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THEORY: WHAT IT IS
AND WHY IT IS IMPORTANT
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f you were asked what is the ultimate goal of research in any discipline or subject matter, what would you say? What do geologists, psy- chologists, family scientists, medical researchers, experts in human development, chemists, political scientists, sociologists, biologists, astronomers, plant pathologists, and anthropologists have in common? No, the answer is not that they all have pointy heads and wear white lab coats. What they share is a common goal: the desire to increase understanding of their subject manner. They want to find out how things work and why they work the way they do. Why? Two major reasons: (a) to know for the sake of knowing and (b) to figure how some problem or issue can be better dealt with. How do the study habits of students with good grade point averages (GPAs) differ from those of students with not-so-good GPAs? Why do they differ? What makes some families seem more resilient to stress than other families and how do they become this way? What makes some families less likely to reach out for help? Is expo- sure to successful parental behavior a way for new parents to learn how to be good parents? What particular teaching approaches work best with which student predilections for learning?
To make progress on these kinds of intellectual and practical questions, individual researchers (and, indeed, the entire research enterprise) oper- ate in two distinct but highly related worlds: the abstract (the world of concepts/ideas) and the concrete (the empirical/observable world). What scientific theories do is link these two separate domains and, in so doing, provide descriptions, summaries, integration, and explanations about what is known from research as well as guidance for additional research and practice that will increase further understanding. Theorizing, then, is the process of systemati- cally developing and organizing ideas to explain phenomena, and a theory is the total set of empi- rically testable, interconnected ideas formulated to explain those phenomena^1 (Doherty, Boss, LaRossa, Schumm, & Steinmetz, 1993; White & Klein, 2002). It is extremely important to be clear that if one deals only with the conceptual, or idea, level without testing those ideas against indepen- dent empirical information (empirical means “available to the senses”), or if one deals only with observable information without trying to systematically explain it, then scientific theory development is not possible. It also must be understood that the process is not linear in nature.
For example, one can start with observations of some aspect of family life and then try to explain those observations (e.g., the children in a family seem to be less patient with one another when their mother or father has had an “adult temper tantrum” at some point in the day than when this has not occurred), or one can start with an expla- nation and then make empirical observations (e.g., what children come to know about how to be parents results from modeling— that is, from observing and re-creating the behavior of their parents). We wrote this book to help increase your appreciation of how important theory is to the advancement of knowledge in family science and human development (as it is in every field of scientific inquiry) as well as to the practical application of ideas. Indeed, the level of theoret- ical development is one yardstick indicating the maturity and usefulness of a discipline such as family science (Marx, 1969; Weis, 1998). Is research in a given area conceptualized and carried out to test predictions from a theory? Is the development and implementation of prac- tice (e.g., educational efforts or therapeutic inter- ventions) fostered and supported by theory? If so, then there is likely to be a relatively strong knowledge base in the area of study. Contrary to the view that theory is “dry” or “not relevant” or “not needed” or “not important for the average person,” it is simply the case that summarizing, organizing, testing, relating, reevaluating, and attempting to explain and understand things (which is what theories do) is absolutely crucial for all humans in virtually every facet of our lives. A famous thinker and psychologist, Kurt Lewin (as cited in Marrow, 1977) once said that there is nothing so useful as a good theory. This is true in regard to scientific theory as we have just defined it (and which is the focus of this book). But theory building— the process of accu- mulating, evaluating, linking, testing, retesting, and explaining information on an ongoing basis—is also an essential feature of everyday living. Of course, there are some clear distinc- tions between how this process works in every- day life and in scientific research.
As a way to begin to understand these distinctions, let us first introduce Professor S. Canon, who does research on the development of families over the life course. Canon may work in a university, a government research agency, a private company, or a foundation. Assuming that she is well trained in the ways of scientific research and is inclined to ethical behavior in her research (e.g., Nosek, Banaji, & Greenwald, 2002), she follows a fairly specific set of rules for the overall process of discovering and explaining. These “rules of the game” have been defined and refined over many years by researchers, theorists, and philosophers of science. They comprise the integrated processes of information gathering and explanation build- ing and characterize how researchers operate back and forth in the concrete and abstract worlds. This way of “knowing,” or developing understanding, must be understood so that you can appreciate the specific roles of theory and theory development in knowledge building, including the development of concepts and their relationships, the testing of predictions, and the uses of research results to modify, support, or not support theoretical explanations (e.g., Babbie, 2003; Miller, 1992; Sadler & Hulgus, 1989). The following outline of important parts of the scientific research process is presented for your review (but be careful—the process only rarely proceeds in the kind of linear fashion that a list might suggest) along with how a family researcher such as Professor Canon might proceed to use the process:
- Canon develops an interest in some general area of family studies or human development through reading, thinking, and talking with col- leagues and students and by casual or planned observations (e.g., Benson & Piercy, 1997). Let us assume that she is interested in how families facilitate or inhibit the development of friendli- ness and concern for others; perhaps, phrased somewhat negatively, she is interested in the development of individual as well as family arrogance and self-indulgence.
