THEORY AND RESEARCHconcept is rather specific to rioting British soccer
fans. Another example is the Japanese phenomena
of karoshi,or death by overwork. People have died
from excessive labor throughout history and across
cultures, but this concept narrowly refers to males
working in white-collar jobs who are under intense
social pressure to work many hours (e.g. 16–18 hours
per day) for their company without rest for a period
of one or more years. The concept is associated with
Japanese company work culture in the 1970s–1990s.
In contrast, similar concepts of broader scope, such
as physical labor or clerial work, widely apply across
historical time and in diverse cultural settings.
Concepts with a narrow scope are closest to
concrete everyday life. This makes them easily rec-
ognized. We can incorporate specific contextual fea-
tures and the texture of a social setting into them.
At the same time, doing so makes it difficult to gen-
eralize them and use them easily to build a general
theoretical understanding of social life. Concepts
with a broad scope (e.g., social participation, emo-
tional warmth) have the opposite advantages and
disadvantages. These concepts bridge diverse set-
tings and times, and they facilitate our general
understanding. However, they disregard significant
contextual details in particular social settings and
historical conditions.
Relationships
Social theories are more than collections of assump-
tions and concepts; they also specify relationships
among the concepts. They tell us whether the con-
cepts are connected to one another, and, if so, how.
By outlining an entire complex of assumptions, con-
cepts, and relationships, a theory provides a com-
plete picture of why specific relationships do or do
not exist.
Kinds of Relationships.Beyond telling us whether
concepts are or are not related, theories specify the
relationships. For example, a theory may tell us
whether a relationship is strong or weak, direct or
indirect, positive or negative. It might tell us that
one concept accelerates or decelerates/diminishes
the other or that its impact is immediate or delayed.
Good theories indicate whether one concept is a
necessary (i.e., essential and required) precondi-
tion for another concept or only sufficient (i.e., it is
involved but does not have to be present). Some-
times a theory states that one concept relates to
another but only under certain conditions (these are
called contingent relationshipsand are discussed
later in this book). A theory also specifies the form
of explanation (e.g., causal, structural, and so forth)
in which a relationship operates (see later in this
chapter).Propositions and Hypotheses.Social theories
contain propositions about the relationships among
concepts. A propositionis a theoretical statement
that two or more factors or concepts are related and
the type of relationship it is. It is a belief that may
or may not have been tested. A major purpose of
doing research is to find out whether a theory’s
proposition conforms to empirical evidence or data.
Some theoretical propositions are in the form of
assumptions; others can be tested with empirical
data. A hypothesisis an empirically testable ver-
sion of a proposition. It is a tentative statement about
a relationship because when we start a study, we
are uncertain as to whether the hypothesis actually
holds in the empirical world. After repeated empir-
ical evaluations of a hypothesis in many situations,
our certainty in its truthfulness grows. By empiri-
cally evaluating a hypothesis, we learn whether a
theoretical proposition is supported, or we may
decide to revise it or remove it from the theory
entirely. While many research studies are designed
to test hypotheses, some types of research proceed
without a hypothesis.Units of Analysis
The social world comprises many units, such as indi-
vidual people, groups, organizations, movements,Proposition A theoretical statement about the rela-
tionship between two or more concepts.
Hypothesis An empirically testable version of a
theoretical proposition that has not yet been tested
or verified with empirical evidence. It is most used
in deductive theorizing and can be restated as a
prediction.