Babbie 2011 - The Basics of Social Research Chapter 5 PDF

License from Shutterstock.com 5 Conceptualization, Operationalization, and Measurement What You’ll Learn in This Chapter...

License from Shutterstock.com 5 Conceptualization, Operationalization, and Measurement What You’ll Learn in This Chapter You’ll see how the interrelated steps of conceptualization, operationalization, and measurement allow researchers to turn a general idea for a research topic into useful and valid measurements in the real world. You’ll also see that an essential part of this process involves transforming the relatively vague terms of ordinary language into precise objects of study with well-defined and measurable meanings. In this chapter... Introduction Measuring Anything That Exists Conceptions, Concepts, and Reality Conceptions as Constructs Conceptualization Indicators and Dimensions What do you think? ? People sometimes doubt the social re- searcher’s ability to measure and study things that matter. Earl Babbie For many people, The Interchangeability of Indicators for example, re- Real, Nominal, and Operational Definitions ligious faith is a Creating Conceptual Order deep and important part of life. Yet both the An Example of Conceptualization: The Concept of religious and the nonreligious might ques- Anomie tion the social researcher’s ability to measure Definitions in Descriptive and Explanatory how religious a given person or group is Studies and—even more difficult—why some people Operationalization Choices are religious and others are not. Range of Variation This chapter will show that social re- Variations between the Extremes searchers can’t say definitively who is A Note on Dimensions religious and who is not, nor what percent- Defining Variables and Attributes age of people in a particular population are Levels of Measurement religious, but they can to an extent determine Single or Multiple Indicators the causes of religiosity. How can that be? Some Illustrations of Operationalization Choices See the “What do you think? Revisited” box Operationalization Goes On and On toward the end of the chapter. Criteria of Measurement Quality Precision and Accuracy Reliability many who fall between those extremes. More- Validity over, you can probably place yourself somewhere Who Decides What’s Valid? along that satisfaction spectrum. Although this Tension between Reliability and Validity probably makes sense to you as a general matter, The Ethics of Measurement how would you go about measuring these differences among students, so you could place them along that spectrum? INTRODUCTION Some of the comments students make in con- This chapter and the next deal with how re- versations (such as “This place sucks”) would tip searchers move from a general idea about what you off as to where they stood. In a more active to study to effective and well-defined measure- effort, you could think of questions you might ments in the real world. This chapter discusses ask students (as in “How satisfied are you... ?”), the interrelated processes of conceptualization, such that their answers would indicate their operationalization, and measurement. Chapter satisfaction. Perhaps certain behaviors—such as 6 builds on this foundation to discuss types of class attendance, use of campus facilities, or set- measurements that are more complex. ting the dean’s office on fire—would suggest dif- Consider a notion such as “satisfaction with ferent levels of satisfaction. As you think about college.” I’m sure you know some people who are ways of measuring satisfaction with college, you’re very satisfied, some who are very dissatisfied, and engaging in the subject matter of this chapter. 129 130 CHAPTER 5 CONCEPTUALIZATION, OPERATIONALIZATION, AND MEASUREMENT We begin by confronting the hidden concern registered as Democrats or Republicans and take people sometimes have about whether it’s truly that as a measure of their party affiliation. But possible to measure the stuff of life: love, hate, we could also simply ask someone what party prejudice, religiosity, radicalism, alienation. Over they identify with and take their response as our the next few pages, we’ll see that researchers can measure. Notice that these two different mea- measure anything that exists. Once that point surement possibilities reflect somewhat differ- has been established, we’ll turn to the steps in- ent definitions of political party affiliation. They volved in actual measurement. might even produce different results: Someone may have registered as a Democrat years ago but gravitated more and more toward a Repub- lican philosophy over time. Or someone who is MEASURING ANYTHING registered with neither political party may, when THAT EXISTS asked, say she is affiliated with the one she feels Earlier in this book, I said that one of the two pil- the most kinship with. lars of science is observation. Because this word Similar points apply to religious affiliation. can suggest a casual, passive activity, scientists Sometimes this variable refers to official member- often use the term measurement instead, mean- ship in a particular church, temple, mosque, and ing careful, deliberate observations of the real so forth; other times it simply means whatever re- world for the purpose of describing objects and ligion, if any, one identifies oneself with. Perhaps to events in terms of the attributes composing a you it means something else, such as attendance variable. at religious services. Like the people in the opening “What do you The truth is that neither party affiliation nor think?” box, you may have some reservations religious affiliation has any real meaning, if by about the ability of science to measure the really “real” we mean corresponding to some objective important aspects of human social existence. If aspect of reality. These variables do not exist in you’ve read research reports dealing with some- nature. They are merely terms we have made up thing like liberalism or religion or prejudice, and assigned specific meanings to for some pur- you may have been dissatisfied with the way pose, such as doing social research. the researchers measured whatever they were But, you might object, “political affiliation” studying. You may have felt that they were too and “religious affiliation”—and a host of other superficial, missing the aspects that really mat- things social researchers are interested in, such ter most. Maybe they measured religiosity as as prejudice or compassion—have some reality. the number of times a person went to religious After all, we make statements about them, such services, or liberalism by how people voted in a as “In Happytown, 55 percent of the adults affi- single election. Your dissatisfaction would surely liate with the Republican Party, and 45 percent have increased if you had found yourself being of them are Episcopalians. Overall, people in misclassified by the measurement system. Happytown are low in prejudice and high in Your dissatisfaction reflects an important fact compassion.” Even ordinary people, not just social about social research: Most of the variables we researchers, have been known to make statements want to study do not actually exist in the way like that. If these things do not exist in reality, that rocks exist. Indeed, they are made up. More- what is it that we’re measuring and talking about? over, they seldom have a single, unambiguous What indeed? Let’s take a closer look by con- meaning. sidering a variable of interest to many social To see what I mean, suppose we want to study researchers (and many other people as well)— political party affiliation. To measure this variable, prejudice. (See “Keeping Humanity in Focus” for we might consult the list of registered voters to a look at making qualitative measurements in note whether the people we were studying were “the real world.”)  MEASURING ANYTHING THAT EXISTS 131 KEEPING HUMANITY IN FOCUS Conceptions, Concepts, and Reality As you and I wander down the road of life, we’ve In the early 1970s, Elijah already observed a lot of things and known Anderson spent three years they were real through our observations, and observing life in a black, work- we’ve heard reports from other people that have University of Chicago Press ing-class neighborhood in seemed real. For example: South Chicago, focusing on Jelly’s, a combination bar and We personally heard people say nasty things liquor store. Although some about minority groups. people had the idea that im- We heard people say women are inferior poverished neighborhoods in the inner city to men. were socially chaotic and disorganized, We read about African Americans being Anderson’s study, like those of other social lynched. scientists, clearly demonstrated there was a We read that women and minorities earn less definite social structure, which guided the for the same work. behavior of its participants. Much of his We learned about “ethnic cleansing” and wars interest centered on systems of social status in which one ethnic group tried to eradicate and how the 55 or so regulars at Jelly’s another. worked those systems to establish them- selves among their peers. With additional experience, we noticed In the second edition of his classic study something more. People who participated in of urban life, A Place on