The Transition from Lacking Perspective-Taking into Theory

Abstract

Wildly extrapolating, one could say that the research just summarized, which hints at reasons for a Case A mode of explaining, applies to scientists as well as to the everyday on-the-street scientist. One could start with the potential theorist with a graduate education in the social sciences, and then analyze the person’s ongoing psychological traumas, psychological conflicts, and incompetencies in certain behavioral realms. If the person then elects to theorize in those realms,¹ we arrive at the simple conclusion that the theory (explanation) would tend to take the form of Case A, in which respondents are reduced to sets of traits or other stable characteristics and their complex perspectives overlooked.