or the corporate leadership of a particular multinational conglomerate engage in idiographic research: h ey try to understand that particular group as fully as possible.

A. Libin and J. Cohen-Mansi eld (2000) have contrasted the way these two approaches are

CHAPTER 1 HUMAN INQUIRY AND SCIENCE22

Much social research involves the analysis of masses of statistical data. As valuable as the exami- nation of overall patterns can be, it can come at the risk of losing sight of the in- dividual men and women

those data represent. Both the “macro” and the “micro” are important to our grasp of social dynamics, and some social research focuses specii cally on the detailed par- ticulars of real lives at the ground level of society. h roughout this book, I’ll highlight recent studies that rel ect this approach to understanding social life. Statistically, unwed childbirth, es- pecially among the poor in America, is likely to run into a host of problems in the years to come. Both the child and the mother are likely to struggle and suf er. h e children are less likely to do well in school and later in life, and the mothers are likely to struggle in low-paying jobs or may reconcile themselves to living on wel- fare. h e trend toward unwed births has incre ased dramatically in recent decades, espe cially among the poor. As a reaction to these problems, the Bush administra- tion launched a “Healthy Marriage Ini- tiative” in 2005 aimed at encour aging childbearing couples to marry. Voices for

KEEPING HUMANITY IN FOCUS U

n iv

e rs

it y

o f

C a

li fo

rn ia

P re

ss

and against the program were raised with vigor. In Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood before Marriage (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), Kath- ryn Edin and Maria Kefalas raise a ques- tion that might have been asked before a solution to the perceived problem was pro- moted: Why do poor women bear children outside of wedlock? h e two social scientists spent i ve years speaking one-on-one with many young women who had borne chil- dren out of wedlock. Some of the things the researchers learned dramatically con- tradicted various common assumptions. Whereas many have bemoaned the aban- donment of marriage among the poor, for example, the women interviewed tended to speak highly of the institution, indica- ting that they hoped to be married one day. Many, however, were willing to settle down only with someone trustworthy and stable. Better to remain unmarried than to enter a bad marriage. At the same time, these young women felt strongly that their ultimate worth as women centered on their bearing children. Most preferred being an unmarried mother to being a childless woman, the real tragedy in their eyes. h is was only one i nding among many that contradicts common as- sumptions, perhaps even some of your own.

used in studies of the elderly (gerontology). Some studies focus on the experiences of individuals in the totality of their life situations, whereas other studies look for statistical patterns des- cribing the elderly in general. h e authors suggest ways to combine idiographic and nomothetic approaches in gerontology.

As you can see, social scientists can ac- cess two distinct kinds of explanation. Just as

physicists treat light as a particle in some experi- ments and as a wave in others, social scientists can search for relatively superi cial universals today and probe the narrowly particular tomor- row. Both are good science, both are rewarding, and both can be fun. See “Keeping Humanity in Focus” for a good example of research that stays very close to the human experiences of particu- lar individuals.

SOME DIALECTICS OF SOCIAL RESEARCH 23

can understand something better when you’ve explained it to someone else. And other students might understand parts of the course you haven’t gotten yet. Several minds can reveal perspectives that might have escaped you. Also, your commit- ment to study with others makes it more likely that you’ll study rather than watch the special Brady Bunch retrospective.

In this fashion, you might add up the pros and cons and conclude, logically, that you’d benei t from studying with others. It seems reasonable to you, the way it seems reasonable that you’ll do better if you study rather than not. Sometimes we say things like this are true “in theory.” To complete the process, we test whether they’re true in practice. For a complete test, you might study alone for half your exams and study with others for the rest. h is procedure would test your logical reasoning.

h is second mode of inquiry, deduction, moves from the general to the specii c. It moves from (1) a pattern that might be logically or the- oretically expected to (2) observations that test whether the expected pattern actually occurs. Notice that deduction begins with “why” and moves to “whether,” whereas induction moves in the opposite direction.