the Corner: A Study lynching were also quite likely to call African of Black Street Corner Men (University of Americans ugly names. A lot of them, more- Chicago Press, 2004), Elijah Anderson re- over, seemed to want women to “stay in their turned to Jelly’s and the surrounding neigh- place.” Eventually it dawned on us that these borhood to discover several changes. These several tendencies often appeared together in were largely due to the outsourcing of manu- the same people and also had something in facturing jobs overseas, which had brought common. At some point, someone had a bright economic and mental depression to many idea: “Let’s use the word prejudiced for people of the residents. The nature of social orga- like that. We can use the term even if they don’t nization had also consequently changed in do all those things—as long as they’re pretty many ways. much like that.” For a research methods student, the book Being basically agreeable and interested in offers many insights into the process of estab- efficiency, we agreed to go along with the system. lishing rapport with people being observed That’s where “prejudice” came from. We never in their natural surroundings. Anderson also observed it. We just agreed to use it as a shortcut, offers excellent examples of how concepts a name that represents a collection of apparently are established in qualitative research. related phenomena that we’ve each observed in You can read excerpts of the book on- the course of life. In short, we made it up. line at books.google.com/books. Search Here’s another clue that prejudice isn’t some- for “Elijah Anderson ‘A Place on the Cor- thing that exists apart from our rough agreement ner.’ ” You can also hear Anderson discuss to use the term in a certain way. Each of us devel- the book in an interview with BBC’s Laurie ops our own mental image of what the set of real Taylor at www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/ phenomena we’ve observed represents in general thinkingallowed_20040505.shtml. and what these phenomena have in common. When I say the word prejudice, it evokes a mental image in your mind, just as it evokes one in mine. 132 CHAPTER 5 CONCEPTUALIZATION, OPERATIONALIZATION, AND MEASUREMENT It’s as though file drawers in our minds contained bird back in its nest. Pat got you to take turkeys thousands of sheets of paper, with each sheet of to poor families on Thanksgiving and to visit paper labeled in the upper right-hand corner. A a children’s hospital at Christmas. You’ve seen sheet of paper in each of our minds has the label Pat weep through a movie about a mother over- “prejudice” on it. On your sheet are all the things coming adversities to save and protect her child. you’ve been told about prejudice and everything As you search through your mental files, you may you’ve observed that seems to be an example of find all or most of those phenomena recorded on it. My sheet has what I’ve been told about it plus a single sheet labeled “compassionate.” You look all the things I’ve observed that seem examples over the other entries on the page, and you find of it—and mine isn’t the same as yours. they seem to provide an accurate description of The technical term for those mental images, Pat. So you say, “Pat is compassionate.” those sheets of paper in our mental file drawers, Now I leaf through my own mental file drawer is conception. That is, I have a conception of until I find a sheet marked “compassionate.” prejudice, and so do you. We can’t communicate I then look over the things written on my sheet, these mental images directly, so we use the and I say, “Oh, that’s nice.” I now feel I know what terms written in the upper right-hand corner Pat is like, but my expectations reflect the entries of our own mental sheets of paper as a way of on my file sheet, not yours. Later, when I meet communicating about our conceptions and Pat, I happen to find that my own experiences the things we observe that are related to those correspond to the entries I have on my “compas- conceptions. These terms make it possible for us sionate” file sheet, and I say that you sure were to communicate and eventually agree on what right. But suppose my observations of Pat con- we specifically mean by those terms. In social tradict the things I have on my file sheet. I tell research, the process of coming to an agreement you that I don’t think Pat is very compassionate, about what terms mean is conceptualization, and and we begin to compare notes. the result is called a concept. You say, “I once saw Pat weep through a movie I’m sure you’ve heard reference to the many about a mother overcoming adversity to save words some northern peoples have for “snow,” as and protect her child.” I look at my “compas- an example of how environment can shape lan- sionate sheet” and can’t find anything like that. guage. Here’s an exercise you might enjoy. Search Looking elsewhere in my file, I locate that sort the web for “Inuit words for snow.” You’re likely of phenomenon on a sheet labeled “sentimen- to discover wide disagreement on the number tal.” I retort, “That’s not compassion. That’s just of Inuit words—ranging from 1 to 400. Several sentimentality.” sources, moreover, will suggest that English also To further strengthen my case, I tell you that I has several words for “snow.” Cecil Adams (2006), saw Pat refuse to give money to an organization for example, lists: “snow, slush, sleet, hail, pow- dedicated to saving whales from extinction. “That der, hard pack, blizzard, flurries, flake, dusting, represents a lack of compassion,” I argue. You crust, avalanche, drift, frost, and iceberg.” This search through your files and find saving the illustrates the ambiguities with regard to the whales on two sheets—“environmental activism” concepts and words we use in everyday commu- and “cross-species dating”—and you say so. Even- nications as well as in social research. tually, we set about comparing the entries we have Let’s take another example of a conception. on our respective sheets labeled “compassionate.” Suppose that I’m going to meet someone named We then discover that many of our mental images Pat, whom you already know. I ask you what Pat corresponding to that term differ. is like. Now suppose that you’ve seen Pat help In the big picture, language and communi- lost children find their parents and put a tiny cation work only to the extent that our mental  MEASURING ANYTHING THAT EXISTS 133 file-sheet entries overlap considerably. The simi- Concepts as Constructs larities on those sheets represent the agreements Abraham Kaplan (1964) distinguishes three existing in our society. As we grow up, we’re all classes of things that scientists measure. The first taught approximately the same thing when we’re class is direct observables: those things we can first introduced to a particular term, though our observe rather simply and directly, like the color of nationality, gender, race, ethnicity, region, lan- an apple or what a person in front of us is wearing. guage, and other cultural factors can shade our The second class, indirect observables, requires understanding of concepts. “relatively more subtle, complex, or indirect Dictionaries formalize the agreements our observations” (1964:55). When we note a person’s society has about such terms. Each person, then, check mark beside “female” in a questionnaire, shapes his or her mental images to correspond we’ve indirectly observed that person’s sex. with such agreements. But because all of us have History books or minutes of corporate board different experiences and observations, no two meetings provide indirect observations of people end up with exactly the same set of en- past social actions. Finally, the third class of tries on any sheet in their file systems. If we want observables consists of constructs—theoretical to measure “prejudice” or “compassion,” we must creations that are based on observations but first stipulate what, exactly, counts as prejudice that cannot be observed directly or indirectly. A or compassion for our purposes. good example is intelligence quotient, or IQ. It is Returning to the assertion made at the outset constructed mathematically from observations of of this chapter, we can measure anything that’s the answers given to a large number of questions real. We can measure, for example, whether Pat on an IQ test. No one can directly or indirectly actually puts the little bird back in its nest, visits observe IQ. It is no more a “real” characteristic the hospital on Christmas, weeps at the movie, or of people than is compassion or prejudice. (See refuses to contribute to saving the whales. All of Table 5-1 for a summary.) those behaviors exist, so we can measure them. Kaplan (1964:49) defines concept as a “family But is Pat really compassionate? We can’t answer of conceptions.” A concept is, as Kaplan notes, that question; we can’t measure compassion in a construct, something we create. Concepts any objective sense, because compassion doesn’t such as compassion and prejudice are con- exist the way those things I just described exist. structs created from your conception of them, Compassion exists only in the form of the agree- my conception of them, and the conceptions ments we have about how to use the term in of all those who