SOC 001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Thought Experiment, Empiricism
Document Summary
Sociology: the scientific study of interactions and relations among human beings. Empirical evidence is useful because it : support good theory, reveals flaws in poor theory. Empirical sociology: stouffer, 1949, theory to improve morale: promotion to higher rank. It"s hard to be empirical: it is easy to miss stuff, we can each look at the same thing and see something different, we can each look at the same thing and see the opposite. Summary so far: theory demands proof, empiricism , supports good theory, reveals flaws in poor theory. Concept: a mental image that summarizes a set of similar observations, feelings or ideas, concept = summary, concept -> operationalize -> variable. Variable: exists in the real world , it measures a concept, which doesn"t exist in the real world, a logical collection of attributes. Attribute: attributes are the values a variable can take. Operationalize: transform the concept which doesn"t exist in the real world.
