THE RESEARCH TEAM CONCEPT AND THE CULTURAL PATTERN OF SCIENCE
JOHN H. ROHRER PH. D.1
1 Director, Urban Life Research Institute, and Professor of Psychology, Tulane University.
1. The most important cultural influence affecting research methods used to study human social behavior is the cultural pattern labeled science.
2. One essential aspect of this culture pattern called science is theory. Failure to keep explicit the theoretical framework within which one works makes more probable the development of distorted perceptions and resulting erroneous beliefs as to the nature of the scientific description being attempted.
3. There are several distinctive, but equally valid, levels at which scientific descriptions can be made. The "truth" of statements, made at any of these descriptive levels, is given solely by the accuracy and consistency with which they describe the phenomena under question.
4. The problem of understanding the relations holding between variables under study is complicated when these distinctive levels, as such, are not recognized.
5. Successful attempts to interrelate the findings made at various scientific descriptive levels are dependent upon the use of coordinating definitions between levels. This fact is most important since its recognition may eliminate many of the misunderstandings and complications in communicating between the members of the various disciplines represented.
6. Variables that are independent and manipulated at one level may become, when introduced at another level, dependent variables. In a discussion between members of various disciplines, each should make explicit the status of the variables at their level of description and the coordinating definitions that relate their variables to variables at other levels of descriptions if they are to achieve effective communication between workers in the various disciplines.
7. The primary interaction task of the research team is to work out multidisciplinary coordinating definitions that provide explicit ways of integrating the knowledge obtained at different descriptive levels for purposes of describing human behavior more completely.