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has followed the rules of scientific research, including, in particular, the public nature of the research and theory-building process.
Within this overall process of information gathering and explanation developing, steps 6 and 7 are the ones that most directly emphasize theory or explanation of phenomena (which is not to say that all the other steps are not influ- enced by researchers’ theoretical predilections— to one extent or another, they may well be). We hope we have been clear that theory development depends on an intricate process of ongoing empir- ical research that both generates and tests theo- retical ideas, which in turn gets reflected back on additional research and practice in an ongoing iterative manner. It is instructive and essential to remember that scientific research is a collective enterprise. It therefore follows that a single study of any family issue is almost never definitive, either in regard to the research (empirical results) or in regard to explanation. Theory building and the testing of theoretical concepts through empirical research is not solely the preroga- tive of Canon or of any other single researcher. Although we have talked about this process in reference to Canon’s research, many other researchers will use her work to inform their own and will integrate it with other research to reach both empirical conclusions (i.e., about what the facts are on a given family issue) and to explicate family theory (i.e., why the research facts are what they are).
NOTABLE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN
EVERYDAY LIFE AND FAMILY RESEARCH
As noted previously, there are many similarities between scientific research and everyday life in the process of gathering data and developing explana- tions. The overall quests to seek information, to summarize it so that we can handle it, to check out its reliability and validity, and to explain what we see are quite similar overall. Humans have to do these things to live as well as to research. But there
are also some truly key differences in how this process works in the world of science compared to how it typically works in everyday life. Here are several of the most important differences between scientific theory development and the development of understanding in everyday life, and between scientific information gathering and the gathering of information in everyday life. First, the process in scientific theory develop- ment is consciously public. All steps, from prob- lem definition (including why it is important to study this or that family issue, for example) to the methods of gathering information, to the reporting and interpretation of results, are open to scrutiny, testing, and refutation by other researchers. Second, clarity in definition and communication in all aspects of the research process, such as unambiguous definition of vari- ables being studied and clear articulation of all procedures used, including data analysis deci- sions and choices, is fundamental in scientific theory building. Third, all concepts and the rela- tionships between them (the “guts” of theory) must be testable in the empirical world (philo- sophers of science say they must be capable of disproof). Fourth, there is ongoing effort to keep personal or other biases out of the research process (certainly this is not always successful, but it is a value inherent to scientific research). White and Klein (2002, pp. 5–9) provide a rele- vant overview of the last point in their presenta- tion of different philosophies of science. It is important to recognize, however, that one theoret- ical approach, feminist theory (Chapter 7), has made significant contributions to understanding families, particularly conceptions of gender devel- opment and power structures within families, by emphasizing research methodologies that are value committed— that is, research that acknowl- edges and builds upon the values of those who conduct it, a reflection of the belief that research cannot be truly value-free. The key issue for us is that although the practitioners of scientific research are not valueless or bias-free, the entire enterprise is structured so as to identify and police the interference of such intrusions on research or, as in the case of feminist theory, to
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integrate those values into the research process itself. One implication of all this, because the entire enterprise is public, is that research find- ings that are assessed by other researchers to be biased are, at minimum, open to attempts at replication and, at maximum, likely to be com- pletely discounted (the most egregious example of the latter being cases of fraud, which regret- tably do occur). We will demonstrate some of these distinc- tions by taking a close look at how Mr. H. C. T. Judge’s approach to studying family issues dif- fers from that of Canon. Judge (who, in a move toward greater discretion, recently changed his last name from Judgmental) is a person who seems to be quite active in his pursuit of infor- mation and in reaching conclusions about other people’s lives and how they got to be how they are. Leaving aside for a moment how it is that Judge got to be how he is (a question primarily of individual development), at first glance Judge seems to follow the same kind of process that Canon does when the latter pursues her research on the development of individual and family characteristics. For example, Judge observes things (sometimes on purpose, sometimes not), evaluates, integrates and summarizes informa- tion, reaches generalizations, makes informed (or not-so-informed) guesses about important things to look for, has unresolved questions, moves from the realm of observation to attempted explanations, tests one explanation against another, may or may not share all the previous with other observers, and may or may not test the reliability of his observations. Judge sees his neighbors, the Hubris family (husband, wife, and two teenage children who are the offspring of the husband and wife), as self-indulgent and arrogant. He sees the Friendly family (husband, wife, and three children, ages 4, 10, and 12, from the wife’s prior marriage) as having a giving nature and as possessing down- to-earth characteristics. What kind of informa- tion did Judge use to arrive at his conclusions? Do his conclusions and the bases for them match those of the family members themselves or those of other people outside the families? Given the