As you’ll see later in this book, these two very dif erent approaches present equally valid avenues for science. Each of these approaches can stimulate the research process, prompting the researcher to take on specii c questions and framing the manner in which they are add- ressed. Moreover, you’ll see how induction and

Inductive and Deductive Theory

Like idiographic and nomothetic forms of exp- lanation, inductive and deductive thinking both play a role in our daily lives. h ey, too, represent an important variation in social research.

h ere are two routes to the conclusion that you do better on exams if you study with oth- ers. On the one hand, you might i nd yourself puzzling, halfway through your college career, about why you do so well on exams sometimes but poorly at other times. You might list all the exams you’ve taken, noting how well you did on each. h en you might try to recall any circum- stances shared by all the good exams and all the poor ones. Did you do better on multiple-choice exams or essay exams? Morning exams or after- noon exams? Exams in the natural sciences, the humanities, or the social sciences? Times when you studied alone or . . . BAM! It occurs to you that you have almost always done best on exams when you studied with others. h is mode of in- quiry is known as induction.

Inductive reasoning moves from the particu- lar to the general, from a set of specii c observa- tions to the discovery of a pattern that represents some degree of order among all the given events. Notice, incidentally, that your discovery doesn’t necessarily tell you why the pattern exists—just that it does.

Here’s a very dif erent way you might have arrived at the same conclusion about studying for exams. Imagine approaching your i rst set of exams in college. You wonder about the best ways to study—how much to review, how much to focus on class notes. You learn that some students prepare by rewriting their notes in an orderly fashion. h en you consider whether to study at a measured pace or pull an all-nighter just before the exam. Among these musings, you might ask whether you should get together with other students in the class or just study on your own. You could evaluate the pros and cons of both options.

Studying with others might not be as ei cient, because a lot of time might be spent on things you already understand. On the other hand, you

induction The logical model in which general principles

are developed from specifi c observations. Having noted

that Jews and Catholics are more likely to vote Democratic

than are Protestants, you might conclude that religious

minorities in the United States are more affi liated with the

Democratic party, and then your task is to explain why.

deduction The logical model in which specifi c expecta-

tions of hypotheses are developed on the basis of general

principles. Starting from the general principle that all deans

are meanies, you might anticipate that this one won’t let

you change courses. This anticipation would be the result of

deduction.

CHAPTER 1 HUMAN INQUIRY AND SCIENCE24

form is useful at times. (Chapter 14 deals specii - cally with the quantii cation of data.)

Quantii cation often makes our observations more explicit. It can also make aggregating and summarizing data easier. Further, it opens up the possibility of statistical analyses, ranging from simple averages to complex formulas and mathematical models. h us, a social researcher might ask whether you tend to date people older or younger than yourself. A quantitative answer to this seems easily attained. h e researcher asks how old each of your dates has been and calcu- lates an average. Case closed.

Or is it? Although “age” here represents the number of years people have been alive, some- times people use the term dif erently; perhaps for some people “age” really means “maturity.” h ough your dates may tend to be a little older than you, they may act more immaturely and thus represent the same “age.” Or someone might see “age” as how young or old your dates look or maybe the degree of variation in their life experiences, their worldliness. h ese latter meanings would be lost in the quantitative cal- culation of average age. Qualitative data are richer in meaning and detail than are quantii ed data. h is is implicit in the cliché, “He is older than his years.” h e poetic meaning of this expression would be lost in attempts to specify how much older.

h is richness of meaning stems in part from ambiguity. If the expression means something to you when you read it, that particular mean- ing arises from your own experiences, from peo- ple you’ve known who might i t the description of being “older than their years” or perhaps the times you’ve heard others use that expression. Two things are certain: (1) You and I probably don’t mean exactly the same thing, and (2) you don’t know exactly what I mean, and vice versa.

It might be possible to quantify this concept, however. For example, we might establish a list of life experiences that would contribute to what we mean by worldliness:

Getting married Getting divorced Having a parent die

deduction work together to provide ever more powerful and complete understandings.

Notice, by the way, that the deductive/ inductive distinction is not necessarily linked to the nomothetic and idiographic modes. For example, idiographically and deductively, you might prepare for a particular date by taking into account everything you know about the person you’re dating, trying to anticipate logi- cally how you can prepare—what kinds of clothing, behavior, hairstyle, oral hygiene, and so forth will likely produce a successful date. Or, idiographically and inductively, you might try to i gure out what it was exactly that caused your date to call 911. A nomothetic, deductive approach arises when you coach others on your “rules of dating,” wisely explaining why their dates will be impressed to hear them expound on the dangers of satanic messages concealed in rock and roll lyrics. When you later review your life and wonder why you didn’t date more musicians, you might engage in nomothetic induction. h us, there are four possible approaches, which are used as much in life as in research.

