Alternative logics of inquiry for psychology How to chose the right methods for the research questio

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Alternative logics of inquiry for psychology
How to chose the right methods for the
research questions we ask

• Professor Wendy Stainton Rogers, Faculty of
  Health Social Care, The Open University UK

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Modernism and Postmodernism

• These have different
• ontologies
• epistemologies
• logics of enquiry

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Ontologies
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Ontologies
In a Modernist ontology

• Modernism creatures in the sea
• Postmodernism music making

The social world is like creatures swimming in
the sea
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Modernist ontology

• People live their lives and interact with each
  other within the social world, like creatures
  swimming in the sea
• Their actions are (at least partially) determined
  by the constraints set by the social world
• The social world operates as a predictable
  system, operating through the laws of (human)
  nature

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In a Postmodern ontology
The social world is like music making
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Postmodern ontology

• The social world is a product of human
  meaning-making like the making of music by an
  orchestra
• So its peoples actions that make the social
  world, but also they are made (meaningful) by it
• To the extent that the social world operates as a
  predictable system, it is through people enacting
  the laws, conventions, customs, taboos and
  perversities of the culture in which they live

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Epistemologies
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Epistemologies
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Modernist epistemology

• Knowledge is based on facts that are
  out-there-in-the-world waiting to be discovered
• There is only one true, objective knowledge that
  transcends time and cultural location
• Asks of knowledge is it true?
• Knowledge is gained primarily through
  hypothetico-deductive testing of theory
• Seeks to provide nomothetic cause-and-effect
  explanations
• Seeks to be dispassionate and apolitical
• Has a long tradition and established standards of
  what constitutes valid research

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Postmodern epistemology

• Knowledge is constructed through peoples
  meaning-making
• There are multiple knowledges, contingent on time
  and cultural location
• Asks of knowledge what does it do? How can it
  be used by whom, and to what ends?
• Knowledge is gained through interpretation of
  meaning and salience
• Postmodern research seeks insight, and is often
  abductive
• Makes no claim to be objective or dispassionate,
  and often directed from a particular standpoint
  (such as postcolonialism or feminism)
• Is relatively new, and as yet is only beginning
  to establish standards of what constitutes valid
  research

More about this later!
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Logics of enquiry

• Interrogative methods
• Induction
• Deduction
• Interpretation
• Abduction
• Blaikie, 2006

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Induction

• Assumes the social world operates in a lawful
  manner, and the aim is to discover these laws
• To do this, facts are observed and recorded,
  without any attempt to be selective.
• These facts are analysed, compared and
  classified, without reference to any hypothesis.
• From this analysis, generalisations are inferred
  about the relationships between the facts.
• These generalisations are tested, by further
  observation of the facts.
• Methods include observation and exploration
• The outcome is an explanation, based upon a
  logical argument.

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Deduction

• Also assumes the social world operates in a
  lawful manner, and the aim is to discover these
  laws
• This is done by generating theories and testing
  hypotheses about cause and effect, in order to be
  able to explain why people think, feel and act as
  they do
• But we have no way of knowing for certain when we
  have arrived at a true theory, so even those
  theories that have survived testing must be
  regarded as provisional
• Methods include surveys and experiments

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Interpretation

• Assumes that the social world is the product of
  socially constructed mutual knowledge meanings,
  cultural symbols and social institutions
  operating within an assumed structure enforced by
  factors such as inequalities, exploitation and
  prejudice.
• The aim of interpretative research is to gain
  insight into social reality what is going on in
  a particular situation and context that is
  enforced by these structural factors.
• Data collection includes ethnography, interviews
  and focus groups
• Analysis includes narrative, IPA and thematic
  analysis (as in grounded theory)
• The outcome is a thick account, offering a
  detailed explication or reading of what is going
  on, in relation to a local and contingent
  structural context