information he has about the families, are his conclusions reasonable, or are they based on some bias of his? In general, observations or facts or information about the families could have come to Judge’s attention directly (he experienced them himself, whether intentionally or not)—for instance, Judge tried to listen or observe something or he happened to see something when he was walking his dog—or indirectly (someone or something else conveyed information to him—again, either intentionally or not)—for instance, he asked a neighbor for some information or a neighbor offered some information. Let us conjecture about how Judge may have reached his conclusions about his two neighbor families. Some kind of direct or indirect obser- vations, DIIFO, of the families must have occurred. For example, Judge may have wit- nessed Mrs. Hubris or one of the Hubris children being haughty to the mailperson (or someone else may have told him that this occurred) and seen Mr. Friendly being very nice to a Girl Scout delivering cookies. A number of these kinds of experiences over time (not all of which were necessarily equally supportive of his conclu- sions) may have occurred. Of course, in general, in everyday life we constantly take in informa- tion of many kinds. The taking in may be delib- erately sought out, it may be whimsical, or it may be purely incidental and it likely will be from multiple sources. Judge may have deliber- ately tested his conclusions about these two families, perhaps by asking each to do a favor for him or another neighbor. There is much involved with the taking in of information. For example, it seems to be the case that, after a while, humans have a tendency to prefer information that is more rather than less consistent with prior conclusions, and, because our brains can handle only so much information, we have built-in processes that help us selec- tively tune in only certain kinds of information (consider, for example, how hard it would be to successfully drive a car if the driver paid equal attention to all sources of input at any given moment). On the other hand, family researchers
Theory (^) • 5
individual stress, emotional support both within and outside the family, personal and family risk factors such as alcohol and substance use, personal experience with different models (parents and others) of how adults might deal with children’s issues and behaviors, and per- sonality characteristics of individual family members—to name a few possibilities. (As a brief aside, please note that it is entirely possible that a similar or different group of concepts of presumed importance to understanding family violence could be developed by, say, your grand- mother, the person who delivers your mail, or a novelist. The source of a theory about families or children, the so-called context of discovery [White & Klein, 2002, p. 4], is not particularly important.) Second, to be considered a scientific theory, the concepts (ideas or abstractions) within it must be capable of being represented at the empirical level (otherwise communication would be impos- sible—for example, 10 different thinkers might each mean something different by “emotional support”), and they must be specifically related to one another is some fashion ( propositions in theories are simply statements of how one concept relates to another). How does one empirically represent a concept? It’s easy; we say exactly how the concept can be measured. For example, emotional support might be a score received on a pencil-and-paper assessment that is developed for the purpose of measuring the concept. Or it might be ratings given on the quality and quantity of listening behavior exhibited by family members having a discussion about something. Using previous information (other studies, observations from clinical practice, etc.), the fol- lowing propositions might make sense to us: “The greater the culture of extrafamilial violence experienced as a child ( a ), the more family vio- lence experienced as a child ( b )” and “The more violence experienced in the family of origin ( b ), the greater the level of violence produced in the family of procreation ( c ).” We can deduce (i.e., logically conclude) from these two proposi- tions a third one: “The greater the culture of extrafamilial violence experienced in childhood
( a ), the greater the production of violence in the family of procreation ( c ).” It is important to observe that the three propositions are logically related. If the process stops there—with “mere” logic—then we do not have a scientific theory. With due respect to philosophers and other thinkers, we may have a perfectly reasonable set of propositions, but from a scientific perspective this is inadequate. Scientific theories must be empirically testable for them to be taken seriously. That is, the propo- sitions and their relationships spelled out in the theory must be amenable to disproof through research. (This is a great distinction between everyday and scientific use and understanding of what theory is.) As things stand to this point, we have done conceptual (abstract) work only. Can we do research to test the theory? Well, you won’t be surprised to discover that the answer is “yes,” or we would not be going on like this! First, we get out of our “thinking” chair and try to operationalize the major concepts in our proposition. Operationalize simply means to choose a good way to measure the concept (note that this does not mean that what we choose is the only way to measure the concept, nor does it mean that the measurement equals the concept). We need to change our conceptual hypothesis (the proposition we developed by linking the concepts culture of extrafamilial violence and violence in the family of procreation ) to a mea- surement hypothesis. Let’s say we operationalize culture of extrafamilial violence to mean the number of police reports filed over a given period that concern neighborhood assaults and armed robberies, and we define family violence in the family of procreation as the number of police calls over the same period to investigate within-home acts of violence alleged to have been committed by parents against each other or against their children. Perhaps you can think of better ways to operationalize these concepts. There are lots of important, and often quite “messy,” methodological details (e.g., taking account of age, race, ethnicity, and education levels of parents) that would have to be addressed to adequately test what has become a
