CHAPTER 2:PHILOSOPHICAL
FOUNDATIONS
What is Theory
Sir Karl Popper,a
philosopher instrumental in shaping 20th-century biews of
knowledge,said that “theries are net cast to catch what we call the world”
(Popper,1959).Popper was primarily interested in investigating the ways in
which we come to understandings of the natural and physical world,but his views
are also highly appropriate in a consederation of how we come to know about the
human and social world in which we live and communicate.We are faced every day
with puzzles about communication and social life.Why does one friendship
flourish and another flounder?Why do disciplinary tactics have different effects
on different children?How can we manage workplace conflict in constructive
ways?What effect will increasing use of the Internet and the World Wide Web
have on our daily lives?In addreassing these puzzles,we attempt to make sense
of our social world,and thet sense making often involves casting out the net of
what we might think of as commonsense theory.
Consider,for example ,the first puzzle mentioned in the
preceding paragraph:Why does one friendship flourish and another flounder?We
may have very practical reasons for gaining an understanding of this issue
(e.g. we want to enhance the chances of a successful friendship with a
particular individual),or we may simply be curious about the vagaries of social
life.In either case,making sense of friendship development will involve
creating and testing a variety of informal theories.Perhaps the success of
friendship rormal theories.Perhaps the success of friendship is based purely on
the similarity of the two individuals involved depents more on the specific communicative
choices made by individual as they get to know each other.Or perhaps events
both inside aand outside the relationship mark turning point that are
influential in the process of relational development.All of these possibilities
represent commonsense theories in that they enhance our understanding move
beyond the specific and concrete observation that “Bob and I are good friends
because we both like country and western music” to the abstract statement that
“friendship development is enhanced by the similarity of relational partners.”
Everyone tries to make sense of their lives by developing
and testing these commonsense the ories.Indeed,we talk further about this
concept of human as ‘naïve scientists’ when we discuss attribution theory in
Chapter 6.However,people who make sense of communication as part of an academic
career are communication research and theorists.And though the explanations and
understandings of communication developed by these scholars have a great deal
in common with our everyday theories about communication (e.g.scholarly theory
development also involves the consideration of both observation of the social
world and abstract understandings of those observations),they are also
different in a number of important respects.
This chapter explores the nature of theory by looking at
what wemean by theory in the scholarly world ang by looking at the foundations
we bring to the development and use of theory is and how theory funtions in
fields of social research.We then consider metatheoretical as sumptions that we
bring to the theory development process,particularly assumptions about
epistemology (the nature of the world and reality)epistemology (the nature of
knowledge),and axiology (nature and role of values).Finally ,we look at these ideas
wthin the context of the communication discipline,building an argument for
communication theory development as a pluralistic process.
THE NATURE OF THEORY
Understanding the
nature of theory in the scholarly world involves a consideration of two
issue.First,it is important to develop a shared understanding of what a theory
is.A variety of approaches to this issue have been proposed over the years,and
although we will not reach any sense of closure about the “right” way to define
theory,we will consider issues regarding the conceptualization of theory that
guide our investigations throughout this book.Second,it is critical to look at
how theory functions as a vehicle to world.Thus,we then consider the general
question of what a communication theory should do.
Conceptualizing Theory:
What Is Theory?
In discussing the
problem of defining theory in social scholarship,D.C. Philips (1992) argues,
“There is no divinely ordained correct usage,but we can strive to use the world
consistenly and to mark distinctions that we feel are important” (p.121).This
point is certainly well taken ,as we considered the various ways in which
scholars have defined communication.As was pointed out in that discussion,we
are seeking not the right definition of a particular term,but one that is most
useful for our purpose (see G.R.Miller& Nicholson,1976).That is,definitions
should be judged in term of their utility rather than in term of their
correctness.
Unfortunately,the search for a definition of theory that
has hight and broadly based utility is a difficult one.Philips (1992) notes
that we can define term(like theory) either in a stipulative way by setting
forth a group of craracteristics that must be present or in a reportive way by
looking at entities that have been called
by a particular name in the past and analyzing the nature of those
entities.For example,we could define war by either delineating an abstract list
of the characteristtics of war (a stipulative definition) or by describing
characteristics of events that have been called war in the past.Neither of
these approaches in entirely satisfying with reproaches is entirely satisfying
with regard to the definition theory.The first approach seems overly
restrictive in that only entities meeting our stipulations will count as a
theory now.Thus ,combining these two approaches seems a reasonable compromise.A
search for a workable conceptualalization of theory necessarily involves a
consideration of both what we think theory it has looked like during the
history of social research (reportive approach).
One final point about defining theory must be emphasized
and will become increasingly apperent as we consider approaches to theory
development in communication throughtout this book.Specifically,different
school of thought will define theory in different ways depending on the need of
the theorist on beliefs about the social world and the nature of knowledge.That
is the post positivist perspective on theory presented in Cgapter 3 defines
theory in away very different than either the interpretive perspective (Chapter
4) or the critical perspective (Chapter 5).To the extent possible,though,this
chapter presents points of convergence among these various perspectives on
theory development.
So,what is a theory in this most general sense of the
term?As we noted at the beginning of this chapter,theories help us understand
or exsplan phenomena we observe in the social world.They are the “net with
which we catch the world” or the ways in which we make sense of social
life.Thus a theory is necessarily an abstraction of the social world.A theory
is not the communication behavior itself but an abstractions might take on a
variety of form and may be put together in a variety of ways,but it must be
stressed that theories are at an abstract or higher level than actual
observation,and theories have the goal of “explaning and systematizing
lower-level findings”.In providing this abstract understanding of observations
,a theory must go beyond or “look behind” phenomena in the social world.In
doing this most theories include.