have ever used these terms. communicating about things that are real. They cannot be observed directly or indirectly, because they don’t exist. We made them up. To summarize, concepts are constructs derived by mutual agreement from mental im- ages (conceptions). Our conceptions summarize collections of seemingly related observations and experiences. The observations and expe- riences are real, at least subjectively, but con- ceptions, and the concepts derived from them, are only mental creations. The terms associ- Earl Babbie ated with concepts are merely devices created for the purposes of filing and communication. Conceptualization and operationalization involve the A term like prejudice is, objectively speaking, search for ways to measure the variables that interest us. 134 CHAPTER 5 CONCEPTUALIZATION, OPERATIONALIZATION, AND MEASUREMENT TABLE 5-1 Three Things Social Scientists Measure Examples Direct observables Physical characteristics (sex, height, skin color) of a person being observed and/or interviewed Indirect observables Characteristics of a person as indicated by answers given in a self-administered questionnaire Constructs Level of alienation, as measured by a scale that is created by combining several direct and/or indirect observables only a collection of letters. It has no intrinsic can measure anything that’s real. Constructs reality beyond that. It has only the meaning we aren’t real in the way that trees are real, but they agree to give it. do have another important virtue: They are use- Usually, however, we fall into the trap of be- ful. That is, they help us organize, communicate lieving that terms for constructs do have intrinsic about, and understand things that are real. They meaning, that they name real entities in the help us make predictions about real things. Some world. That danger seems to grow stronger when of those predictions even turn out to be true. we begin to take terms seriously and attempt to Constructs can work this way because, although use them precisely. Further, the danger increases not real or observable in themselves, they have a in the presence of experts who appear to know definite relationship to things that are real and more than we do about what the terms really observable. The bridge from direct and indirect mean: Yielding to authority is easy in such a observables to useful constructs is the process situation. called conceptualization. Once we assume that terms like prejudice and compassion have real meanings, we begin CONCEPTUALIZATION the tortured task of discovering what those real meanings are and what constitutes a genuine As we’ve seen, day-to-day communication usually measurement of them. Regarding constructs occurs through a system of vague and general as real is called reification. The reification of agreements about the use of terms. Although you concepts in day-to-day life is quite common. In and I do not agree completely about the use of the science, we want to be quite clear about what it term compassionate, I’m probably safe in assum- is we are actually measuring, but this aim brings ing that Pat won’t pull the wings off flies. A wide a pitfall with it. Settling on the “best” way of range of misunderstandings and conflict—from measuring a variable in a particular study may the interpersonal to the international—is the imply that we’ve discovered the “real” meaning price we pay for our imprecision, but somehow we of the concept involved. In fact, concepts have no muddle through. Science, however, aims at more real, true, or objective meanings—only those we than muddling; it cannot operate in a context of agree are best for a particular purpose. such imprecision. Does this discussion imply that compassion, The process through which we specify what we prejudice, and similar constructs cannot be mean when we use particular terms in research measured? Interestingly, the answer is no. (And is called conceptualization. Suppose we want to a good thing, too, or a lot of us social researcher find out, for example, whether women are more types would be out of work.) I’ve said that we compassionate than men. I suspect many people  CONCEPTUALIZATION 135 assume this is the case, but it might be interesting religious cult, particularly their views on various to find out if it’s really so. We can’t meaningfully groups: gays, nonbelievers, feminists, and others. study the question, let alone agree on the answer, In fact, they suggest that anyone who refuses to without some working agreements about the join their group and abide by its teachings will meaning of compassion. They are “working” “burn in hell.” In the context of your interest in agreements in the sense that they allow us to work compassion, they don’t seem to have much. And on the question. We don’t need to agree or even yet, the group’s literature often speaks of their pretend to agree that a particular specification is compassion for others. You want to explore this ultimately the best one. seeming paradox. Conceptualization, then, produces a specific, To pursue this research interest, you might agreed-on meaning for a concept, for the pur- arrange to interact with cult members, getting to poses of research. This process of specifying exact know them and learning more about their views. meaning involves describing the indicators we’ll You could tell them you were a social researcher be using to measure our concept and the differ- interested in learning about their group, or ent aspects of the concept, called dimensions. perhaps you would just express an interest in learning more without saying why. In the course of your conversations with Indicators and Dimensions group members and perhaps attendance of Conceptualization gives definite meaning to a religious services, you would put yourself in concept by specifying one or more indicators situations where you could come to understand of what we have in mind. An indicator is a sign what the cult members mean by compassion. of the presence or absence of the concept we’re You might learn, for example, that members of studying. Here’s an example. the group were so deeply concerned about sin- We might agree that visiting children’s hos- ners burning in hell that they were willing to be pitals during Christmas and Hanukkah is an aggressive, even violent, to make people change indicator of compassion. Putting little birds back their sinful ways. Within their own paradigm, in their nests might be agreed on as another then, cult members would see beating up gays, indicator, and so forth. If the unit of analysis for prostitutes, and abortion doctors as acts of our study is the individual person, we can then compassion. observe the presence or absence of each indicator Social researchers focus their attention on for each person under study. Going beyond the meanings that people under study give to that, we can add up the number of indicators words and actions. Doing so can often clarify the of compassion observed for each individual. behaviors observed: At least now you understand We might agree on ten specific indicators, for how the cult can see violent acts as compas- example, and find six present in our study of Pat, sionate. On the other hand, paying attention to three for John, nine for Mary, and so forth. what words and actions mean to the people under Returning to our question about whether men or women are more compassionate, we might calculate that the women we studied displayed conceptualization The mental process whereby fuzzy and an average of 6.5 indicators of compassion, imprecise notions (concepts) are made more specific and the men an average of 3.2. On the basis of our precise. So you want to study prejudice. What do you mean by prejudice? Are there different kinds of prejudice? What quantitative analysis of group difference, we are they? might therefore conclude that women are, on indicator An observation that we choose to consider as a the whole, more compassionate than men. reflection of a variable we wish to study. Thus, for example, Usually, though, it’s not that simple. Imag- attending religious services might be considered an indica- ine you’re interested in understanding a small tor of religiosity. 