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Chapter 4: Theories in Scientific Research - Coggle Diagram
Chapter 4: Theories in Scientific Research
Theories
Idiographic explanations: those that explain a single situation or event in idiosyncratic detail.
Nomothetic Explanations: seek to explain a class of situations or events rather than a specific situation or event.
Building Blocks of a Theory
Constructs: abstract concepts specified at a high level of abstraction that are chosen specifically to explain the phenomenon of interest.
Propositions: associated postulated between constructs based on deductive logic.
Hypotheses: the empirical formulation of propositions stated as relationships between variables.
Logic: provides the bases for justifying the propositions as postulated.
Assumptions: about values, time, and space.
Boundary Conditions: govern where the theory can be applied and where it cannot be applied.
Attributes of a Good Theory
Logical Consistency: theoretical constructs, propositions, boundary conditions, and assumptions logically consistent with each other.
Explanatory Power: how much a given theory explains or predicts reality. Explain the target phenomenon better than rival theories as often measured by variance explained value in regression equations.
Falsifiability: ensures that the theory is potentially disprovable, if empirical data does not match with theoretical propositions which allows for their empirical testing by researchers.
Parsimony: examines how much of a phenomenon is explained with few variables.
Approaches to Theorizing
Approach 1: build theories inductively based on observed patterns of events of behaviors.
Approach 2: conduct a bottom-up conceptual analysis to identify different sets of predictors relevant to the phenomenon of interest using a predefined framework.
Approach 3: extend or modify existing theories to explain a new context.
Approach 4: apply existing theories in entirely new contexts by drawing upon the structural similarities between the two contexts.
Examples of Social Science Theories
Agency Theory: a classic theory in the organizational economics literature, to explain two-party relationships whose goals are not congruent with each other.
Innovation Diffusion Theory: a seminal theory in the communications literature that explains how innovations are adopted within a population of potential adopters.
Elaboration Likelihood Model: a dual-process theory of attitude formation or change in the psychology literature. It explains how individuals can be influenced to change their attitude toward a certain object, events, or behavior and the relative efficacy of such change strategies.
General Deterrence Theory: examines why certain individuals engage in deviant, anti-social, or criminal behaviors. This theory holds that people are fundamentally rational, and freely choose deviant behaviors based on a rational cost-benefit calculation.