Deductive Reasoning Essay

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Deductive reasoning An example of Deductive Reasoning For instance, a doctoral student is particularly fond of rational choice theory which assumes that offenders weigh the pros and cons of committing a crime. If the benefits outweigh the costs of the crime, then the individual will commit the crime. As he does his literature review, he finds evidence that supports the theory—serial rapists are rational when they travel on average 3 miles from their residences before committing their crimes; contract murders are the result of careful planning; and robbers are more likely to choose vulnerable-looking victims who appear not to pose a threat (Siegel, 2004,113). The doctoral student now designs his study to test the rational choice theory. He collects data on the socio-economic status of 250 shoplifters and hypothesizes that most shoplifters in his sample will fall into a low-income category. This is a deductive strategy—he begins with a theory, generates a hypothesis, and collects data to see if the evidence supports the theory or not. An example of Inductive Reasoning A graduate student has an internship at the Boston Police Department working in the Booking Unit. Day after day, she observes, offenders being booked for shoplifting. She notices that most of the shoplifters appear to be poorly-dressed women who are stealing designer clothes, shoes, and accessories. Based on her "data", i.e. empirical observations, she hypothesizes that most of these criminals are unemployed or under-employed women who are stealing because they cannot afford to buy nice outfits, thereby supporting in her mind Rational Choice
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