136 CHAPTER 5 CONCEPTUALIZATION, OPERATIONALIZATION, AND MEASUREMENT study almost always complicates the concepts two property crimes in the immediate researchers are interested in. (We’ll return to this neighbourhood.... issue when we discuss the validity of measures, estimates of likelihood of falling victim to each toward the end of this chapter.) crime locally; Whenever we take our concepts seriously and perceptions of control over the possibility of set about specifying what we mean by them, we becoming a victim of each crime locally; discover disagreements and inconsistencies. perceptions of the seriousness of the conse- Not only do you and I disagree, but each of us quences of each crime; is likely to find a good deal of muddiness within beliefs about the incidence of each crime our own mental images. If you take a moment locally; to look at what you mean by compassion, you’ll perceptions of the extent of social physical probably find that your image contains several incivilities in the neighbourhood; kinds of compassion. That is, the entries on your perceptions of community cohesion, including mental file sheet can be combined into groups informal social control and trust/social capital and subgroups, say, compassion toward friends, (2005:301) coreligionists, humans, and birds. You can also find several different strategies for making Sometimes conceptualization aimed at iden- combinations. For example, you might group the tifying different dimensions of a variable leads to entries into feelings and actions. a different kind of distinction. We may conclude The technical term for such groupings is that we’ve been using the same word for mean- dimension: a specifiable aspect of a concept. For ingfully distinguishable concepts. In the fol- instance, we might speak of the “feeling dimen- lowing example, the researchers find, first, that sion” of compassion and its “action dimension.” In “violence” is not a sufficient description of “geno- a different grouping scheme, we might distinguish cide” and, second, that the concept “genocide” it- “compassion for humans” from “compassion for self comprises several distinct phenomena. Let’s animals.” Or we might see compassion as helping look at the process they went through to come to people have what we want for them versus what this conclusion. they want for themselves. Still differently, we When Daniel Chirot and Jennifer Edwards at- might distinguish “compassion as forgiveness” tempted to define the concept of “genocide,” they from “compassion as pity.” found that existing assumptions were not precise Thus, we could subdivide compassion into enough for their purposes: several clearly defined dimensions. A complete conceptualization involves both specifying di- The United Nations originally defined it as an mensions and identifying the various indicators attempt to destroy “in whole or in part, a national, for each. ethnic, racial, or religious group.” If genocide is When Jonathan Jackson set out to measure distinct from other types of violence, it requires its “fear of crime,” he considered eleven different own unique explanation. (2003:14) dimensions: Notice the final comment in this excerpt, as it the frequency of worry about becoming provides an important insight into why research- a victim of three personal crimes and ers are so careful in specifying the concepts they study. If genocide, such as the Holocaust, were simply another example of violence, like as- dimension A specifiable aspect of a concept. “Religios- ity,” for example, might be specified in terms of a belief saults and homicides, then what we know about dimension, a ritual dimension, a devotional dimension, a violence in general might explain genocide. If knowledge dimension, and so forth. it differs from other forms of violence, then we  CONCEPTUALIZATION 137 may need a different explanation for it. So, the many other groups were also included. Other researchers began by suggesting that “genocide” examples include the Indonesian witch-hunt was a concept distinct from “violence” for their against communists in 1965–1966 and the purposes. attempt to eradicate all non-Khmer Cambodi- Then, as Chirot and Edwards examined histor- ans under Pol Pot in the 1970s. ical instances of genocide, they began conclud- No single theory of genocide could explain these ing that the motivations for launching genocidal various forms of mayhem. Indeed, this act of con- mayhem differed sufficiently to represent four ceptualization suggests four distinct phenomena, distinct phenomena that were all called “geno- each needing a different set of explanations. cide” (2003:15–18): Specifying the different dimensions of a con- 1. Convenience: Sometimes the attempt to cept, then, often paves the way for a more sophis- eradicate a group of people serves a function ticated understanding of what we’re studying. for the eradicators, such as Julius Caesar’s To take another example, we might observe that attempt to eradicate tribes defeated in women are more compassionate in terms of battle, fearing they would be difficult to rule. feelings, and men more so in terms of actions— Or when gold was discovered on Cherokee or vice versa. Whichever turned out to be the land in the southeastern United States in the case, we would not be able to say whether men or early nineteenth century, the Cherokee were women are really more compassionate. Our re- forcibly relocated to Oklahoma in an event search would have shown that there is no single known as the “Trail of Tears,” which ulti- answer to the question. That alone represents an mately killed as many as half of those forced advance in our understanding of reality. to leave. 2. Revenge: When the Chinese of Nanking For an excellent sampling of concepts, bravely resisted the Japanese invaders in the variables, and indicators, go to the General early years of World War II, the conquerors Social Survey codebook and explore felt they had been insulted by those they re- some of the ways the researchers have garded as inferior beings. Tens of thousands measured various concepts: www.norc.org/ were slaughtered in the “Rape of Nanking” in GSS+Website/. 1937–1938. 3. Fear: The ethnic cleansing that recently occurred in the former Yugoslavia was at The Interchangeability of Indicators least partly motivated by economic competi- tion and worries that the growing Albanian There is another way that the notion of indicators population of Kosovo was gaining political can help us in our attempts to understand real- strength through numbers. Similarly, the ity by means of “unreal” constructs. Suppose, for Hutu attempt to eradicate the Tutsis of the moment, that you and I have compiled a list Rwanda grew out of a fear that returning of 100 indicators of compassion and its various Tutsi refugees would seize control of the dimensions. Suppose further that we disagree country. Often intergroup fears such as these widely on which indicators give the clearest evi- grow out of long histories of atrocities, often dence of compassion or its absence. If we pretty inflicted in both directions. much agree on some indicators, we could focus 4. Purification: The Nazi Holocaust, probably the our attention on those, and we would probably most publicized case of genocide, was intended agree on the answer they provided. We would as a purification of the “Aryan race.” While Jews then be able to say that some people are more were the main target, gypsies, homosexuals, and compassionate than others in some dimension. 138 CHAPTER 5 CONCEPTUALIZATION, OPERATIONALIZATION, AND MEASUREMENT But suppose we don’t really agree on any of The first of these reflects the reification of the possible indicators. Surprisingly, we can still terms. As Carl Hempel cautions, reach an agreement on whether men or women A “real” definition, according to traditional logic, are the more compassionate. How we do that has is not a stipulation determining the meaning of to do with the interchangeability of indicators. some expression but a statement of the “essential The logic works like this. If we disagree totally nature” or the “essential attributes” of some entity. on the value of the indicators, one solution would The notion of essential nature, however, is so be to study all of them. Suppose that women turn vague as to render this characterization useless out to be more compassionate than men on all for the purposes of rigorous inquiry. (1952:6) 100 indicators—on all the indicators you favor and on all of mine. Then we would be able to In other words, trying to specify the “real” mean- agree that women are more compassionate than ing of concepts only leads to a quagmire: It mis- men even though we still disagree on exactly takes a construct for a real entity. what compassion means in general. The specification of concepts in scientific The interchangeability of indicators means inquiry depends instead on nominal and op- that if several different indicators all represent, to erational definitions. A nominal definition is one some degree, the same concept, then all of them that is simply assigned to a term without any will behave the same way that the concept would claim that the definition represents a “real” en- behave if it were real and could be observed. tity. Nominal definitions are arbitrary—I could Thus, given a basic agreement about what “com- define compassion as “plucking feathers off help- passion” is, if women are generally more compas- less birds” if I wanted to—but they can be more sionate than men, we should be able to observe or less useful. For most purposes, especially that difference by using any reasonable measure communication, that last definition of compas- of compassion. If, on the other hand, women are sion would be useless. Most nominal definitions more compassionate than men on some indica- represent some consensus, or convention, about tors but not on others, we should see if the two how a particular term is to be used. sets of indicators represent different dimensions An operational definition, as you may recall of compassion. from Chapter 2, specifies precisely how a concept You’ve now seen the fundamental logic of will be measured—that is, the operations we conceptualization and measurement. The dis- choose to perform. An operational definition cussions that follow are mainly refinements and is nominal rather than real, but it achieves extensions of what you’ve just read. Before turn- maximum clarity about what a concept means ing to a technical elaboration of measurement, in the context of a given study. In the midst however, we need to fill out the picture of concep- of disagreement and confusion over what a tualization by looking at some of the ways social term “really” means, we can specify a working researchers provide the meanings of terms that definition for the purposes of an inquiry. have standards, consistency, and commonality. Wishing to examine socioeconomic status (SES) in a study, for example, we may simply specify that we are going to treat SES as a combination Real, Nominal, and Operational of income and educational attainment. In this Definitions decision, we rule out other possible aspects of As we’ve seen, the design and execution of social SES: occupational status, money in the bank, prop- research requires us to clear away the confusion erty, lineage, lifestyle, and so forth. Our findings over concepts and reality. To this end, logicians will then be interesting to the extent that our and scientists have distinguished three kinds of definition of SES is useful for our purpose. See definitions: real, nominal, and operational. the box “Conceptualization” for more on this.  