Family Theory and the Scientific Method

The evolution of family interactional research reveals a transformation from the theoretical concerns of a novel cybernetic paradigm to methodological problems of a prior mechanistic one. This change can be understood, within a cybernetic perspective, as an example of the characteristic functioning of adaptive systems attempting to maintain themselves unchanged under changed circumstances. A turn to a focus on method results in theoretical self‐correction and the implicit retention of a mechanistic paradigm. This eliminates those most novel aspects of family interactional research that suggested the beginning of a cybernetic paradigm. A mechanistic methodology for family interaction research can be understood as an analogue to ritual in social systems. A primary attribute of ritual, sanctity, self‐reflexively defines certain basic premises as unquestionable. By this, it regulates the beliefs of those who act it out, and eliminates the most radical novelty that confronts these beliefs. The evolution of family interactional research and its changing relationship to its methodology is an example of this process, the introduction and rejection of novelty by self‐regulating systems. In this case, a challenge to the basic premises of a mechanistic paradigm is subverted, using its method as the arbitrator of validity in family interactional research.