Inductive and Deductive Theory

Deductive Theory Construction • s 1

Deductive Theory Construction To see what's involved in deductive theory con­ struction and hypothesis testing, imagine that you're going to construct a deductive theory. How would you go about it?

Getting Started The first step in deductive theory construction is to pick a topic that interests you. The topic can be very broad, such as "What is the structure of soci­ ety?" or it can be narrower, as in "Why do people support or oppose the idea of a woman's right to an abortion?" Whatever the topic, it should be something you're interested in understanding and explaining.

Once you've picked your topic, the next step is to undertake an inventory of what's already known or thought about it. In part, this means writing down your own observations and ideas. Beyond that, it means learning �hat other scholars have said about it. You can talk to other people, and you'll want to read the scholarly literature on the topic. Appendix A provides guidelines for using the library-you'll likely spend a lot of time there.

Your preliminary research will probably un­ cover consistent patterns discovered by prior schol­ ars. For example, religious and political variables will stand out as important determinants of atti­ tudes about abortion. Findings such as these will be very useful to you in creating your own theory.

In this process, don't overlook the value of introspection. Whenever we can look at our own personal processes-including reactions, fears, and prejudices-we may gain important insights into human behavior in general. I don't mean to say

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that everyone thinks like you or me, but introspec- tion can provide a useful source of insights that can inform our inquiries.

ConstructingYourTheory Now that you've reviewed previous work on the topic, you're ready to begin constructing your the- ory. Although theory construction is not a lockstep affair, the process generally involves something like the following steps.

l. Specify the topic. 2. Specify the range of phenomena your theory

addresses. Will your theory apply to all of human social life, will it apply only to U.S. citi- zens, only to young people, or what?

3. Identify and specify your major concepts and variables.

4. Find out what is knovvn (propositions) about the relationships among those variables.

5. Reason logically from those propositions to the specific topic you're examining.

We've already discussed items (1) through (3), so let's focus now on (4) and (5). As you identify the relevant concepts and discover what's already been learned about them, you can begin to create a propositional structure that explains the topic un- der study.

Let's look now at an example of how these building blocks fit together in deductive theory construction and empirical research.

AnExampleofDeductiveTheory: DistributiveJustice A topic of interest to scholars is the concept of dis- tributive justice, people's perceptions of whether they are being treated fairly by life, whether they are getting "their share." Guillermina Jasso de- scribes the theory of distributive justice more for- mally, as follows:

The theory provides a mathematical description of the process whereby individuals, reflecting on their holdings of the goods they value (such

as beauty, intelligence, or wealth), compare themselves to others, experiencing a funda- mental instantaneous magnitude of the justice evaluation (J), which captures their sense of being fairly or unfairly treated in the distribu- tions of natural and social goods.

(Jasso1988: 11)

Notice that Jasso has assigned a symbolic representation for her key variable: J will stand for distributive justice. She does this to support her in- tention of stating her theory in mathematical for- mulas. Though theories are often expressed mathe- matically, we'll not delve too deeply into that practice here.

Jasso indicates that there are three kinds of pos- tulates in her theory. "The first makes explicit the fundamental axiom which represents the substan- tive point of departure for the theory." She elabo- rates as follows: The theory begins with the re- ceived Axiom of Comparison,which formalizes the long-held view that a wide class of phenomena, in- cluding happiness, self-esteem, and the sense of distributive justice, may be understood as the prod- uct of a Comparison process (Jasso 1988: 11).

Thus, your sense of whether you're receiving a "fair" share of the good things of life comes from comparing yourself with others. If this seems obvi- ous to you, that's not a shortcoming of the axiom. Remember, axioms are the taken-for-granted be- ginnings of theory.

Jasso continues to do the groundwork for her theory. First, she indicates that our sense of distrib- utive justice is a function· of "Actual Holdings (A)" and "Comparison Holdings (C)" of some good. Let's consider money, for example. My sense of justice in this regard is a function of how much I actually have, compared with how much others have. By specifying the two components of the comparison, Jasso can use them as variables in her theory.