CONCEPTUALIZATION 139 APPLYING CONCEPTS IN EVERDAY LIFE In some forms of qualitative research, the clarification of concepts is a key element in the Conceptualization collection of data. Suppose you were conducting interviews and observations in a radical political By this point in the chapter, you should be group devoted to combating oppression in U.S. gaining an appreciation for the ambiguity society. Imagine how the meaning of oppression of language. This creates special challenges would shift as you delved more and more deeply for social researchers, but it is no less sig- into the members’ experiences and worldviews. nificant in daily life. George Lakoff, a pro- For example, you might start out thinking of fessor of linguistics and cognitive science oppression in physical and perhaps economic at the University of California–Berkeley, terms. The more you learned about the group, has written widely about the ways in which however, the more you might appreciate the pos- language choices have shaped political sibility of psychological oppression. debate in the United States (Lakoff 2002). The same point applies even to contexts Specifically, he suggests that conservatives where meanings might seem more fixed. In the have been generally more adept than liber- analysis of textual materials, for example, social als in this regard. Thus, for example, paying researchers sometimes speak of the “herme- taxes could reasonably be seen as a patri- neutic circle,” a cyclical process of ever-deeper otic act, paying your fair share of the cost understanding. of an orderly society. Avoiding taxes, within this construction, would be unpatriotic. The understanding of a text takes place through Instead of “tax avoidance” or “tax evasion,” a process in which the meaning of the separate however, we frequently hear calls for “tax parts is determined by the global meaning of the relief,” which creates an image of citizens text as it is anticipated. The closer determination being unfairly burdened by government of the meaning of the separate parts may eventu- and revolting against that injustice. The ally change the originally anticipated meaning of intellectual act of conceptualization has the totality, which again influences the meaning of real consequences in your daily life. the separate parts, and so on. (Kvale 1996:47) Consider the concept “prejudice.” Suppose you needed to write a definition of the term. You might start out thinking about racial/ethnic prejudice. At some point you would realize you should probably allow for gender prejudice, Creating Conceptual Order religious prejudice, antigay prejudice, and the The clarification of concepts is a continuing like in your definition. Examining each of these process in social research. Catherine Marshall specific types of prejudice would affect your and Gretchen Rossman (1995:18) speak of a overall understanding of the general concept. As “conceptual funnel” through which a researcher’s your general understanding changed, however, interest becomes increasingly focused. Thus, you would likely see each of the individual forms a general interest in social activism could somewhat differently. narrow to “individuals who are committed to The continual refinement of concepts occurs empowerment and social change” and further in all social research methods. Often you’ll find focus on discovering “what experiences shaped yourself refining the meaning of important con- the development of fully committed social cepts even as you write up your final report. activists.” This focusing process is inescapably Although conceptualization is a continuing linked to the language we use. process, it’s vital to address it specifically at 140 CHAPTER 5 CONCEPTUALIZATION, OPERATIONALIZATION, AND MEASUREMENT the beginning of any study design, especially 1. What was your total family income during rigorously structured research designs such the past 12 months? as surveys and experiments. In a survey, 2. What is the highest level of school you for example, operationalization results in a completed? commitment to a specific set of questionnaire items that will represent the concepts under To organize our data, we would probably study. Without that commitment, the study want to specify a system for categorizing the could not proceed. answers people give us. For income, we might Even in less-structured research methods, use categories such as “under $5,000,” “$5,000 however, we need to begin with an initial set of to $10,000,” and so on. Educational attainment anticipated meanings that can be refined during might be similarly grouped in categories: less data collection and interpretation. No one seri- than high school, high school, college, graduate ously believes we can observe life with no pre- degree. Finally, we would specify the way a per- conceptions; for this reason, scientific observers son’s responses to these two questions would be must be conscious of and explicit about these combined to create a measure of SES. conceptual starting points. In this way we would create a working and Let’s explore initial conceptualization as it workable definition of SES. Although others applies to structured inquiries such as surveys might disagree with our conceptualization and and experiments. Though specifying nominal operationalization, the definition would have definitions focuses our observational strategy, one essential scientific virtue: It would be abso- it does not allow us to observe. As a next step lutely specific and unambiguous. Even if some- we must specify exactly what we’re going to one disagreed with our definition, that person observe, how we’ll observe it, and how we’ll in- would have a good idea how to interpret our terpret various possible observations. All these research results, because what we meant by further specifications make up the operational SES—reflected in our analyses and conclusions— definition of the concept. would be precise and clear. In the example of socioeconomic status, we Below is a diagram showing the progression might decide to measure SES in terms of income of measurement steps from our vague sense of and educational attainment. We might then ask what a term means to specific measurements in survey respondents two questions: a fully structured scientific study. Measurement Step Example: “Social Class” Conceptualization What are the different meanings and dimensions of the concept “social class”? Nominal definition For our study, we define “social class” as representing economic differences: specifically, income. Operational definition We measure economic differences by responses to the survey question “What was your annual income, before taxes, last year?” Measurements in the real world The interviewer asks, “What was your annual income, before taxes, last year?”  