Social research glossary (original) (raw)
Psychology research is full of terms. This is a small glossary of things I've come across during recent travels. A full glossary would be a whole book.
| Word | Meaning | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| Analytic statements | Statements which are true by definition (vs. synthetic statements). e.g. Roses are flowers. | Positivism |
| Androcentric | The tendency for men to unconsciously bias perceptions in uniquely male ways | Feminism |
| a priori | Deductive knowledge that is independent of experience - thus 2+2=4 is true everywhere. | Immanuel Kant |
| a posteriori | Inductive knowledge that comes only through experience and testing. | Logical Positivism |
| Atomism | Things can be studied by reducing them to their smallest parts (and the whole is the sum of the parts) | Positivism |
| Bedrock assumptions | Assumptions about a theory that are unchallengeable and protected. | Conventionalism |
| Behaviorism | The derivation of general laws of how people and animals behave through observation, deduction and (usually verificationist) experiment. | Standard Positivism |
| Canon, canonized, canonical | When a theorist or text is canonized, it is promoted to an unquestionable level of truth which can be referenced without fear of challenge. | |
| Closed system | A closed system has no inputs from or outputs to any external world and hence is totally isolated. Scientific experiments seek to create this so the effects of deliberate causal variation of one thing can be seen without having to worry whether the cause was external. | EmpiricismPositivism |
| Connotation | The deep and cultural meaning of a word ('tree' as 'strength', 'oak' as 'Englishness') | LinguisticsRoland Barthes |
| Constructionism | We understand the world through internal constructs. | Immanuel Kant |
| Conventionalism | We tend to conform to conventions, remaining within canonized paradigms. | Conventionalism |
| Denotation | The simple meaning of a word ('tree' as a large plant) | LinguisticsRoland Barthes |
| Determinism | Causes exist in social relations which are external constraints on individual choices. A thing has a separate reality which affects its parts. Society thus has its own independent reality.(vs. Voluntarism) | Positivism �mile Durkheim |
| Documentary method | To find meaning in the sensory storm, we draw on a stock of stories and meaningful interpretations. Finding a story that fits, we transform the evidence to support the story. The stories themselves also are being constantly renegotiated. | Phenomenology |
| Dogmatic Falsification | Assuming that one falsification renders a theory useless. | Lakatos |
| Duhem Thesis | An empirical test can never falsify an isolated hypothesis -- it actually challenges the whole theoretical system of which it is a part. | ConventionalismQuine Theses |
| Empirical regularities | Where correlation is found between two variables (not necessarily cause and effect) | Positivism |
| Empiricism | Approach that assumes that truth comes only from direct experience. | Empiricism |
| Age of Enlightenment | 18th century period when science woke up and bypassed religion as a system of knowledge. | Empiricism The Age of Enlightenment |
| Ethnomethodology | Method whereby real social situations are disturbed to discover reactions and hence internal conceptions and social rules. | PhenomenologyHarold Garfinkel |
| Facts | Things that can be proven. Things held as unshakable truth. Not Values. | Positivism |
| Falsification | Popper's notion that you can only prove something to be true by failing to falsify it. | Positivism |
| Felcific calculus | People choose based on optimum utility | Utilitarianism |
| Feminism | Seeks to counterbalance the androcentric bias inherent in much 'scientific' research. | Feminism, Positivism |
| Game Theory | Simplification of human behaviour to a series of games that can be modelled, often mathematically.Includes games of 'chicken', 'Prisoners' dilemma' and the Nash equilibrium. Closely related to economics. | Idealism Rational Choice Theory Morganstern and Von Neumann |
| Generalizing | Extending a concept proven in one area to others areas. | Three -izings of research |
| Hegemony | The constant struggle between social forces to create meaning | Antonio Gramsci |
| Hermeneutics | Discovery of meaning (originally in Bible). | Hermeneutics |
| Hypothesis | Unproven but testable idea. | Three -izings of research |
| Hypothetico-deductive model | Popper's definition of science as 'testable' statements. | Karl Popper |
| Idealism | We construct our own reality. To study people is to study that construction. | Idealism |
| Ideal type | Simple generalization that accepts complexity and its own imperfection. | Max Weber |
| Idiographic(or Ideographic) | the individualized method of cultural sciences for depicting particular circumstances (likeparticularism) | Neo-Kantianism |
| Incommensurable | Two paradigms are incommensurable in that the criteria of one cannot be used to judge the truth of the other. | Conventionalism |
| Interactionism | Meaning is created by interactions between people. eg. the Looking-glass self. | Phenomenology |
| Intersubjectivity | By sharing time and space, two actors communicate in a process of understanding. | Phenomenology |
| Intertextuality | Meaning is constantly being produced by the relationship between texts. | Linguistics |