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Abduction

• Also assumes that the social world is the product
  of socially constructed mutual knowledge
  meanings, cultural symbols and social
  institutions but with no reference to
  structure.
• The aim of abductive research is simply to gain
  insight into social reality what is going on
  how it works, who gains and who gets exploited
  and why?
• Data collection also includes ethnography,
  interviews, focus groups and Q methodology.
• Analysis includes various forms of thematic,
  discourse and conversational analysis and the
  interpretation of Q factors, all of which involve
  a focus on aberrations, disjunctions,
  inconsistencies, surprises.
• The outcome is a hypothesis explicating what is
  going on. It can be can be more taxonomic,
  offering an overview across a concourse of ideas,
  viewpoints, representations.

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Abduction

• Result The surprising fact, C, is observed
• Rule But if A were true, C would be a matter of
  course
• Case Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is
  true
• Pierce, 1955

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An illustration of abduction

• The tribe who hunt in the forest observe a smell
  they cannot recognise
• Result This is an unusual smell.
• Rule It is reasonable to suppose that animals
  give off unusual smells during their mating
  season.
• Case This quite possibly is the smell of a
  familiar animal during the mating season
• Shank, 1998

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Which logic of inquiry?

• It depends on the desired outcome
• Explanation
• or
• Explication

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Different ways of dealing with complexity

• Reduce it through ironing out
• Reduce it though unfolding
• Reduce it through focusing on anomalies and
  contradictions

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Different Research methods

• EXPLANATORY
• Observational or descriptive
• Hypothetico-deductive
• Experimental
• Survey
• Content analysis
• EXPLICATORY
• Interpretational
• Abductive

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Abductory research

• juxtaposition
• rhetoric
• outliers

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An example from science
Normal science is a highly cumulative
enterprise, eminently successful in its aim, the
steady extension of the scope and precision of
scientific knowledge. Yet one standard product
of the scientific enterprise is missing. Normal
science does not aim for novelties of fact or
theory and, when successful, finds none. New and
unsuspected phenomena are, however, repeatedly
uncovered by scientific research, and radical new
theories have again and again been invented by
scientists. History even suggests that the
scientific enterprise has developed a uniquely
powerful technique for producing surprises of
this sort. Kuhn, 1970 52-3
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Conversational analysis as an example of
abductive research
Example 1 A Why dont you come up and see me
sometime B I would like to.
Example 2 A Well, will you help me out B
I certainly will. Kitzinger and Frith (1999)
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Refusals

• Example 3
• A We were wondering if you wanted to come
  over Saturday, fr dinner
• (0.4 sec pause)
• B Well (.). hh itd be great but we promised
  Carol already.

Example 4 A hhhhh Uh will you call im
tuhnight for me, ? B ? eYeah (.) A
Please,
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Summary

• Different assumptions about epistemology and
  ontology
• Different logics of inquiry
• Induction
• Deduction
• Interpretation
• Abduction
• Critical realism and critical relativism
• Different ways to deal with complexity

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References

• Blaikie, N. (2000) Designing Social Research,
  Polity Press, Cambridge.
• Pierce, C.S. (1940) Abduction and Induction, in
  J.Bulchder (ed.) The Philosophy of Peirce
  Selected Writings. London Routledge and Keegan
  Paul. (Republished in 1955 as Philosophical
  Writings of Pierce. New York Dover)
• Kitzinger, C, and Frith, H. (1999) Just say no?
  The use of conversational analysis in developing
  a feminist perspective on sexual refusal,
  Discourse and Society, 19(3) 293-316.
• Shank, G. (1998) The extraordinary powers of
  abductive reasoning, Theory Psychology, 8(6),
  841-60.
• Stainton Rogers, W. (2003) Social Psychology
  Experimental and Critical Approaches. Maidenhead
  Open University Press
• Stainton Rogers, W. (2006) Logics of Inquiry, in
  S. Potter (ed.) Doing Postgraduate Research, 2nd
  Edition. London Sage.

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Questions?