We’ll return to induction and deduction later in the book. At this point, let’s turn to a third broad distinction that generates rich variations in social research.

Quantitative and Qualitative Data

h e distinction between quantitative and quali- tative data in social research is essentially the distinction between numerical and nonnumerical data. When we say someone is intelligent, we’ve made a qualitative assertion. When psychologists and others measure intelligence by IQ scores, they are attempting to quantify such a qualitative assessment. For example, the psychologist might say that a person has an IQ of 120.

Every observation is qualitative at the outset, whether it be your experience of someone’s intel- ligence, the location of a pointer on a measuring scale, or a check mark entered in a questionnaire. None of these things is inherently numerical or quantitative, but converting them to a numerical

SOME DIALECTICS OF SOCIAL RESEARCH 25

approaches present considerable “gray area.” Re- cognizing the distinction between qualitative and quantitative research doesn’t mean that you must identify your research activities with one to the exclusion of the other. A complete under- standing of a topic often requires both techniques.

h e contributions of these two approaches are widely recognized today. For example, when Stuart Biddle and his colleagues (2001) at the University of Wales set out to review the status of research in the i eld of sport and exercise psy- chology, they were careful to examine the uses of both quantitative and qualitative techniques, drawing attention to those they felt were underused.

h e apparent conl ict between these two fun- damental approaches has been neatly summa- rized by Paul h ompson (2004:238–39):

Only a few sociologists would openly deny the

logic of combining the strengths of both quantita-

tive and qualitative methods in social research. . . .

In practice, however, despite such wider method-

ological aspirations in principle, social researchers

have regrettably become increasingly divided into

two camps, many of whose members know little of

each other even if they are not explicitly hostile.

In reviewing the frequent disputes over the superiority of qualitative or quantitative methods, Anthony Onwuegbuzie and Nancy Leech (2005) suggest that the two approaches have more simi- larities than dif erences. h ey further argue that using both approaches strengthens social re- search. My intention in this book is to focus on the complementarity of these two approaches rather than any apparent competition between them.

Pure and Applied Research

Social researchers have two distinct motiva- tions: understanding and application. On the one hand, they are fascinated by the nature of human social life and are driven to explain it, to make sense out of apparent chaos. Pure research in all scientii c i elds is sometimes justii ed in terms of gaining “knowledge for its own sake.”

Seeing a murder committed Being arrested Being exiled Being i red from a job Running away with the circus

We might quantify people’s worldliness as the number of such experiences they’ve had: the more such experiences, the more worldly we’d say they were. If we thought of some expe- riences as more powerful than others, we could give those experiences more points. Once we had made our list and point system, scoring people and comparing their worldliness would be pretty straightforward. We would have no dii culty agreeing on who had more points than whom.

To quantify a concept like worldliness, we need to be explicit about what we mean. By fo- cusing specii cally on what we’ll include in our measurement of the concept, however, we also exclude any other meanings. Inevitably, then, we face a trade-of : Any explicated, quantitative measure will be more superi cial than the corre- sponding qualitative description.

What a dilemma! Which approach should we choose? Which is more appropriate to social research?

h e good news is that we don’t need to choose. In fact, we shouldn’t. Both qualitative and quan- titative methods are useful and legitimate in social research. Some research situations and topics are amenable mostly to qualitative ex- amination, others mostly to quantii cation. We need both.

However, because these two approaches call for dif erent skills and procedures, you may feel more comfortable with and become more adept in one mode than the other. You’ll be a stronger researcher, however, to the extent that you can learn both approaches. At the very least, you should recognize the legitimacy of both.

