Ethnography and experiment in social psychological theory building: Tactics for integrating qualitative field data with quantitative lab data

While both sociologists and organizational theorists have incorporated qual itative data into theory building, contemporary social psychologists have r esisted this trend. This resistance may be the product of long-standing per ceptions of the discipline of social psychology that equate it with control led experimentation. Yet, this was not always the case. Many respected soci al psychologists, including Muzafer Sherif, Edgar Schein, and Leon Festinge r, relied on qualitative data from real-world contexts to ground theory bui lding. Following their example, we discuss the possibilities of reviving so cial psychological approaches to theory building that integrate qualitative field data with quantitative data collected in laboratory experiments. We first justify why qualitative data are important to social psychological th eory building by examining some of the strengths and weaknesses that have b een demonstrated in other research domains. We then use several "classic" s ocial psychological studies to illustrate specific tactics for integrating qualitative data with traditional experimental data in social psychological research. These examples demonstrate the flexibility and synergies of comb ining qualitative and quantitative data. They also suggest that social psyc hological theory building may benefit from a "return to our roots" and an e mbrace of qualitative data, (C) 2000 Academic Press.