SOCI 217 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Grounded Theory, Operationalization, Stress Management
Week 2- social theory
Elements of social theory
• Paradigms
o General theoretical frameworks or point from which to view
o Offer a way of looking
• Theory
o Set of interrelated propositions used for understanding observed realities
• Features of a theory
o 1. Components of a theory are propositions
▪ statements expressing relationships between concepts
▪ as the leel of soial ieuality i a soiety gos, the health of its
itizes delies it is a egatie elatioship
o 2. Theories are abstract
▪ propositions generated from concepts
o 3. Propositions (ideas) in a theory are interrelated
▪ ideas are connected or knit together
• operationalization
o process of translating abstract concepts into variables that indicate the concepts
▪ oepts atioal ieuality ad ouity health, hile
meaningful are abstract
▪ laifiatio ous he a aiale is used to idiate hat they ea
o making It clear, what does it mean
• empirical deduction
o logical process of transforming a theoretical proposition into a research
hypothesis
▪ ost hypotheses ae itte as if…the stateets
o e.g. kissing among university students
▪ hypothesis of more kisses you give the less stress you feel
▪ theorize that kissing is good for stress management
▪ find the concepts and find how they are related
• what is a/what kind of kiss and how do you measure stress
▪ you can survey people or do experiments
▪ get a group of students measure the stress and kiss someone and
measure again
• Hypothesis
o Theoretically informed expectation about empirical patterns expressed as a
relationship between variables
Traditional model of science
• Three main elements in the traditional model of science
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Document Summary
Elements of social theory: paradigms, general theoretical frameworks or point from which to view, offer a way of looking, theory, set of interrelated propositions used for understanding observed realities, features of a theory, 1. Components of a theory are propositions: statements expressing relationships between concepts, (cid:862)as the le(cid:448)el of so(cid:272)ial i(cid:374)e(cid:395)uality i(cid:374) a so(cid:272)iety g(cid:396)o(cid:449)s, the health of its (cid:272)itize(cid:374)s de(cid:272)li(cid:374)es(cid:863) it is a (cid:374)egati(cid:448)e (cid:396)elatio(cid:374)ship, 2. Theories are abstract: propositions generated from concepts, 3. Deductive theory construction: specify the topic, start with a theory. Identify and specify major concepts and variables: specify range of phenomena your theory addresses, find out what is known about the relationship among variables, reason logically from those propositions to the specify topic you are examining. Inductive theory construction: start with observation first, grounded theory, approach to theory construction that generates ideas to account for observed empirical patterns.