Finally, you may have noticed that the quali- tative approach seems more aligned with id- iographic explanations, whereas nomothetic explanations are more easily achieved through quantii cation. h ough this is true, these relationships are not absolute. Moreover, both

CHAPTER 1 HUMAN INQUIRY AND SCIENCE26

contributions from abroad without govern ment permission. As Ibrahim was to learn, his research institute’s acceptance of research grants— usually a valued achievement—was regarded as a federal crime in his case. As Ibrahim observes,

Being an activist sociologist in a h ird World

country is tremendously challenging. While some

elements of the work are gratifying, it is more

often permeated with agony. One honestly never

knows when one is breaking a law, violating a

military order or simply stepping over an invisible

red line. (2003:70)

Eventually, because of his own ef orts and the international uproar produced by his arrest and imprisonment, Ibrahim was given a new trial and was i nally released from prison on his 64th birthday: December 3, 2002.

You can learn more about Ibrahim’s

experience at his website: shr.aaas.org/

aaashran/alert.php?a_id=223*

Social research is put into practice in many more ordinary ways as well. Experiments and surveys, for example, can be used in product marketing. In-depth interviewing techniques can be especially useful in social work. Chapter 12 deals with evaluation research, by which so- cial researchers determine the ef ectiveness of social interventions.

Sometimes, seemingly mundane research ef- forts can powerfully af ect people’s lives. Imagine working alongside Crystal Eastman, an applied sociologist and settlement worker active in the Pittsburgh area in the early twentieth century:

We got permission to use these [coroner’s

records] and made a record of every industrial

fatality reported to the coroner during the twelve

months from July 1906 to July 1907, taking down

on a separate card for each case, the name and

address of the man killed, his age, occupation and

conjugal condition, the name of his employer,

the circumstances of the accident, the names of

important witnesses, and the verdict. h e plan

At the same time, perhaps inspired by their subject matter, many social researchers are com- mitted to having what they learn make a dif er- ence, to see their knowledge of society put into action. Sometimes they focus on making things better. When I study prejudice, for example, I’d like what I discover to result in a more tolerant soci- ety. h is is no dif erent from the AIDS researcher trying to defeat that disease. In Chapter 12, we’ll focus on a special kind of applied research called evaluation research.

h e professional activities of some social sci- entists are intimately interwoven with the inten- tion of creating a more humane society. Today, there is no better role model than the Egyptian sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim. Having ad- dressed a great many social issues, Ibrahim most recently has focused his research on the prob- lems of modern Arab societies in general, and Egypt in particular. After years of researching and writing on the edge of political tolerance, Ibrahim crossed the line in 2000.

Following the publication of one of my articles on

Arab presidents grooming their sons to succeed

them in the North Korean tradition of the late

Kim Il Sung, the old guard seemed to have gotten

a green light to come after me. h e day after the

article appeared on Cairo newsstands—June 30,

2000—I was arrested. (2003:71)

Ibrahim provides a good example of how social scientists deal with something like imprison- ment, which is, after all, an all-too-common part of modern social life.

In those initial 45 days, my human contacts in

prison were limited to prison wardens and guards.

I had little opportunity to do as much sociological

research on the prison community as I would have

liked. h at would have to wait for the second and

third rounds of my imprisonment which followed

in 2001 and 2002. (2003:69)

One of the charges brought against Ibrahim was a law that prohibits “spreading false rumors and tarnishing Egypt’s image abroad.” A more se- rious charge was that he had accepted i nancial

SOME DIALECTICS OF SOCIAL RESEARCH 27

conduct a major research project, you can lay out a plan for doing so. Your instructor may use this as a course requirement. If not, you can still use the exercises to test your mastery of each chapter.

was to learn from the evidence in the coroner’s

record, how each accident happened, and to

learn from visiting family what happened after

the accident, e.g., how great a i nancial loss was

suf ered by the family of the workman killed,

how much of this was made up by compensation

received from the employer, and how the family

was af ected in its economic life by the accident.

When we had done this with the fatalities, we

followed the same course with the records of three

months’ industrial injuries which we secured

from the hospitals. (Eastman 1910:789; quoted in

Lengermann and Niebrugge-Brantley 2002:13)

As a result of this and similar studies, American workers now enjoy the protections of worker’s compensation insurance.

As with the other dialectics just discussed, some social scientists tend more toward pure research, others toward application. Ultimately, both orientations are valid and vital elements in social research as a whole. In dealing with the basics of social research, whether pure or applied, one of the intentions of this book is to draw attention to the ways in which such research makes a dif erence.

