SOC SCI H1E Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Operationalization, Cortisol, Mad Scientist
Document Summary
Happiness and well-being are both abstract concepts - the sort of things whose very meaning philosophies debate. In order to use empirical methods to study how these relate to various factors in life and society, we first need to find empirically testable measures of well-being. Turning an abstract concept into something measurable is called operationalizing the concept. Abstract concepts are not helpful for studies. If we want to do empirical studies and use experience in a precise mathematical sense, we need to identify a way to go from abstract concepts to measurable things. Finding an empirically testable measure for something is called operationalization. When we say that a body has mass, stipulating that it has a certain property doesn"t really mean anything concrete. To say that something has mass, we need to describe what having mass does and how to empirically verify it, or even measure how much mass it has with a precise set of things to do.
