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Inner Contradictions of Rigorous Research (Organizational and occupational psychology)

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This book comes at a time [circa 1981] when scholars are giving increasing attention to making social science more applicable. A smaller but growing number of social scientists are also seeking to use social science kwoledge to provide maps that would lead to more liberating attentive ways of life.

Both groups appear to agree that applicability will be enhanced by the presence of at least three conditions.The first is that attention should be paid to observing everyday life activities so as to understand the ecological context within which human action occurs. The second is that sound observation requires theory to inform its design and to interpret the results. As Lewin pointed out, there is nothing as practical as theory. The third condition is that the results are credible and that we are not fooling ourselves. While there are a variety of views on what is proper methodology. I believe it is safe to say that the majority of social scientists hold to an empirically rigorous methodology that shows a high degree of internal and external validity.

Embedded in these three conditions are several implicit assumptions that should be made explicit. The first is that the knowledge produced by social science researchers is addictive. We shall see that this assumption, which lies at the heart of most research activity, is rarely fulfulled, a well-documented point seldom taken seriously by empirically oriented researchers.

A second assumption is that there is nothing inherently contradictory within these three conditions mentioned previously. One purpose of this book is to suggest that the methodology of rigorous research developed to enhance the internal validity of the knowledge produced may not only detract from its external validity but may also detract from its internal validity.

Another assumption is that social scientists should study the universe as it exists for more accurately, as we conceptualize it to exists). This book will suggest - as its second purpose - that such a focus makes it less likely that social scientists will produce genuine alternatives, or identify some of the innermost mechanisms by which the status quo is maintained.
--- excerpt from book's preface