Now that you’ve learned about the founda- tions of social research, I hope you can see how vibrant and exciting such research is. All we need is an open mind and a sense of adventure—and a good grounding in the basics of social research.

The Research Proposal

I conclude this chapter by introducing a prac- tical learning feature that will run throughout the book: the preparation of a research proposal. Most organized research begins with a description of what is planned in the project: what ques- tions it will raise and how it will answer them. Often such proposals are created for the purpose of getting the resources needed to conduct the research envisioned.

One way to learn the topics of this course is to use them in writing a research proposal. Each chapter ends with an exercise describing a step in this process. Even if you will not actually

h is chapter opened with a question regarding uncontrolled variations in society—specii cally, birthrates. We noted that there is no apparent control over who will or will not have a baby during a given year. Indeed, many babies occur by accident. For the most part, dif erent people have the babies from one year to the next, and each baby results from idiosyncratic, deeply personal reasons.

As the data introduced in this chapter indicate, however, aggregate social life oper- ates dif erently from individual experiences of living in society. Although predicting whether a specii c person or couple will decide to have a child at a given time is dii cult, a greater regularity exists at the level of groups, organi- zations, and societies. h is regularity is pro- duced by social structure, culture, and other forces that individuals may or may not be aware of. Rel ect, for example, on the impact of a housing industry that provides too few residences to accommodate large families, in contrast to one where accommodation is the norm. Whereas that single factor would not absolutely determine the childbearing choices of a particular person or couple, it would have a predictable, overall ef ect across the whole society. And social researchers are chiel y interested in describing and understanding social patterns, not individual behaviors. h is book will share with you some of the logic and tools social researchers use in that quest.

What do you think? REVISITED ?

CHAPTER 1 HUMAN INQUIRY AND SCIENCE28

SAGrader is a computer program designed to assist you with this sort of exercise. It will accept a draft submission and critique it, pointing to elements that are missing, for example. You can learn more about SAGrader at www.ideaworks .com/sagrader/.

h ere are many organizational structures for research proposals. I’ve created a fairly typi- cal one for you to use with this book. Here is the proposal outline, indicating which chap- ters in the book most directly deal with each topic:

Introduction (Chapter 1) Review of the Literature (Chapters 2, 15;

Appendix A)

Specifying the Problem/Question/Topic (Chapters 5, 6, 12)

Research Design (Chapter 4) Data-Collection Method (Chapters 4, 8–11) Selection of Subjects (Chapter 7) Ethical Issues (Chapter 3) Data Analysis (Chapters 13, 14) Bibliography (Chapter 15; Appendix A)

I’ll have more to say about each of these top- ics as we move through the book, beginning with this chapter’s exercise, where we’ll discuss what might go into the introduction. Chapter 4 will have an extended section on the research pro- posal, and Chapter 15 will help you pull all the parts of the proposal into a coherent whole.

such errors by making observation a careful and deliberate activity.

We sometimes jump to general conclusions • on the basis of only a few observations, so scientists seek to avoid overgeneralization by committing to a sui cient number of observa- tions and by replicating studies.

In everyday life we sometimes reason illogi-• cally. Researchers seek to avoid illogical rea- soning by being as careful and deliberate in their reasoning as in their observations. More- over, the public nature of science means that others can always challenge faulty reasoning.

h ree views of “reality” are the premodern, • modern, and postmodern views. In the post- modern view, there is no “objective” reality independent of our subjective experiences. Dif erent philosophical views suggest a range of possibilities for scientii c research.

The Foundations of Social Science

Social theory attempts to discuss and explain • what is, not what should be. h eory should not be confused with philosophy or belief.

Social science looks for regularities in social • life.

Main Points

Introduction

h e subject of this book is how we i nd out • about social reality.

Looking for Reality

Much of what we know, we know by • agreement rather than by experience. Scientists accept an agreement reality but have special standards for doing so.

h e science of knowing is called • epistemology; the science of i nding out is called methodology.

Inquiry is a natural human activity. Much • of ordinary human inquiry seeks to explain events and predict future events.