CONCEPTUALIZATION 141 An Example of Conceptualization: Since Durkheim’s time, social scientists have The Concept of Anomie found anomie a useful concept, and many have expanded on Durkheim’s use. Robert Merton, in To look at the overall process of conceptualiza- a classic article entitled “Social Structure and tion in research, let’s look briefly at the history Anomie” (1938), concluded that anomie results of a specific social science concept. Researchers from a disparity between the goals and means studying urban riots often focus on the part prescribed by a society. Monetary success, for ex- played by feelings of powerlessness. Social re- ample, is a widely shared goal in our society, yet searchers sometimes use the word anomie in this not all individuals have the resources to achieve context. This term was first introduced into so- it through acceptable means. An emphasis on cial science by Emile Durkheim, the great French the goal itself, Merton suggested, produces sociologist, in his classic 1897 study, Suicide. normlessness, because those denied the tradi- Using only government publications on sui- tional avenues to wealth go about getting it cide rates in different regions and countries, through illegitimate means. Merton’s discussion, Durkheim produced a work of analytic genius. then, could be considered a further conceptual- To determine the effects of religion on suicide, ization of the concept of anomie. he compared the suicide rates of predomi- Although Durkheim originally used the con- nantly Protestant countries with those of pre- cept of anomie as a characteristic of societies, as dominantly Catholic ones, Protestant regions did Merton after him, other social scientists have of Catholic countries with Catholic regions of used it to describe individuals. To clarify this dis- Protestant countries, and so forth. To determine tinction, some scholars have chosen to use ano- the possible effects of the weather, he compared mie in reference to its original, societal meaning suicide rates in northern and southern coun- and to use the term anomia in reference to the tries and regions, and he examined the different individual characteristic. In a given society, then, suicide rates across the months and seasons of some individuals experience anomia, and others the year. Thus, he could draw conclusions about do not. Elwin Powell, writing 20 years after Mer- a supremely individualistic and personal act ton, provided the following conceptualization without having any data about the individuals of anomia (though using the term anomie) as a engaging in it. characteristic of individuals: At a more general level, Durkheim suggested When the ends of action become contra- that suicide also reflects the extent to which a dictory, inaccessible or insignificant, a condi- society’s agreements are clear and stable. Not- tion of anomie arises. Characterized by a ing that times of social upheaval and change of- general loss of orientation and accompanied ten present individuals with grave uncertainties by feelings of “emptiness” and apathy, anomie about what is expected of them, Durkheim sug- can be simply conceived as meaninglessness. gested that such uncertainties cause confusion, (1958:132) anxiety, and even self-destruction. To describe this societal condition of normlessness, Durk- Powell went on to suggest there were two dis- heim chose the term anomie. Durkheim did not tinct kinds of anomia and to examine how the make this word up. Used in both German and two rose out of different occupational experi- French, it literally meant “without law.” The Eng- ences to result at times in suicide. In his study, lish term anomy had been used for at least three however, Powell did not measure anomia per se; centuries before Durkheim to mean disregard for he studied the relationship between suicide and divine law. However, Durkheim created the social occupation, making inferences about the two science concept of anomie. kinds of anomia. Thus, the study did not provide 142 CHAPTER 5 CONCEPTUALIZATION, OPERATIONALIZATION, AND MEASUREMENT Text not available due to copyright restrictions an operational definition of anomia, only a fur- 5. There’s little use writing to public officials ther conceptualization. because they aren’t really interested in the Although many researchers have offered op- problems of the average man. (1956:713) erational definitions of anomia, one name stands out over all. Two years before Powell’s article In the decades following its publication, the appeared, Leo Srole (1956) published a set of Srole scale has become a research staple for questionnaire items that he said provided a social scientists. You’ll likely find this particu- good measure of anomia. It consists of five lar operationalization of anomia used in many statements that subjects were asked to agree of the research projects reported in academic or disagree with: journals. Srole touches on this in the accompa- nying box, “The Origins of Anomia,” which he 1. In spite of what some people say, the lot of prepared for this book before his death. the average man is getting worse. This abbreviated history of anomie and ano- 2. It’s hardly fair to bring children into the mia as social science concepts illustrates sev- world with the way things look for the future. eral points. First, it is a good example of the 3. Nowadays a person has to live pretty much process through which general concepts be- for today and let tomorrow take care of itself. come operationalized measurements. This is 4. These days a person doesn’t really know who not to say that the issue of how to operation- he can count on. alize anomie/anomia has been resolved once  CONCEPTUALIZATION 143 Text not available due to copyright restrictions and for all. Scholars will surely continue to Srole scale, examples include IQ tests and a reconceptualize and reoperationalize these host of demographic and economic measures concepts for years to come, continually seeking developed by the U.S. Census Bureau. Using more-useful measures. such established measures has two advantages: The Srole scale illustrates another important They have been extensively pretested and de- point. Letting conceptualization and operation- bugged, and studies using the same scales can alization be open-ended does not necessarily be compared. If you and I do separate studies produce anarchy and chaos, as you might expect. of two different groups and use the Srole scale, Order often emerges. For one thing, although we can compare our two groups on the basis of we could define anomia any way we chose—in anomia. terms of, say, shoe size—we would likely define Social scientists, then, can measure any- it in ways not too different from other people’s thing that’s real; through conceptualization mental images. If you were to use a really off beat and operationalization, they can even do a definition, people would probably ignore you. pretty good job of measuring things that aren’t. A second source of order is that, as research- Granting that such concepts as socioeconomic ers discover the utility of a particular concep- status, prejudice, compassion, and anomia tualization and operationalization of a concept, aren’t ultimately real, social scientists can cre- they’re likely to adopt it, which leads to stan- ate order in handling them. This order is based dardized definitions of concepts. Besides the on utility, however, not on ultimate truth. 144 CHAPTER 5 CONCEPTUALIZATION, OPERATIONALIZATION, AND MEASUREMENT Text not available due to copyright restrictions DEFINITIONS IN DESCRIPTIVE because such a child is not considered a mem- AND EXPLANATORY STUDIES ber of the labor force. Thus, we might follow the U.S. Census Bureau’s convention and exclude all As described in Chapter 4, two general purposes people under age 14 from the labor force. of research are description and explanation. The This convention alone, however, would not distinction between them has important implica- give us a satisfactory definition, because it would tions for definition and measurement. If it seems count as unemployed such people as high school that description is simpler than explanation, you students, the retired, the disabled, and home- may be surprised to learn that definitions are makers. We might follow the Census convention more problematic for descriptive research than further by defining the labor force as “all persons for explanatory research. Before we turn to other 14 years of age and over who are employed, look- aspects of measurement, you’ll need a basic un- ing for work, or waiting to be called back to a derstanding of why this is so (we’ll discuss this job from which they have been laid off or fur- point more fully in Part 4). loughed.” If a student, homemaker, or retired per- It’s easy to see the importance of clear and son is not looking for work, such a person would precise definitions for descriptive research. If we not be included in the labor force. Unemployed want to describe and report the unemployment people, then, would be those members of the rate in a city, our definition of “being unem- labor force, as defined, who are not employed. ployed” is obviously critical. That definition will But what does “looking for work” mean? Must depend on our definition of another term: the a person register with the state employment ser- labor force. If it seems patently absurd to regard vice or go from door to door asking for employ- a three-year-old child as being unemployed, it is ment? Or would it be sufficient to want a job or  DEFINITIONS IN DESCRIPTIVE AND EXPLANATORY STUDIES 145 Text not available due to copyright restrictions be open to an offer of employment? Convention- it might be, depends directly on the operational ally, “looking for work” is defined operationally as definitions used. saying yes in response to an interviewer’s asking, This example is relatively clear because there “Have you been looking for a job during the past are several accepted conventions relating to the seven days?” (Seven days is the period most often labor force and unemployment. Now, consider specified, but for some research purposes it might how difficult it would be to get agreement about make more sense to shorten or lengthen it.) the definitions you would need in order to say, As you can see, the conclusion of a descrip- “Forty-five percent of the students at this in- tive study about the unemployment rate de- stitution are politically conservative.” Like the pends directly on how each issue of definition unemployment rate, this percentage would de- is