1.Descriptions of
phenomena in the social world.
2.Relationships among
these phenomena (sometimes in the form of rules or laws)
3.An underlying and
abstract storyline that describes the mechanisms at work in these
relationships.
4.Link between the
strolyline and the observed phenomena and relationships (sometimes called
correspondence rules or bridge principle.
Several points about the parts of a theory should be
amphasized.First,in moving beyond a mere description of the social world,we are
distinguishing between a taxanomy (or typology) and the theory.That is ,a
theory is morte than a cataloging of the social world.It is an attempt to
provide an abstract understanding or exsplanation of that social world.For
example ,a list of relational “break up strategies” would not count as a
theory.Instead,a theory must move on to enchance our understanding of how ,when
or why such strategies moght be used.Second,the ories could be formulated at a
variety of levels of generality.For example ,we will encounter some theories.
Earlier in this chapter,we discussed enhancing our
understanding of relational development and friendship formation throught the
development of an informal theory.Social penetration theory is a formal and
widely used theory that tackels this topic area.Social penetration provides a
description of the relationships formation process (social penetration is a
process throught which we enchance the depth amd breadth of our relationships
over time throught communication),an explication of the conceps and
relationships thar are part of the penetration process (consideration of the
stages of relational development and self disclosure processes),an
explananation of the machanisms yhat motivate the process of social penetration
(we develop relationships because of our desire to enchance outcomes with
reference of fiture alternatives and past comparisons) an a consideration of
the link between observed interaction and the social penerations process (the
theory specifies ways to define relational stages and instance of
self-disclosure.
However,it makes sense to follow the lead of Richard Miller
,who is “prepared to accept as a theory
an explanatory..story even though it might not be as precise as we would
often like”and to appreciate as we would often like”ans to appreciate the
variety of ways in which these theoretical understandings can be constructed.
Regardless of the precise form that theory takes,this
consederation of what theory is emphasizes the clear distinction that should be
made between the abstract world of theory and the empirical world of
observation.We use an abstract theory to understand empirical observations.In
the area of relational development and experience with friends (and other) in
the social world by invoking an abstract expalanation involving the importance
of similarity in the friendship formation process.This distinction then,between
abstract theory and empirical abservation leads to the classic “chicken or the
egg” question of social theory Which comes first,the theory of the
observation?A deductive approach to theory building tends to give primacy to
theory Poole,McPhee and Canary (2002) exemplify should guide method it should
indicate what data are appropriate and suggest the types of evidence best
suites to test ideas.For example,in considering our theory of relational tive
theorist might first formulate specific propositions about attitude similarity
and relational with empirical data.The movement is from the general proposition
to the specific instances seen in the research.
In contrast,an inductive approach to theory building gives
primacy to observation.For example an inductive approach to the study of
relational development would advocate a great deal of observation of (and often
participation in) developing relationships before any proposition or hypotheses
are formed.Only after the scholar has been immersed in the process of
developing relationship could he or she come to any conclusions about the
absctract processes involved in the relational development process.
Not surprisingly,neither of these pure types is reflective
of how theory development is most typically practiced in social research.Rtaher
than working in a purely deductive or inductive mode,social theorists most
often “tack” between observations and abstractions, to hone previously
developed theoretical statement and theory to guide subsequent empirical
observation.The distinction then becomes whether theory is given primacy as in
the deductive theorizing of post positivist perspectives or whether observation
is given primacy as in the inductive theorizing of interpretive perspectives.
Coceptualizing Theory
What Should Theory Do?
A second isuue in conceptualizing theory involves
considering the function of theories.That is,what should theories
do?Confronting the functions we want theory to pkay will help us consider the
appropriate forms that theories can take and the standards by which we can
evaluate the quality of a particular theory of social and communicative life.
This approach suggests
that theories can be evaluated both in terms of the importance or significance
of the problems being addressed and in term of the quality of the solution the
theory provides.Cohen (1994) argues that question of importance and
significance are specific to particular discplines and are often determined by
values and sometimes only in hindsight.However,determing the success of
theoretical solution problem is an issue that is directly germane to and how we
should evaluate the quality of various social theories.
Theories can be used to address a number of types of
problem.Lauden (1977) begins with two
types empirical problem and conceptual problem.An empirical problem is
“anything about the .world which strikes us as odd or otherwise in need of
explanation” (laudan 1977.15).For example ,a communication researcher might
notice that people from Eastern cultures(eg Japan,Korea or China) behave
differently in business meetings than people from Western Cultures (eg North
America or Western Europe).A theoretical explanation similar to the theories of
face and culture that we will consider in Chapter 16 could the be forged to
enhance our understanding of this phenomenon.
Laudan second problem type the conceptual problem can be
internal or external.An internal conceptual problem exist when a particular
theory exhibits inconsistencies that need to be clarified.For example ,a theory
of group decision making may include statements that would lead to different
predictions depending on whether a group was described as a decision making
group or an information gathering group.If a group was involved in both of
these activities ,a conceptual problem within the theory (how to deal with dual
function group) would need to be resolveb.Conceptual problems can also be
external in which case a particular theory conclicts with an explanation
provided by another theory.
To empirical and conceptual problem,Cohen (1994) adds the
category of the practical problem arguing that “utility in solving practical
problems has historically played a major role in both assessing and promoting
theory construction.Within the field of communication the role of theory in
dealing with practical or applied problems is particularly
important.Communication scholars often confront applied issues such as how to
improve the provision of health care how to enhance the effectiveness of
problem solving within organizational groups or how to develop persuasive
campaigns to promote desirable behavior.
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