| Langue | Underlying system of language rules(see also Parole) | LinguisticsFerdinand de Saussure |
| Metaphysical | Ideas that cannot be proven. Knowledge beyond the bounds of experience. | Positivism |
| Methodological Individualism | 1. Break down phenomena into their smallest parts. 2. Use these to deduce development of more complex phenomena | Neo-KantianismCarl Menger |
| Methodological Pluralism | No approach is better than another. Multiple views enrich | ConventionalismRelativism |
| Microeconomics | Understanding behaviour of a society through the combination of individual choices and actions. | Neo-KantianismCarl Menger |
| Mimetic | Exact duplicate. Positivist view that everything can be precisely defined in 'mimetic' statements. | Positivism |
| Naturalism | The idea that principles of the natural sciences should be used for social research. | Positivism |
| Nominalism | Scientifically valid words have fixed and absolute meanings. To define a word is to fix meaning. The existence of a word does not imply the existence of what it describes. | Positivism |
| Nomothetic | constructing generalized models and laws (likeuniversalism) | Neo-Kantianism |
| Normal science | Scientific research that supports and does not challenge existing paradigms. | Conventionalism |
| Noumena | Things that exist beyond our cognitive experiences. 'Things-in-themselves'. | Immanuel Kant |
| Objective knowledge | Knowledge that is separate from what it describes. This independence gives it truth. | Positivism |
| Open system | Open systems have all parts are interconnected and have no boundaries (thus there is only one open system). Changing one part may thus affect any other part of the system. Relationships and linkages are important. Idealists see the world as an open system and Positivist attempts to create closed systems as futile and misleading. | Idealism |
| Operationalize | Putting ideas into action. Translating a hypothesis into a test. | Three -izings of research |
| Paradigm | A set of principles, theories and methods that encompass a scientific idea. | Conventionalism |
| Parole | The utterances of speech (see also Parole) | LinguisticsFerdinand de Saussure |
| Phenomenalism | The idea that only observable phenomena should be studied. | Positivism |
| Phenomenology | Knowledge is discovered through open, unbiased description of experience. | Phenomenology |
| Physicalism | As there is one set of physical things to study (including people) then a common language is feasible to describe all experience. | Positivism |
| Positivism | Taking a 'positive' approach to research and using scientific approaches. | Positivism |
| Pragmatism | Problem-solving that relates to everyday concerns. William James distinguished 'knowledge of' and 'knowledge about'. | |
| Praxeology | An attempt to establish a nomothetic science of human action where value is seen as individual preference and quantitative prediction is inaccurate and should be about the prediction of patterns that we see through 'imaginary constructions'. | Idealism Richard Von Mises Rational Choice Theory |
| Quine Thesis | An empirical test can never falsify an isolated hypothesis -- it actually challenges the whole knowledge system of which it is a part. | Conventionalism |
| Quine-Duhem thesis | You cannot test a single hypothesis on its own, since each is part of linked set of theories. | Conventionalism |
| Rational Choice Theory | All social phenomena as sum of individual choices (and nothing else). People make rational, optimal choices. | Idealism |
| Rationalism | Truth can be best discovered through reason and rational thought. | Rationalism |
| Realism | Things exist, whether or not people are thinking of them. | Realism |
| Scientific laws | Generalized laws that are always true and can be used to predict future events. | Positivism |
| Scientism | Knowing how to investigate without any understanding of what it is. | Haytek |
| Semiology or Semiotics | The science of signs and symbols | Linguistics |
| Situated | Knowledge is situated where the context is a part of the meaning, making it difficult to transport or generalize. Things can be historically situated and socially situated. | Idealism |
| Speech Act theory | Speaking is acting. We are both stating and doing. | LinguisticsJohn Austin |
| Subject-Object problem | The problem that in trying to study people as separate subjects, we need to be detached and objective. Sometimes (maybe all times) it is difficult to do this. | Positivism |
| Synthetic statements | Statements which require evidence to prove them true. e.g. Roses are fragrant. (vs. analytic statements) | Positivism |
| Text | A piece of communication. It can be a word, a sentence, a picture, a symbol, etc. | Linguistics |
| Trope | A non-literal use of words to convey meaning such as metaphor or metonymy (eg. 'crown' meaning 'king'). | Linguistics |
| Utility, utilitarianism | The principle that people make rational choices based on value. | Utilitarianism |
| Values | Personal and social rules. Associated with emotions. Not facts. | Positivism |
| Verification | Testing explanations to prove truth under various circumstances. aka. Justification and Confirmation (see also Falsification) | Positivism |
| Voluntarism | The causes of phenomena are in the actions of individuals and groups. A thing is the sum of its parts. The economy is sum of firms and households. (vs. Determinism) | Max Weber |