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Hijacking Theory with Exemplars & Prototypes: Anchoring & Adjustment Bias in Theoretical Construction

Introduction

Theories generalized often evidence examples wherein over time understanding drifts away from the general to a reductionist interpretation dependent on initial prototypes in the theory’s explanation of underlying phenomena, thereby exerting a prototypical view established which snuffs out, obfuscates away, and grinds up additional possibilities. Three salient myths will be considered that influence social understandings today, and may very well have served to amplify, mislead, and codify understandings into policies that may have had consequences.

Markus & Kitayama’s (1991) Beyond Independent and Interdependent Views of Self and Other

“… we realize that there may well be important distinctions among those views we discuss as similar and that there may be views of the self and others that cannot easily be classified as either independent or interdependent.” (Markus & Kitayama, 1991, p. 225)

Markus and Kitayama did not imply, nor is the field constrained, nor is intelligent life constrained to a dimension of independence to interdependence. They left this open for additional views.

Merton’s (1938) Strain Adaptation in Spheres (Plural) of Conduct

“These categories refer to role adjustments in specific situations, not to personality in toto. To treat the development of this process in various spheres of conduct would introduce a complexity unmanageable within the confines of this paper. For this reason, we shall be concerned primarily with economic activity in the broad sense, ‘the production, exchange, distribution and consumption of goods and services’ in our competitive society, wherein wealth has taken on a highly symbolic cast.” (Merton, 1938, pp. 676–677)

Merton did not close the door to strict interpretations of strain being applied strictly in an economic “sphere of conduct”—it was merely a mater of convenience, given the paper was written in 1938 where economics was a salient social fact.

Sykes & Matza’s (1957) After and Before Deviant Acts

“These justifications are commonly described as rationalizations. They are viewed as following deviant behavior and as protecting the individual from self-blame and the blame of others after the act. But there is also reason to believe that they precede deviant behavior and make deviant behavior possible. It is this possibility that Sutherland mentioned only in passing and that other writers have failed to exploit from the viewpoint of sociological theory. Disapproval flowing from internalized norms and conforming others in the social environment is neutralized, turned back, or deflected in advance.” (Sykes & Matza, 1957, pp. 666-667)

Sykes and Matza did not limit techniques of neutralization to the explanation of past behaviors, in fact, quite assertively they drew on Sutherland’s understanding that techniques of neutralization may very well be responsible for clearing the way to “make deviant behavior possible”.

Discussion

Considering these examples of underextension of the theoretical constructs to principles portable to additional application, there are some explanations that may help explain how this occurs via psychological, sociological, and preservation. Starting with the psychological, and then sociological, ending with preservation will be the most sensible approach.

Psychology

First, this phenomena of “exemplar overshadowing” may very well be through simple serial position effect (Murdock, 1962) where the first, most vivid instance is more easily remembered as in scope, where this effect leads to repeated encoding by learners (e.g., researchers, professors, students, etc.) creating an theoretical amplifier such that a psychological law of large numbers and central limit theorem push the exemplar higher and higher thus obfuscating principled understanding.

Second is representativeness and availability via salient settings (e.g., “East vs. West”, “economy”, “delinquents”) that feel more diagnostic than abstract. Further there is the problem of organizing memory by category prior to organization by principle. Considering the environments at the time of writing where Merton’s paper was in the lead in to the 1939’s obvious errors, Sykes and Matza’s context of concern for youthful deviancy in the 1950’s, and Markus & Kitayama’s context of increasing polarization in the 1990’s, it is not surprising that these played into the issue of exemplar overshadowing.

Third is anchoring via measurement where early scales, vignettes, and operationalization reify one reading of the construct, where principled application is constrained tightly leaving many more applications out of scope. Finally, fourth is simply moral cognitive shortcuts where for example, deviance may be justified post-hoc more easily than anticipated justifications, where memory and bias “freeze” the ex post template.

Sociology

Regarding sociological explanations, first it is quite possible that institutionalization and simple path dependance locked the exemplars in place via over-simplification where deviance from the prototype becomes professionally costly. Second are field incentives to publish what’s legible where simpler prototypes travel much more readily to policy and media than principle-first generalization.

Third occurs in the translation of theory and prototypes to policy where agencies fund what is measurable where metrics born from the original exemplar constrain later application. Following in fourth as boundary work where subfields stake out turf by tying theory to “their” exemplar domain. In this case, cross-cultural psychology focused on self-construal, criminology on economy/strain, and delinquency on neutralization.

In Close

Of course, there’s the possibility altogether more complex, and that’s the case where scientists and researchers themselves choose intentionally to obfuscate applications of principled understanding for intents outside of speculation. Perhaps Merton unconsciously or consciously protected non-economic applications from policy tackling anomie strain. Perhaps Markus and Kitayama did know another principled application and swept it under the proverbial rug. Perhaps Skyes & Matza, in communications just simply forgot and focused on neutralization. Who knows?

It is important when examining and reviewing a theory and its constructs to understand conceptually rather than descriptively, to understand the principle that exemplars and prototypes demonstrate, and to understand and take the time to organize the theory in memory by principle rather than category. These three takeaways are powerful steps to avoid misleading peers and students, policy makers, and those with relevant interests in the applications of theories. Overall if theories are less constrained by application, perhaps the world would have been a better place… or not.

Good luck!

References

Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98(2), 224–253.

Merton, R. K. (1938). Social structure and anomie. American Sociological Review, 3(5), 672–682.

Murdock, B. B., Jr. (1962). The serial position effect of free recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64(5), 482–488. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0045106

Sykes, G. M., & Matza, D. (1957). Techniques of neutralization: A theory of delinquency. American Sociological Review, 22(6), 664–670.

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