Explaining Behavior 6.5: Exercises

Activities on types of theory, propositions, predictions, and testability

I’m a big believer in having students do assignments that make them actually use course ideas. Applications range from simply classifying and recognizing examples to more complex analysis and evaluation (complexity being limited by the human capital on hand that semester).

Here’s a sampling of exercises I use to teach the material I’ve covered in posts 1-6 of the Explaining Behavior series.

While the main installments of the series are free for all, these teaching materials are for paid subscribers only.

On the different meanings of the word “theory,” I start by giving them short passages summarizing some idea or argument and ask them to classify it as conceptual theory, metatheory, or explanatory theory. For instance, classify the following:

• Sociological theorist Arthur Stinchcombe argued: “The task of theory is to create the capacity for explanations. Thus theories should not be abstract but rather “adequate to the tasks of explanation posed by the data. There are many theoretical strategies, and the question is not whether they are true but whether or not they are useful.”

• Criminologist Robert Agnew, in his strain theory of crime, argues that “. . . the primary reason strains lead to crime is that they contribute to a range of negative emotions, such as anger and frustration. These emotions create pressure for corrective action, and they may also reduce the ability of the individuals to cope in a legal manner, reduce concern for the costs of crime, and increase the individual’s disposition for crime”