Theory (^) • 7
testable measurement hypothesis. This process of refinement helps define one of the other distinctions between scientific and everyday information gathering and explanation develop- ing. For the former, specific research designs are developed and carried out to help answer ques- tions. And, although unexpected things happen all the time throughout the research and theory- building process, the point is that the information gathering is systemized and matched in the best ways possible to provide information directly on the question(s) of interest. It is very important to note that the outcome of the research process is, in fact, determined in large part by the carrying out of all the messy details. That is, results that are either consistent or inconsistent with a given theory or theories must be evaluated in regard to how well the study was done. For example, the researcher may have done a poor job in measuring variables, in sam- pling, or in ignoring contradictory information. To the extent that methodological problems influence results, judgments about the theory must be tentatively made. Nonetheless, the point for theoretical develop- ment is that whatever the outcome, there will be implications for our theory—and for other theo- retical approaches that may seek to explain the same phenomenon. For example, perhaps one or more of our propositions is simply wrong. Perhaps adding several propositions related to age and other family history variables would lead to a different hypothesis and outcome, and so on. None of this potential theoretical refinement, or change, or even discarding of the entire theory and starting over (which almost never happens) would be possible without the ability to bring the abstract/conceptual ideas to the level of con- crete/empirical operations that allow research to be conducted. This is how the link between empir- ical work and theoretical explanation occurs, and it is what contributes to an ongoing process of scientific discovery and knowledge refinement. In addition, as mentioned previously, the practical impacts from ongoing theoretical explanation are often extensive. For example,
assuming reasonably consistent empirical results that support our little theory, what would be some of the implications for the prevention and treatment of family violence from the above basic theory? What policy recommendations might follow? Family and human development theories almost always have strong implications that are very practical, even if the research stud- ies undertaken to test them may not have been designed with particular practice or policy issues in mind. This concludes our presentation of what theory is and what it is good for. We hope it is clear that the goal of researchers, to increase understanding of this or that phenomenon by developing conceptual linkages (theories) and testing those against empirical reality, is also something that people do in everyday life. We all seek to understand things, and we do this by observing, or collecting, and integrating informa- tion, by assessing the strength of our information, by reaching tentative or strong conclusions and explanations, and so forth. Although it is true that there are, indeed, extremely important differences between the realms of research and everyday life in the pursuit of information and explanations, it is good to keep in mind that these differences are often in emphasis, degree, or articulated sophisti- cation, and that theory building in science and theory building in everyday life are really quite similar in their basic content and nature.
DEFINING FAMILY?
Before you begin to peruse the readings and the commentary we have developed on each of the theories presented in this book, we want to bring an important issue to your attention. The history of attempts to define family presents an interest- ing paradox for family researchers and theorists, particularly since (as we have noted earlier in this chapter) the rules of scientific research place a premium on the careful definition of terms. In a very informative discussion of this matter,
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- Why is it correct to say that a theory is never proven? Why is it more correct to say that a theory is supported or not supported by the research results to varying degrees?
- What are the major ways in which scientific theory building and everyday life theory building differ?
- Does the absence of particular types of families from this book (perhaps a type of family from which you come, which you belong to right now, or which you have friends in) mean that that combination of individuals does not compose a family?
- Given the focus of this chapter on the interplay between theory and research, what might be the impacts of ongoing definitional problems on family research and theory develop- ment? Will theory testing and development be hindered?
FURTHER READING^2
Babbie (2003), Miller (1992), Sadler and Hulgus (1989), Seccombe and Warner (2004), White and Klein (2002).
Notes
- A wide variety of other terms indicate the same general idea as the term theory (Thomas, 2001). Such terms as model, paradigm, conceptual framework, and explanatory scheme, like theory, all indicate an attempt of one kind or another to explain phenomena. What is important for purposes of this book is to realize that, whatever term is used by researchers, the attempt to explain is tested against data and that the offered explanation is repeatedly assessed with respect to how the empirical world supports or does not support the explanation.
- The complete citations for all publications listed under the Further Reading sections in each chapter are in the References section at the end of the book.
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