IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/somere/v43y2014i4p547-570.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When Do Stories Work? Evidence and Illustration in the Social Sciences

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Gelman
  • Thomas Basbøll

Abstract

Storytelling has long been recognized as central to human cognition and communication. Here we explore a more active role of stories in social science research, not merely to illustrate concepts but also to develop new ideas and evaluate hypotheses, for example, in deciding that a research method is effective. We see stories as central to engagement with the development and evaluation of theories, and we argue that for a story to be useful in this way, it should be anomalous (representing aspects of life that are not well explained by existing models) and immutable (with details that are well-enough established that they have the potential to indicate problems with a new model). We develop these ideas through considering two well-known examples from the work of Karl Weick and Robert Axelrod, and we discuss why transparent sourcing (in the case of Axelrod) makes a story a more effective research tool, whereas improper sourcing (in the case of Weick) interferes with the key useful roles of stories in the scientific process.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Gelman & Thomas Basbøll, 2014. "When Do Stories Work? Evidence and Illustration in the Social Sciences," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 43(4), pages 547-570, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:somere:v:43:y:2014:i:4:p:547-570
    DOI: 10.1177/0049124114526377
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0049124114526377
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0049124114526377?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oecd, 2006. "Impacts of Unit-based Waste Collection Charges," OECD Papers, OECD Publishing, vol. 6(8), pages 1-157.
    2. Swieringa, Rj & Weick, Ke, 1982. "An Assessment Of Laboratory Experiments In Accounting," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20, pages 56-101.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Negash, Minga & Lemma, Tesfaye T. & Samkin, Grant, 2019. "Factors impacting accounting research output in developing countries: An exploratory study," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 170-192.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hall, Matthew, 2010. "Accounting information and managerial work," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 28539, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Brown, Andrew D., 2018. "Making sense of the war in Afghanistan," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 43-56.
    3. Michael Gibbins, 1988. "Discussion of “An experimental study of the effects of elicitation methods on review of preliminary audit strategy by external auditorsâ€," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 4(2), pages 412-415, March.
    4. Petersen, Knut & Patzke, Henning, 1986. "Individuelles Informationsverhalten als Gegenstand des "Behavioral Accounting": Eine Meta-Analyse der empirischen Forschung," Manuskripte aus den Instituten für Betriebswirtschaftslehre der Universität Kiel 177, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre.
    5. Weber, Gabriel & Cabras, Ignazio & Calaf-Forn, Maria & Puig-Ventosa, Ignasi & D'Alisa, Giacomo, 2019. "Promoting Waste Degrowth and Environmental Justice at a Local Level: The Case of Unit-Pricing Schemes in Spain," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 306-317.
    6. Deborah Compeau & Barbara Marcolin & Helen Kelley & Chris Higgins, 2012. "Research Commentary ---Generalizability of Information Systems Research Using Student Subjects---A Reflection on Our Practices and Recommendations for Future Research," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 23(4), pages 1093-1109, December.
    7. Sandra C. Vera†Muñoz & Margaret Shackell & Marc Buehner, 2007. "Accountants' Usage of Causal Business Models in the Presence of Benchmark Data: A Note," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(3), pages 1015-1038, September.
    8. Dijkgraaf, Elbert & Gradus, Raymond, 2009. "Environmental activism and dynamics of unit-based pricing systems," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 13-23, January.
    9. Elbert Dijkgraaf & Raymond Gradus & Thomas Kinnaman & Dale W. Jorgenson & Mun S. Ho & Kevin J. Stiroh, 2008. "Comments: Elbert Dijkgraaf and Raymond Gradus, Thomas Kinnaman; and a Correction," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(2), pages 243-244, Spring.
    10. William B. Tayler & Robert J. Bloomfield, 2011. "Norms, Conformity, and Controls," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(3), pages 753-790, June.
    11. Chen, Yao & Djamasbi, Soussan & Du, Juan & Lim, Sungmook, 2013. "Integer-valued DEA super-efficiency based on directional distance function with an application of evaluating mood and its impact on performance," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 550-556.
    12. Waller, William S. & Shapiro, Brian & Sevcik, Galen, 1999. "Do cost-based pricing biases persist in laboratory markets?," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 24(8), pages 717-739, November.
    13. Waller, William S. & Zimbelman, Mark F., 2003. "A cognitive footprint in archival data: Generalizing the dilution effect from laboratory to field settings," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 254-268, July.
    14. Hall, Matthew, 2010. "Accounting information and managerial work," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 301-315, April.
    15. Maria Misiuda & Maik Lachmann, 2022. "Investors’ Perceptions of Sustainability Reporting—A Review of the Experimental Literature," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-24, December.
    16. Scott, Sue & Watson, Dorothy, 2006. "Introduction of Weight-Based Charges for Domestic Solid Waste Disposal," MPRA Paper 107713, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Hurley, Patrick J., 2019. "Ego depletion and auditors’ JDM quality," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 1-1.
    18. Lawrence A. Ponemon, 1992. "Auditor underreporting of time and moral reasoning: An experimental lab study," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(1), pages 171-189, September.
    19. David N. Ricchiute, 2010. "Evidence Complexity and Information Search in the Decision to Restate Prior‐Period Financial Statements," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(3), pages 687-724, June.
    20. Robert Obermaier & Felix Müller, 2008. "Management accounting research in the lab – method and applications," Metrika: International Journal for Theoretical and Applied Statistics, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 325-351, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:somere:v:43:y:2014:i:4:p:547-570. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.