Risjord's Theories, Interpretations and Concepts
Compare instrumentalist and realist interpretations of the construct “aggression.” Which view seems the most plausible to you? Which view can help understand whether violent video games cause aggression?
When survey results establish certain patterns, trends or directions, they provide sufficient empirical basis to test certain hypothesis being investigated. However, this raises significant philosophical question
s that impact on the validity of constructs, like how aggression should be interpreted from a sample of survey participants. According to Risjord (2014:40-41), there are two broad schools of thought that can guide in evaluating “construct validity” – the realist and the instrumentalist interpretation.
According to Risjord (2014), a “realistposition about construct validity holds that a valid construct is one that measures what it purports to measure.” In short reality must conform to concepts and other constructs that attempt to explain them. In the case of aggression for instance, realists argue that aggressive personality if it explains aggressive behavior must exist and must be directly observable in order to legitimize the claims about aggression.
Meanwhile, an instrumentalist view of construct validity purports that a “valid construct is one that simplifies and systematizes our past observations and permits accurate predictions of the future” (Risjord, 2014). In other words, models and theories are used to fortify the social scientists’ predictive ability on possible outcomes and results. In the case of aggression and its relationship with violent media exposure, the instrumentalists are saying that theories explaining aggressive personality are essential to test a legion of hypothesis so as to determine future reactions of individuals whenever exposed to some triggers of aggressive behavior.
This debate between realism and instrumentalism reminds us of how scientific models are associated with reality. Should we give premium to those that provide literal descriptions of reality or should we embrace those that are helpful in generating forecasts and calculations? My take is there must be a scientific symbiosis between the realist and the instrumentalist lenses.
While realism holds that models and theories are approximations of what is real, instrumentalism posits that the conceptual frames are useful in adequately calculating outcomes and in solving problems. They both have strengths that can complement each other. Realism cultivates value for theoretical exactitude, prudence, falsifiability and polemic while instrumentalism promotes innovativeness in model-building, conceptual amalgamation, and definition of scopes.
Similarly, both have intrinsic weaknesses. Realism falls short of capturing the diversity of society as it simply relies with what is immediately observable while instrumentalism lacks in solid theoretical anchorage that can help explain social phenomena. While the former is unable to explain everything there is in a phenomenon, the latter is also unable to appreciate the value of what is currently existing in society. These strengths may be optimized by complementarily applying the core disciplines of both realism and instrumentalism to mend their respective weaknesses.
For instance, aggressive personality may be used to explain aggressive behavior without need to exclusively make generalizable conclusion but may further be strengthened by subjecting testable hypothesis to some forms of verification in order to generate variety of answers to the problem of aggression and its relation to violent media exposure. After all, in social science, we deal with a very dynamic subject of inquiry – a human being. No approach can have a monopoly of truth since society does not exist in a vacuum.
Both the United States census (discussed in Section 2.1) and research on aggression require measurement. What are the differences between measuring “aggressive personality” and measuring the number of people in a country?
One fundamental difference between measuring the number of people in a country and the “aggressive personality” is exactitude in results. When census is undertaken, it is engaged in simple count of people and results cannot be disputed since it is simply an inventory or audit of people. When the actual count shows that there are 300 million people in a country, there is no other way of interpreting it. It remains 300 million people.
Whereas, in measuring ”aggressive personality,” there can be no specific explanation that can capture why such exists in some and not in others. The theoretical expositions can be infinite and can evolve constantly as human society also undergoes changes. In social sciences, the subjects of investigation are not passive items involved in the inquiry. Instead, they are active participants in the research because they have feelings, beliefs and meanings that influence their behavior.
In census, what changes is only the count, whether increasing or decreasing as affected by the fertility rates and mortality rates. While in measuring “aggressive personality,” the concept changes everytime the theory is modified based on regular testing and verification given the evolving social landscapes. This is because personality is affected by the social environment where the person may find himself//herself in.
Another difference can be found in the participation of the subject in the investigation. In census, the subject of the count has not and cannot influence the re-shaping of a theory or concept while in measuring “aggressive personality,” the subject’s own interpretation of the inquiry may have an impact on the theory or concept being investigated. Ian Hacking calls this the “looping effect,” where as social science attempt to describe their subjects, the subjects reciprocally, adopt these descriptions to understand themselves. As this happens, their actions change, and eventually this will also change the descriptors used by social science. This dynamism can never be found in census, but only in social science investigations.
Schutz’s postulate of adequacy holds that social scientific concepts must be closely related to those used by the subjects. Can surveys be designed so that they satisfy Schutz’s postulate of adequacy? Must they be so designed? Why?
Schultz’s “postulate of adequacy” resembles the concept of common sense thinking where social scientific concepts must be understandable not only for the actor/subject himself/herself but also to his/her fellow-men/women. This may be too lofty a requirement considering that not everybody in a given society has a similar understanding of the day-to-day realities. This brings us to Taylor’s expansion of Shultz’s postulate of adequacy saying that these common sense interpretations are embedded in a specific language that the actor possesses. Therefore, the suggestion is that the social concepts must be treated more as translations of the subject’s language rather than of their beliefs to achieve a more or less universal interpretation of ideas from a sample of subjects.
