Thorngate's postulate of commensurate complexity: Difference between revisions

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'''Thorngate's postulate of commensurate complexity''',<ref name="Weick01"/> also referred to as '''Thorngate's impostulate of theoretical simplicity'''<ref name=Weick03/> is the description of a phenomenon in [[social science]] theorizing. [[Karl E. Weick]] maintains that research in the field of social psychology can – at any one time – achieve only two of the three [[Metatheory|meta-theoretical]] virtues of "Generality", "Accuracy" and "Simplicity." One of these aspects therefore must always be subordinated to the others.<ref name="DBO"/> The theorempostulate is named for the Canadian social psychologist Warren Thorngate of the [[University of Alberta]], whose work is quoted by Weick.<ref name="DBO"/><ref name="Thorngate76"/>

Thorngate described the problem this way:

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== Background ==

The theorempostulate was a response to the debate among sociologists – mainly between [[Kenneth J. Gergen]]<ref name="Gergen73"/> and [[Barry R. Schlenker]]<ref name="Schlenker74"/> – revolving around the meaning of sociological research. Whilst Schlenker appeared to maintain the position, that context only superficially influenced social behavior, Gergen appeared to maintain that context penetrated everything in social behavior, rendering observations as specific to the very situation observed. Thus, simplifying the discussion, the observation of social behavior would be no more than collecting historical data, since context would never be the same and the results would remain unique. In fact, sociology would be some specialized kind of historical research.<ref name="Thorngate76"/> Considering this, Thorngate writes

{{Quotation|''It is impossible for a theory of social behaviour to be simultaneously general, simple or parsimonious, and accurate.''|Warren Thorngate<ref name="Thorngate76"/>}}

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* if research that aims to be general and accurate (2-o'clock), results would not be simple any more.

Basically, Weick maintains, that there is a "trade-off" between these three virtues in such a way that only two can be achieved at any given time. Research therefore must operate in different modes to capture reality in sufficient precision and granularity.<ref name="Weick02"/> The theorempostulate therefore becomes descriptive of research and prescriptive of research methodology.

== Criticism ==

Though confirming the theorempostulate in general, Fred Dickinson, Carol Blair and Brian L. Ott criticized Weicks use of the word "accurate".<ref name="DBO"/> Accuracy is hard to achieve, especially if the topic is difficult to qualify, e.&nbsp;g. in researching memory. They suggest replacing the term "accurate" with "interpretive utility".<ref name="DBO"/>

== Sources ==