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This book fosters careful, critical thinking about the social sciences. Pettigrew encourages readers to apply newly developed critical thinking skills to the nature of theory, comparisons and control, cause and change, sampling and selection, varying levels of analysis, and systems thinking in the social sciences.

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• Most chapters conclude with "Summing Up
• Issues for Discussion and Review." and "Recommendations for Further Reading on Issues Raised in This Chapter."
• Preface
• 1 Everybody Is a Social Scientist!
• First a Little True/False Quiz
• Answers to the Quiz
• The Complexities of Studying Social Life
• So Who Didn't That?
• 2 Thinking Theoretically
• What Is a Theory? Defining a Theory's Key Concepts
• What Makes a Theory Useful
• From Where Do Theories Come?
• Paradigms Provide the Context for Theories
• The Wide Range of Theories in Social Science
• 3 In Comparison with What?
• Different Comparisons Can Lead to Different Conclusions
• Why Control Comparisons?
• Control Groups in Social Science Experiments
• Controls in Field Research
• 4 Searching for Causes and Changes
• The Complex Concept of Cause
• Statistics Evaluate Change
• The Importance of Replication
• The Importance of Longitudinal Studies
• Interpreting Longitudinal Effects
• 5 Sampling, Selection, and Socializing
• Why Election Polls Go Wrong
• Selection Biases Are a General Problem
• Selecting Our Positions in Society
• Being Socialized into Our Positions in Society
• 6 Keeping Our Levels Straight
• The Compositional Fallacy: Confusing Micro with Macro Levels
• The Ecological Fallacy: Confusing Macro with Micro Levels
• Different Levels of Social Analysis
• Different Causal Paths: Bottom-Up and Top-Down
• 7 Thinking in Systems Terms
• The Invisible Hand Versus the Invisible Fist
• Remedies for Social Dilemmas
• A Systems Perspective
• Unintended Consequences of Social Change
• When Social Science Is Doing Its Job
• 8 Try out Your Healthy Skepticism!
• Components of Health Skepticism
• Now Think Like a Social Scientist!
• Commentary on Newspaper Stories
• A Final Word
• References
• Glossary
• Name Index
• Subject Index