As such, surveys may also be designed to reflect the postulate of adequacy. Meaning, survey questions must be articulated in such a way that they mirror the language in the way that it is understood by the actor or subject and not in the language of the investigator. This is essential if results are intended to capture the general condition of the population being studied. A certain population, homogenous as it should be, presupposes that it has a language commonly understood by them. The investigator must be cautious of these nuances in language and interpretations. Taylor advances that language is not neutral. Therefore, designing surveys in a very general sense, such that they accommodate, very varied interpretation may generate questionable results not so much reflective of the population represented by the sample.
To what extent can (or should) social science discover features of a society that are hidden from the members of that society? What would be an example of such hidden social structures? Would your example violate Schutz’s postulate of adequacy?
It is the duty of a social scientist to unravel the social truths that are hidden from plain sight. This makes the rigor of social science research extra challenging especially that language and action, which are mutually integrated, reveal only as much as what can be observed by social science methodologies and experimentation. A sizeable amount of facts are hidden from the members of a given society either in the form of language of in the variety of interpretations where some are lost in translations.
It is not enough that the inquiry must only rely on thin descriptions of an action. While investigations can generally begin with neutral descriptions, it must evolve towards thick descriptions in order to approximate, as much as it could be done, the truth that envelopes any given social phenomenon.
Given this expectation from a social scientist, he/she must fundamentally explore Taylor’s suggestion of treating social scientific concepts as translation of the subject’s language as a starting point to be able to explore thick descriptions of his/her social realities that are neatly hidden in the many corners of a language.
For example, one may ask a subject about his position towards federalizing the Philippines. It is either one gets a “yes” or “no” or “don’t know” or “no answer,” but resting on this alone will not explain the context of such position. The answer does not reflect the identity/ies worn by the subject when answering such question. The analysis can vary if the query was answered from an indigenous peoples’ lens, or from a Bangsamoro, or from a Mindanaon, or from someone in the NCR, or from a wealthy or poor perspective, educated or not educated, and many other identity markers. These hidden structures can only be understood and analyzed when social scientists explore thick descriptions of the phenomenon being studied.
Does thick description require that the group under study be clearly delineated? Can it be applied in modern societies where group identity is fluid, and where people often inhabit multiple cultures, ethnicities, races, or genders?
Contextualization is essential to making thick descriptions and this means that a particular group under study must be clearly delineated. By such delineating, one is able to extract in succinct details the circumstances that are true to a particular group under study and not to other not similarly situated groups. Every group has a specific sub-culture that makes their realities uniquely their own. Interpreting these realities require a conscious consideration of the nuances that make each group being analyzed uniquely delineated. After all, the goal of interpretive social science is “to thickly describe the culture,” in order to make the social world more meaningful.
These thick descriptions are equally applicable in modern societies where group identity is fluid, and where people often inhabit multiple culture, ethnicities, races or genders. With more reason that thick descriptions become imperative as opposed to thin descriptions. A diverse society cannot be captured simplistically by describing what is immediately apparent to sense perceptions. This diversity is best appreciated when motives, reasons, influences, and social factors are embedded in analyzing social groups.
Caution must be prudently applied though when making thick descriptions of modern societies in a way that some identity markers are not privileged at the expense of the others. The implication therefore is for scientific concepts can be more complicated and intricate given the burden to nuance multiple identities that explain a social phenomenon. The more intricate the social reality is, the more rigorous the methodologies become.
It was argued in Sections 3.3 and 3.4 that interpretation cannot be value-neutral. Does this form of value-ladenness weaken the epistemic status of interpretations?
By resorting to thick descriptions, interpretations become value-laden. Often, not being wertfrei(value-free), social science is accused of treating society and its institutions as malleable entities subject to manipulations, that it is impelled by its agenda to dominate society. This argument is misdirected. Social science has no intention to dominate society, but it has a role to change society and elevate it to heights that allow human potentials to be developed.
This value-ladenness of social science does not in any way weaken the epistemic status of interpretations. Interpretations are always a political act. Values are and will always be present in analyzing society. But this does not mean that it is inferior to natural science reliance of what is empirically substantiated especially in mathematical terms. Society does not exist in a vacuum – it evolves in a very dynamic fashion. Reducing it to numbers will be a disservice to this dynamism. After all, there is no point of advancing one science over the other, one epistemic method over another, since all sciences interpenetrate one another and hence, cannot be arranged hierarchically.
What weakens the epistemic status of interpretation is when investigators are not aware of the consequences of their data gathering methodologies, analyzing and theorizing and not simply because interpretations are value-laden. No social scientific inquiry is wertfrei.
The values integral to social science are all part of the self-interpreting capacity of human subjects. This is called the principle of “reflexivity” which natural science is devoid of. Social science do not only interpret their subjects, it also contributes to the definition and re-definition of themselves. After all, social scientists are agents for social change and change is not value-free. It is principally motivated by the agenda of change.
Reference:
Photo from blog.frontiers.org
Risjord, Mark. (2014). “Philosophy of Social Science: A Contemporary Introduction.”Routledge, New York and London, 2014, Pp. 34-56.
