THE POSITIVIST APPROACH TO RESEARCH

THE POSITIVIST APPROACH TO RESEARCH

1. A DEFINITION : An approach which attempts to explain behaviour om terms of cause and effect relationships

   • Postivists such as COMTE and DURKHEIM believed that sociology was a science and that society could be studied just like the physical world in natural sciences .

2. KEY ARGUMENTS

   • There are OBJECTIVE social facts (something that exists outside of the individual but has an effect on their behaviour) that exist in society that can be analysed and measured scientifically e.g. poverty, crime, religion...
     • These facts can be researched and expressed in statistics. Therefore postivists favour quantitative methods, which produce quantitative data
   • You can look for correlations (patterns in which two or more things tend to occur together e.g. poverty and crime )
     • From looking at correlations casual relationships can be established (e.g. watching violent TV programmes can make you more violent)
   • Society should be studied on a large scale (macro) because positivists want to see how society works together as one big unit. It ignored individual thoughts and feelings.
   • Positivists believe that society shapes the individual and not that the individual shapes society