When we understand through direct • experience, we make observations and seek patterns or regularities in what we observe.

Two important sources of agreed-on • knowledge are tradition and authority. However, these useful sources of knowledge can also lead us astray.

Whereas we often observe inaccurately in • day-to-day inquiry, researchers seek to avoid

Social scientists are interested in explaining • human aggregates, not individuals.

h eories are written in the language of • variables.

A variable is a logical set of attributes. An • attribute is a characteristic, such as male or female. Sex, for example, is a variable made up of these attributes.

In causal explanation, the presumed cause • is the independent variable, and the af ected variable is the dependent variable.

Social research has three main purposes: • exploring, describing, and explaining social phenomena. Many research projects rel ect more than one of these purposes.

Ethics plays a key role in the practice of social • research.

Some Dialectics of Social Research

Whereas idiographic explanations seek to • present a full understanding of specii c cases, nomothetic explanations seek to present a generalized account of many cases.

Inductive theories reason from specii c • observations to general patterns. Deductive theories start from general statements and predict specii c observations.

Quantitative data are numerical; qualitative • data are not. Both types of data are useful for dif erent research purposes.

Both pure and applied research are valid and • vital parts of the social research enterprise.

Key Terms

agreement reality induction

attribute methodology

deduction nomothetic

dependent variable replication

epistemology theory

idiographic variable

independent variable

Proposing Social Research: Introduction

h is i rst chapter has given you an overview of some of the basic variations in social research, many of which can be useful in writing the introduction of your research proposal. For this assignment, you should i rst identify a research topic or question you might like to explore in a project. Perhaps you would like to explore some topic relating to race, gender, or social class. Perhaps there is some aspect of college life that you think needs study.

Once you have a research topic in mind, you can review this chapter for some ideas on how you might organize your research and what approaches you might take. h e introduction is an overview of the project, so it should take only two to four paragraphs. Try to select a topic that you’ll use throughout the book, as you address dif erent aspects of the research process in each chapter.

Here are some examples of research questions, to illustrate the kind of focus your project might take:

Do women earn less money than men? If so, • why?

What are some dif erences that distinguish • juvenile gangs formed within dif erent ethnic groups?

Which academic departments at your col-• lege of er the broadest degree of liberal arts training?

Is it true, as some suggest, that the United • States was established as a “Christian Nation”?

Are American military actions in the Middle • East reducing the threat of terrorist attacks or increasing those threats?

What are the major functions of the American • family and how have those been changing over time?

Are oi cial attempts to control illegal drug • use succeeding or failing?

Do undocumented immigrants overall rep-• resent a net economic cost or benei t to the United States?

29MAIN POINTS

Online Study Resources

Go to www.cengage.com/login

and click on “Create My Account” for access to this powerful online study tool. You’ll get a personalized study plan based on your responses to a diagnostic pretest. Once you’ve mastered the material with the help of interactive learning tools, you can take a posttest to coni rm that you’re ready to move on to the next chapter.

Website for The Basics of Social Research, 5th edition

At the book companion website (www.cengage .com/sociology/babbie) you’ll i nd many resources in addition to CengageNOW to aid you in studying for your exams. For example, you’ll i nd Tutorial Quizzes with feedback, Internet Exercises, Flash Cards, Glossary and Crossword Puzzles, as well as Learning Objectives, GSS Data, Web Links, Essay Questions, and a Final Exam.

Notice that you probably hear questions like these discussed frequently, both in your own interactions and in the media. Most of those discussions probably revolve around opinions. Your opportunity in this course is to see how you might pursue such questions as a researcher, dealing with logic and facts in place of opinions.

Review Questions

1. How would the discussion of variables and attri-

butes apply to physics, chemistry, and biology?

2. Identify a social problem that you feel ought to

be addressed and solved. What are the variables

represented in your description of the problem?

Which of those variables would you monitor in

determining whether the problem was solved?

3. Suppose you were interested in studying the quality

of life among elderly people. What quantitative and

qualitative indicators might you examine?

4. How might social research be useful to such

professionals as physicians, attorneys, business

executives, police oi cers, and newspaper

reporters?

30 CHAPTER 1 HUMAN INQUIRY AND SCIENCE