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Part of
How Metaphors Guide, Teach and Popularize Science
Edited by Anke Beger and Thomas H. Smith
[Figurative Thought and Language 6] 2020
► pp. 211–262

Chapter 7
Three metaphors in social science

Use patterns and usefulness, separately and together

| Independent

Metaphors appear in scientific theories, guide scientists, teach students and fascinate the public. This chapter sketches a kind of vocation or métier for scientific metaphors in physics and then applies the same outline to three influential conceptual metaphors in social science – dataset, social field, and dynamical system, along with their respective sub-mappings. All three are in continuous use and often reliant on each other. Using corpora derived from recent social science literature I show how metaphors stimulate hypotheses, then are extended to account for results in successive rounds of observation and theory development, tracing the degree to which each metaphor is useful and retained over the years. Of special interest are supplementary metaphors introduced deliberately to summarize complex source domains.

Keywords: science metaphors, social science, field theory, datasets, dynamical systems
Article outline
  • Introduction
    • Objectives of this chapter
  • 1.Metaphor vocation or métier, and study method and organization
    • 1.1Vocation or métier of scientific metaphor: Atomic physics example
      • Early application of a metaphor
      • Mapping to observations
      • Subsequent observations test metaphoric mappings
      • Metaphor modification, changing the metaphor
      • Loss of simplicity
      • Metaphor closing
      • ‘Helper’ metaphors
      • Reiteration of process
      • Continued use of a metaphor
      • The afterlife of metaphors
    • 1.2Organization of the study in Sections 2, 3 and 4
    • 1.3Method
  • 2.The dataset metaphor in the study of social conflict in police-suspect encounters
    • 2.1Looking for answers in official records: Early application of the dataset metaphor
    • 2.2The dataset as tool of social science: The dataset metaphor and its sub-mappings
      • How datasets are formed
      • Data are collections of objects
      • Quantification is paramount in science
      • Causation is central to scientific inquiry and is metaphorically understood
    • 2.3Mapping to observations: How the individual case is understood from aggregations
      • Specific hypotheses to be tested are suggested by the mappings, combined with general knowledge
      • Dataset metaphor and initial observations
      • Dataset metaphor leaves important questions unanswered
      • Correlated variables capable of obscuring results
      • More observational data to help uncover a link between race and police violence
    • 2.4A metaphor modification and extension: ceteris paribus
      • How to make “all things equal”
      • ‘Helper’ metaphors: control and partition
      • Results of extended dataset analysis appear in reports
      • Metaphoric confusion
      • Is there another way to understand the results? The rational investment metaphor
      • Dataset metaphor leaves questions unanswered
      • Leaving important questions unanswered the dataset metaphor is challenged
  • 3.The social field metaphor in the study of social conflict in fraught and volatile encounters
    • 3.1Social field theory
      • The idealized social field
    • 3.2Application of the social field metaphor
      • Social field of elements with power and direction
      • Sub-mapping – position
      • Sub-mapping – power
      • Sub-mapping – direction
      • Sub-mapping – Semi-autonomous fields
      • To what extent do social field theory metaphors guide observations?
      • Some evidence of the afterlife of dataset metaphor
      • Possible metaphoric contradiction
      • ‘Helper’ metaphors
      • The social field theory metaphor is retained for certain uses
      • Field theory metaphors leave important questions unanswered
  • 4.The adaptive dynamical systems metaphor in the study of fraught and volatile social encounters
    • 4.1Basic form of dynamical systems metaphor and its application
    • 4.2The adaptive dynamical system metaphor and its sub-mappings
      • The sub-mapping of levels and time
      • Mapping levels and time to observations
      • Sub-mapping: linear and nonlinear movement
      • Initial scientific observations related to levels and time
      • Sub-mapping: equilibrium
      • Metaphor thus far confirmed
      • Metaphor usefulness: Questions posed that lead to dynamical interpretation of psychological experiments
      • “Helper” metaphor: attractors
      • Mapping “helper” metaphor to observations
      • Epistemological confusion likely
    • 4.3Metaphor retention: Usefulness in posing questions and in assisting practical applications
  • 5.Review, discussion and guidance on the use of metaphors in science
    • 5.1Reviewing the target domain
    • 5.2Review of three metaphors in social science, their application, mappings and modifications
      • Reviewing the social field theory approach
      • Reviewing the adaptive dynamical systems approach
    • 5.3If one were to brief scientists, science popularizers, or science teachers about the use of metaphors, what might one say based on this chapter?
  • Notes
  • References
  • Corpora citations
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 22 April 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.6.07smi
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Appendix 1.Corpora citations

Citations for texts used in corpus for Section 2:

Fryer, R. G.
(2016) NBER Working paper series: An empirical analysis of racial differences in police use of force. National Bureau Of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA. 23, 363 words. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bui, Q. & Cox, A.
(2016) Analysis finds no racial bias in lethal force, New York: New York Times July 12 2016, p.A1. 1,496 words.Google Scholar

Citations for texts used in corpus for Section 3:

Martin, J. L.
2003, What is field theory? American Journal of Sociology, 109(1), 1–49. 126,259 words.Google Scholar
Hathazy, P.
(2013) Fighting for a democratic police: politics, experts and bureaucrats in the transformation of the police in post-authoritarian Chile and Argentina. Comparative Sociology 12 1–43. 6,673 words. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
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(2009) Human rights, the police, public security reform in Latin America and Costa Rica, in Jefferson A., Jensen S. (Eds.) State Violence and Human Rights: State officials in the South. New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis. 158–174.4,943 words.Google Scholar
Gustafson, M.
(2012) Conventional armed forces’ thinking about irregular warfare tactics– a challenge for officers’ training. Baltic Security and Defence 14(1) 1–9.1,298 words.Google Scholar

Citations for texts used in corpus for Section 4:

Vallacher, R. R., P. T. Coleman, A. Nowak, L. Bui-Wrzosinska, L. Liebovitch, K. G. Kugler, & A. Bartoli
(2013) Attracted to Conflict: Dynamic Foundations of Destructive Social Relations. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. 115,576 words. DOI logoGoogle Scholar