by Roger Bourke White Jr., copyright September 2017
Lewin stated: "There is nothing so practical as a good theory."
Ponder on Lewin's words. What Lewin mean by this statement?
To support your response please provide an example from the media of a social problem that you believe is important. How might Social Psychology be applied to address this issue?
Length 2-3 pages
"There is nothing so practical as a good theory."
The virtue of a good theory is providing good answers to questions that the user has not previously faced.
As we go through life we face many choices. Those we have faced many times before we learn good answers to. Those good answers provide us with quick solutions that solve the choice in ways that give us what we want out of life. We face the problem, we decide how to solve it, we move on. Life is good.
Once in a while we face a new choice, one that we haven't faced before and one we don't have a previously worked out solution for. (We face a lot more of these as children.)
We can either simply work out a solution to this new choice by trial and error, or we can call upon a theory we have previously learned to provide the solution. If this is a good theory in the Lewin sense then the solution it recommends will solve this choice well for us, and quickly, and we can move on quickly to the next activity in our daily life.
This is the virtue of a good theory.
What is the difference between a theory and an opinion, and does the difference make a difference?
Theories and opinions are both advice given to us by other people. They are both designed to solve problems and both can help us when we face new choices.
The difference is an opinion is a recommendation given by another person that is not backed by scientific evidence. (It can be backed by other evidence, such as religious advice.) Opinions can be good choice solvers just as good theories are. The biggest difference is that a theory has well defined limits as to where it is valid, while an opinion's limits are fuzzier.
A contemporary social problem to which lots of opinions have been applied but no good theory is drug abuse. This is a problem that has been high profile for decades but not been solved. It hasn't been solved because no one has uncovered a good theory to explain it and provide a good choices to solve it. Instead we have worked through hundreds of opinions.
There are several ways that theories can be misused, and thus not good. Here are some common misuses:
o The theory is not backed with good scientific procedure -- this is an opinion disguising itself as a scientific theory. This is a common deception, watch out for it.
o The theory is being misapplied -- theories have distinct environments in which they have been proven to work. If it is being applied in other circumstances, then it is becoming an opinion.
Opinions disguising themselves as theories can be quite persuasive and become widespread. Watch out for this deception.
A good theory is good when it is helping to quickly solve a new choice a person is experiencing.
Other ways of solving this new choice are trying trial and error or getting an opinion instead of a theory.
The big hazard of both opinions and theories is when they get misapplied and as a result don't provide a good solution to the choice they are being applied to.
--The End--