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On Assumptions in Social Science Research and the Objectivity Question

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Tuesday, September 18, 2012 by


One thing that stood out from the readings in Luker (Chapters 1 – 3) is that social science research does not take place in a vacuum.  Social science research is shaped by the assumptions and beliefs of the researcher.  As Luker states in Chapter 2, “Not only are our assumptions about the social world themselves socially influenced, but so are our assumptions about the best way to go about investigating the social world.” (Salsa Dancing Into The Social Sciences, Kristin Luker, 31.)

This statement brings to light a recent article in the Toronto Metro News paper, entitled “Toronto study links parental divorce to stroke in males”.  According to the article, “Men with divorced parents are three times more likely to suffer a stroke than men with married parents, according to new research from the University of Toronto.” (http://metronews.ca/health/368468/stroke-rate-triple-for-men-with-divorced-parents-toronto-study-finds/) The article further posited that though researchers don’t know with conviction why this is the case, they nonetheless believe that somehow the stress hormone cortisol is involved. (http://metronews.ca/health/368468/stroke-rate-triple-for-men-with-divorced-parents-toronto-study-finds/) Pertaining to the line of thought which guided the researchers in the study, the article stated, “Our hypothesis is that it may be the way sons react to the loss of their fathers...Men often had very minimal contact with their children after that.” (http://metronews.ca/health/368468/stroke-rate-triple-for-men-with-divorced-parents-toronto-study-finds/)  As this study suggests, before any researcher(s) undertakes a study, they need a lens or point of view from which to conduct their research.  This implies that the researcher has to make an assumption about causes in things and their effects, otherwise research would be impossible. 

What does this mean about objectivity and the quest for knowledge and truth in social science research? I take this to mean that it is nearly impossible to prove cause and effect with any certainty.  Though researchers may control for variables to ensure that they are setting out to measure what they want to examine, the issue still remains that the cause of something could be related to a variable that the researcher didn’t measure, or other variables which are correlated to the variable they are studying.  (Natural Experiments Of History, Jared Diamond and James A. Robinson, Prologue 2.)  It all depends upon whether or not the theory within which the researcher(s) is operating accounts for all possible variables.  However, since there is a certain amount of subjectivity in any type of research, the findings of any particular study may not actually reflect what is really cause and effect. 


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