Next, Jasso offers a "measurement rule" that further specifies how the two variables, A and C, will be conceptualized. This step is needed because some of the goods to be examined are concrete and commonly measured (such as money), whereas others are less tangible (such as respect). The former kind, she says, will be measured

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Deductive Construction53Theory Co

conventionally, whereas the latter will be measured "by the individual's relative rank ... within a spe- cially selected comparison group." The theory will provide a formula for making that measurement (Jasso 1988: 13).

Jasso continues in this fashion to introduce ad- ditional elements, weaving them into mathematical formulas to be used in deriving predictions about the workings of distributive justice in a variety of social settings. Here is just a sampling of where her theorizing takes her (1988: 14-15).

• Other things [being] the same, a person will prefer to steal from a fellow group member rather than from an outsider.

• The preference to steal from a fell ow group member is more pronounced in poor groups than in rich groups.

• In the case of theft, informants arise only in cross-group theft, in which case they are mem- bers of the thief's group.

• Persons who arrive a week late at summer camp or for freshman year of college are more likely to become friends of persons who play games of chance than of persons who play games of skill.

• A society becomes more vulnerable to deficit spending as its wealth increases.

• Societies in which population growth is wel- comed must be societies in which the set of val- ued goods includes at least one quantity-good, such as wealth.

Jasso's theory leads to many other propositions, but this sampling should provide a good sense of where deductive theorizing can take you. To get a feeling for how she reasons her way to these propositions, let's look briefly at the logic involved in two of the propositions that relate to theft within and outside one's group.

• Other things [being] the same, a person will prefer to steal from a fellow group member rather than from an outsider.

Beginning with the assumption that thieves want to maximize their relative wealth, ask your- self whether that goal would be best served by

stealing from those you compare yourself with or from outsiders. In each case, stealing will increase your Actual Holdings, but what about your Com- parison Holdings?

A moment's thought should suggest that steal- ing from people in your comparison group will lower their holdings, further increasing your rela- tive wealth. To simplify, imagine there are only two people in your comparison group: you and I. Sup- pose we each have $100. If you steal $50 from someone outside our group, you will have in- creased your relative wealth by 50 percent com- pared with me: $150 versus $100. But if you steal $50 from me, you will have increased your relative wealth 200 percent: $150 to my $50. Your goal is best served by stealing from within the comparison group.

• In the case of theft, informants arise only in cross-group theft, in which case they are mem- bers of the thief's group.

Can you see why it would make sense for in- formants ( 1) to arise only in the case of cross-group theft and ( 2) to come from the thief's comparison group? This proposition again depends on the fun- damental assumption that everyone wants to in- crease his or her relative standing. Suppose you and I are in the same comparison group, but this time the group contains additional people. If you· steal from someone else within our comparison group, my relative standing in the group does not change. Although your wealth has increased, the average wealth in the group remains the same (be- cause someone else's wealth has decreased by the same amount). So my relative standing remains the same. I have no incentive to inform on you.

If you steal from someone outside our compari- son group, however, your nefarious income in- creases the total wealth in our group. Now my own wealth relative to that total is diminished. Because my relative wealth has suffered, I'm more likely to inform on you in order to bring an end to your stealing. Hence, informants arise only in cross- group theft.

This last deduction also begins to explain why these informants come from the thief's own com- parison group. We've just seen how your theft

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54 ■ Chapter2: Paradigms,Theory,and Social Research

decreased my relative standing. How about mem- bers of the other group (other than the individual you stole from)? Each of them actually profits from the theft, because you have reduced the total with which they compare themselves. Hence, they have no reason to inform on you. Thus, the theory of distributive justice predicts that informants arise from the thief's own comparison group.

This brief peek into Jasso's derivations should give you some sense of the enterprise of deductive theory. Of course, the theory guarantees none of the given predictions. The role of research is to test each of them to determine whether what makes sense (logic) actually occurs in practice (observation).

InductiveTheoryConstruction As we have seen, quite often social scientists be- gin constructing a theory through the inductive method by first observing aspects of social life and then seeking to discover patterns that may point to relatively universal principles. Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss (1967) coined the term grounded theoryin reference to this method.

Field research-the direct observation of events in progress-is frequently used to develop theories through observation. In a long and rich tradition, anthropologists have used this method to good advantage.

