Discussion on the reading "Association Is Not Causation"

In the first section of Chapter two, the readings express an in-depth breakdown of how Social Science research is conducted. The chapter states that there are four key elements that make up the basis of Social Science research: identifying and understanding patterns in social life; meaning that Social science researchers look to connect the link via individual behaviors, experience, and their perception to better understand social life; gathering evidence in order to find the patterns that are comparative thus conducting several forms of data; explaining how the evidence was collected and analyzed and viewing the resulting research claims as transitional knowledge. 

In the reading titled Association Is Not Causation – Alcohol and Other Drugs Do Not Cause Violence written by Richard J. Gelles and Mary M. Cavanaugh depict with enough support that alcohol and drug, use, while closely associated to violence are not the sole cause of violence in the home, towards children, women or the cause of homicides.  What I found interesting about this excerpt was that the writers mentioned that although there have been different forms of collected data whether it be from experimental laboratory evidence,  survey research, or from blood tests of men arrested for beating their wives; that regardless the definitions of violence and drugs has been consistently ambiguous. For example, the majority of studies that have been conducted have grouped all drugs into one category while each drug has a different effect on their own and different effects on each individual. The same goes for violence, there are different types of violence whether it be shoving a person or beating them within an inch of their life. So to say that drugs and alcohol have a direct effect to causing violence is a broad statement. I also found the cross-cultural research evidence interesting in the sense that drinking behavior varies from each culture. If a person has the mindset that what they are drinking will impair their personalities and actions they will feel more inclined to act out and feel that it is okay because they can blame it on the alcohol.

            I choose to read this article over the other options because I was interested in reading about how the research would be conducted to prove that alcohol and drugs were not a direct link to violence in our society since there are always news stories about these tragic events. I believe that the writers and researchers of this article were able to break down and cover all of their bases to prove the fact that violence is not a direct cause and simply an association between the two. After reading this article it opened my eyes to want to try and keep asking myself the question of “why?” I’d like to delve deeper into facts and understand that there is no simple black and white answer to questions.