resolved. Increasing the period during which pend directly on the definition of what is being people are counted as looking for work would measured—in this case, political conservatism. add more unemployed people to the labor force A different definition might result in the conclusion as defined, thereby increasing the reported un- “Five percent of the student body are politically employment rate. If we follow another conven- conservative.” tion and speak of the civilian labor force and the Ironically, definitions are less problematic in civilian unemployment rate, we’re excluding mili- the case of explanatory research. Let’s suppose tary personnel; that, too, increases the reported we’re interested in explaining political conser- unemployment rate, because military personnel vatism. Why are some people conservative and would be employed—by definition. Thus, the de- others not? More specifically, let’s suppose we’re scriptive statement that the unemployment rate interested in whether conservatism increases in a city is 3 percent, or 9 percent, or whatever with age. What if you and I have 25 different 146 CHAPTER 5 CONCEPTUALIZATION, OPERATIONALIZATION, AND MEASUREMENT operational definitions of conservative, and we are we willing to combine attributes in fairly can’t agree on which definition is best? As we gross categories? saw in the discussion of indicators, this is not Let’s suppose you want to measure people’s necessarily an insurmountable obstacle to our incomes in a study by collecting the informa- research. Suppose we found old people to be tion from either records or interviews. Th e more conservative than young people in terms highest annual incomes people receive run of all 25 definitions. Clearly, the exact definition into the millions of dollars, but not many peo- wouldn’t matter much. We would conclude that ple earn that much. Unless you’re studying the old people are generally more conservative than very rich, keeping track of extremely high cat- young people—even though we couldn’t agree egories probably won’t add much to your study. about exactly what conservative means. Depending on whom you study, you’ll probably In practice, explanatory research seldom results want to establish a highest income category in findings quite as unambiguous as this example with a much lower floor—maybe $100,000 or suggests; nonetheless, the general pattern is quite more. Although this decision will lead you common in actual research. There are consistent to throw together people who earn a trillion patterns of relationships in human social life that dollars a year with paupers earning a mere result in consistent research findings. However, $100,000, they’ll survive it, and that mixing such consistency does not appear in a descriptive probably won’t hurt your research any, either. situation. Changing definitions almost inevitably The same decision faces you at the other end of result in different descriptive conclusions. The the income spectrum. In studies of the general box “The Importance of Variable Names” (pages U.S. population, a bottom category of $5,000 or 144–145) explores this issue in connection with less usually works fine. the variable citizen participation. In studies of attitudes and orientations, the question of range of variation has another di- OPERATIONALIZATION CHOICES mension. Unless you’re careful, you may end up measuring only half an attitude without really In discussing conceptualization, I frequently have meaning to. Here’s an example of what I mean. referred to operationalization, for the two are in- Suppose you’re interested in people’s attitudes timately linked. To recap: Conceptualization is toward expanding the use of nuclear power gen- the refinement and specification of abstract con- erators. If you reasonably guess or have experi- cepts, and operationalization is the development enced that some people consider nuclear power of specific research procedures (operations) that the greatest thing since the wheel, whereas will result in empirical observations representing other people have absolutely no interest in it, it those concepts in the real world. makes sense to ask people how much they favor As with the methods of data collection, so- expanding the use of nuclear energy and to give cial researchers have a variety of choices when them answer categories ranging from “Favor it operationalizing a concept. Although the sev- very much” to “Don’t favor it at all.” eral choices are intimately interconnected, I’ve This operationalization, however, conceals separated them for the sake of discussion. Real- half the attitudinal spectrum regarding nuclear ize, however, that operationalization does not energy. Many people have feelings that go be- proceed through a systematic checklist. yond simply not favoring it: They are, with greater or lesser degrees of intensity, actively Range of Variation opposed to it. In this instance, there is consider- In operationalizing any concept, researchers able variation on the left side of zero. Some op- must be clear about the range of variation that pose it a little, some quite a bit, and others a great interests them. The question is, to what extent deal. To measure the full range of variation, then,  OPERATIONALIZATION CHOICES 147 you’d want to operationalize attitudes toward must look at the purpose and procedures of nuclear energy with a range from favoring it very your study and decide whether fine or gross dif- much, through no feelings one way or the other, ferences in age are important to you. In a sur- to opposing it very much. vey, you’ll need to make these decisions in order This consideration applies to many of the to design an appropriate questionnaire. In the variables that social researchers study. Virtu- case of in-depth interviews, these decisions will ally any public issue involves both support and condition the extent to which you probe for opposition, each in varying degrees. Political details. orientations range from very liberal to very con- The same thing applies to other variables. If servative, and depending on the people you’re you measure political affiliation, will it matter studying, you may want to allow for radicals on to your inquiry whether a person is a conserva- one or both ends. Similarly, people are not just tive Democrat rather than a liberal Democrat, or more or less religious; some are antireligious. will knowing just the party suffice? In measuring The point is not that you must measure the full religious affiliation, is it enough to know that a range of variation in every case. You should, how- person is a Protestant, or do you need to know ever, consider whether you need to do so, given the denomination? Do you simply need to know your particular research purpose. If the differ- whether or not a person is married, or will it ence between not religious and antireligious isn’t make a difference to know if he or she has never relevant to your research, forget it. Someone has married or is separated, widowed, or divorced? defined pragmatism as “any difference that makes There is, of course, no general answer to such no difference is no difference.” Be pragmatic. questions. The answers come out of the pur- Finally, decisions about the range of variation pose of a given study, or why we are making a should be governed by the expected distribution particular measurement. I can give you a use- of attributes among the subjects of the study. In a ful guideline, though. Whenever you’re not sure study of college professors’ attitudes toward the how much detail to pursue in a measurement, value of higher education, you could probably go after too much rather than too little. When a stop at no value and not worry about those who subject in an in-depth interview volunteers that might consider higher education dangerous to she is 37 years old, record “37” in your notes, not students’ health. (If you were studying students, “in her thirties.” When you’re analyzing the data, however...) you can always combine precise attributes into more general categories, but you can never sepa- rate any variations you lumped together during Variations between the Extremes observation and measurement. Degree of precision is a second consideration in operationalizing variables. What it boils down A Note on Dimensions to is how fine you will make the distinctions among the various possible attributes com- We’ve already discussed dimensions as a charac- posing a given variable. Does it matter for your teristic of concepts. When researchers get down purposes whether a person is 17 or 18 years old, to the business of creating operational measures or could you conduct your inquiry by throwing of variables, they often discover—or worse, never them together in a group labeled 10 to 19 years notice—that they haven’t been exactly clear old? Don’t answer too quickly. If you wanted to about which dimensions of a variable they’re re- study rates of voter registration and participa- ally interested in. Here’s an example. tion, you’d definitely want to know whether the Let’s suppose you’re studying people’s atti- people you studied were old enough to vote. tudes toward government, and you want to in- In general, if you’re going to measure age, you clude an examination of how people feel about 148 CHAPTER 5 