Among modem social scientists, no one has been more adept at seeing the patterns of human behavior through observation than Erving Goffman:

A game such as chess generates a habitable uni- verse for those who can follow it, a plane of be- ing, a cast of characters with a seemingly un- limited number of different situations and acts through which to realize their natures and des- tinies. Yet much of this is reducible to a small set of interdependent rules and practices. If the meaningfulness of everyday activity is similarly dependent on a closed, finite set of rules, then explication of them would give one a powerful means of analyzing social life.

(1974: 5)

In a variety of research efforts, Goffman uncov- ered the rules of such diverse behaviors as living in a mental institution ( 1961) and managing the "spoiled identity" of being disfigured ( 1963). In each case, Goffman observed the phenomenon in depth and teased out the rules governing behavior. Goffman's research provides an excellent example of qualitative field research as a source of grounded theory.

Our earlier discussion of the Comfort Hypothe- sis and church involvement shows that qualitative field research is not the only method of observation appropriate to the development of inductive the- ory. Here's another detailed example to illustrate further the construction of inductive theory using quantitative methods.

An Example of Inductive Theory: Why Do People SmokeMarijuana? During the 1960s and 1970s, marijuana use on U.S. college campuses was a subject of considerable discussion in the popular press: Some people were troubled by marijuana's popularity; others wel- comed it. What interests us here is why some stu- dents smoked marijuana and others didn't. A sur- vey of students at the University of Hawaiiby David Takeuchi (1974) provided the data to answer that question.

At the time of the study, a huge number of ex- planations were being offered for drug use. People who opposed drug use, for example, often sug- gested that marijuana smokers were academic fail- ures trying to avoid the rigors of college life. Those in favor of marijuana, on the other hand, often spoke of the search for new values: Marijuana smokers, they said, were people who had seen through the hypocrisy of middle-class values.

Takeuchi's analysis of the data gathered from University of Hawaii students, however, did not support any of the explanations being offered ... Those who reported smoking marijuana had essen- tially the same academic records as those who didn't smoke it, and both groups were equally in- volved in traditional "school spirit" activities. Both . groups seemed to feel equally well integrated into campus life.

There were other differences between the groups, however:

1. Women were less likely than men to smoke marijuana.

2. Asian students ( a large proportion of the stu­ dent body) were less likely to smoke marijuana than non-Asians were.

3. Students living at home were less likely to smoke marijuana than those living in apart­ ments were.

As in the case of religiosity, the three variables independently affected the likelihood of a student's smoking marijuana. About 10 percent of the Asian · women living at home had smoked marijuana, in contrast to about 80 percent of the non-Asian men living in apartments. And, as in the religiosity study, the researchers discovered a powerful pat­ tern of drug use before they had an explanation for that pattern.

In this instance, the explanation took a peculiar turn. Instead of explaining why some students smoked marijuana, the researchers explained why some didn't. Assuming that all students had some motivation for trying drugs, the researchers sug­ gested that students differed in the degree of "social constraints" preventing them from following through on that motiva�on.

U.S. society is, on the whole, more permissive with men than with women when it comes to de­ viant behavior. Consider, for example, a group of men getting drunk and boisterous. We tend to dis­ miss such behavior with references to "cama­ raderie" and "having a good time," whereas a group of women behaving similarly would proba­ bly be regarded with great disapproval. We have an idiom, "Boys will be boys," but no comparable id­ iom for girls. The researchers reasoned, therefore, that women would have more to lose by smoking marijuana than men would. In other words, being female provided a constraint against smoking marijuana.

Students living at home had obvious con­ straints against smoking marijuana, compared with students living on their own. Quite aside from dif­ ferences in opportunity, those living at home were

Toe Links between Theory and Research • 55

seen as being more dependent on their parents­ . hence more vulnerable to additional punishment for breaking the law.

Finally, the Asian subculture in Hawaii has tra­ ditionally placed a higher premium on obedience to the law than other subcultures have, so Asian stu­ dents would have more to lose if they were caught violating the law by smoking marijuana.

Overall, then, a "social constraints" theory was offered as the explanation for observed differences in the likelihood of smoking marijuana. The more constraints a student had, tb.e less likely he or she would be to smoke marijuana. Itbears repeating that the researchers had no thoughts about such a theory when their research began. The theory came from an examination of the data.