Theory

Theory is a word that gets used a lot in both everyday language and your academic coursework. We are going to define theory and then delineate it from its everyday use.

A theory, in short, is an explanation that is both well-reasoned and empirically supported (Pelham & Blanton, 2013). In other words, it combines two of the ways of knowing—logic and observation, which the previous lesson discussed. Theory used in this sense often refers to a scientific or discipline-specific theory. Leadership theory, for example, uses scientifically collected data to explain leadership; it can then be used to make recommendations to leaders based on strong evidence about leadership situations. 

 

Everyday Theory

Most of us come across the word theory in everyday language, where it tends to refer to an educated guess or an unsupported prediction intended to explain a phenomenon. You will often hear phrases like "Here's my theory" or "Theoretically, what's happening is..." In both examples, with a little probing, it becomes clear that the speaker isn’t using real evidence, just their personal beliefs. This difference is very important because very few people actually recognize the difference. Which leads to very poor information because these everyday theories are not actually supported by reality. You will even see this see this problem on talk news programs. We will return to why scientific theories are better than everyday theories in more detail after we review maxims.