CONCEPTUALIZATION, OPERATIONALIZATION, AND MEASUREMENT corruption. Here are just a few of the dimensions the variable composed of the physical attributes, you might examine: female and male, while gender is a social-identity and behavioral variable composed of the attri- Do people think there is corruption in butes feminine and masculine. In most social government? science research, biological differences (sex) are How much corruption do they think there is? less important than how people treat those dif- How certain are they in their judgment of how ferences in shaping their own behavior and their much corruption there is? expectations and treatment of others. Despite How do they feel about corruption in govern- this distinct difference, the two terms are often ment as a problem in society? used interchangeably, both in common language What do they think causes it? and by social scientists. Do they think it’s inevitable? The conceptualization and operationaliza- What do they feel should be done about it? tion processes can be seen as the specification What are they willing to do personally to elimi- of variables and the attributes composing them. nate corruption in government? Thus, in the context of a study of unemployment, How certain are they that they would be willing employment status is a variable having the at- to do what they say they would do? tributes employed and unemployed; the list of The list could go on and on—how people feel attributes could also be expanded to include about corruption in government has many di- the other possibilities discussed earlier, such as mensions. It’s essential to be clear about which homemaker. ones are important in our inquiry; otherwise, Every variable must have two important qual- you may measure how people feel about corrup- ities. First, the attributes composing it should be tion when you really wanted to know how much exhaustive. For the variable to have any utility they think there is, or vice versa. in research, we must be able to classify every Once you’ve determined how you’re going observation in terms of one of the attributes to collect your data ( for example, survey, field composing the variable. We’ll run into trouble research) and decided on the relevant range of if we conceptualize the variable political party variation, the degree of precision needed be- affiliation in terms of the attributes Republican tween the extremes of variation, and the specific and Democrat, because some of the people we dimensions of the variables that interest you, you set out to study will identify with the Green Party, may have another choice: a mathematical-logical the Reform Party, or some other organization, one. That is, you may need to decide what level and some (often a large percentage) will tell us of measurement to use. To discuss this point, we they have no party affiliation. We could make need to take another look at attributes and their the list of attributes exhaustive by adding “other” relationship to variables. and “no affiliation.” Whatever we do, we must be able to classify every observation. At the same time, attributes composing a vari- Defining Variables and Attributes able must be mutually exclusive. That is, we must An attribute, you’ll recall, is a characteristic or be able to classify every observation in terms quality of something. “Female” is an example. So of one and only one attribute. For example, we is “old” or “student.” Variables, on the other hand, need to define “employed” and “unemployed” in are logical sets of attributes. Thus, gender is a such a way that nobody can be both at the same variable composed of the attributes female and time. That means being able to classify the per- male. What could be simpler? son who is working at a job but is also looking Actually, this simple example oversimplifies. for work. (We might run across a fully employed Some would insist that sex is the proper name of mud wrestler who is looking for the glamour and  OPERATIONALIZATION CHOICES 149 excitement of being a social researcher.) In this Ordinal Measures Variables with attributes we case, we might define the attributes so that em- can logically rank-order are ordinal measures. ployed takes precedence over unemployed, and The different attributes of ordinal variables anyone working at a job is employed regardless of represent relatively more or less of the variable. whether he or she is looking for something better. Variables of this type include social class, con- servatism, alienation, prejudice, and intellectual Levels of Measurement sophistication. In addition to saying whether two people are the same or different in terms of an Attributes operationalized as mutually exclusive ordinal variable, we can also say one is “more” and exhaustive may be related in other ways as than the other—that is, more conservative, more well. For example, the attributes composing vari- religious, older, and so forth. ables may represent different levels of measure- In the physical sciences, hardness is the most ment. In this section, we’ll examine four levels of frequently cited example of an ordinal measure. measurement: nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio. We can say that one material ( for example, dia- Nominal Measures Variables whose attributes mond) is harder than another (say, glass) if the have only the characteristics of exhaustiveness former can scratch the latter and not vice versa. and mutual exclusiveness are nominal measures. By attempting to scratch various materials with Examples include sex, religious affiliation, political other materials, we might eventually be able to party affiliation, birthplace, college major, and hair arrange several materials in a row, ranging from color. Although the attributes composing each of the softest to the hardest. We could never say how these variables—as male and female compose the hard a given material was in absolute terms; we variable sex—are distinct from one another (and could only say how hard in relative terms—which exhaust the possibilities of that variable), they materials it is harder than and which softer than. have no additional structures. Nominal measures Let’s pursue the earlier example of grouping merely offer names or labels for characteristics. the people at a social gathering. This time imag- Imagine a group of people characterized in ine that we ask all the people who have graduated terms of one such variable and physically from college to stand in one group, all those with grouped by the applicable attributes. For only a high school diploma to stand in another example, say we’ve asked a large gathering of group, and all those who have not graduated from people to stand together in groups according to high school to stand in a third group. This man- the states in which they were born: all those ner of grouping people satisfies the requirements born in Vermont in one group, those born in for exhaustiveness and mutual exclusiveness California in another, and so forth. The variable discussed earlier. In addition, however, we might is birthplace; the attributes are born in logically arrange the three groups in terms of the California, born in Vermont, and so on. All the relative amount of formal education (the shared people standing in a given group have at least one thing in common and differ from the people in all other groups in that same regard. Where nominal measure A variable whose attributes have only the individual groups form, how close they are the characteristics of exhaustiveness and mutual exclusive- to one another, or how the groups are arranged ness. In other words, a level of measurement describing in the room is irrelevant. All that matters is a variable that has attributes that are merely different, as distinguished from ordinal, interval, or ratio measures. Sex is that all the members of a given group share the an example of a nominal measure. same state of birth and that each group has a ordinal measure A level of measurement describing a different shared state of birth. All we can say variable with attributes we can rank-order along some di- about two people in terms of a nominal varia- mension. An example is socioeconomic status as composed ble is that they are either the same or different. of the attributes high, medium, low. 150 CHAPTER 5 CONCEPTUALIZATION, OPERATIONALIZATION, AND MEASUREMENT attribute) each had. We might arrange the three About the only interval measures commonly groups in a row, ranging from most to least for- used in social science research are constructed mal education. This arrangement would provide measures such as standardized intelligence tests a physical representation of an ordinal measure. that have been more or less accepted. The inter- If we knew which groups two individuals were in, val separating IQ scores of 100 and 110 may be we could determine that one had more, less, or regarded as the same as the interval between the same formal education as the other. 110 and 120, by virtue of the distribution of ob- Notice in this example that it doesn’t matter served scores obtained by many thousands of how close or far apart the educational groups are people who have taken the tests over the years. from one another. The college and high school But it would be incorrect to infer that someone groups might be 5