Flexibility in variable operationalization in social disorganization theory: A pilot study

Abstract

Over the past decade, researchers have worked to uncover methodological and theoretical factors related to the replication crisis present in many scientific fields, including criminology. This work reveals that excessive theoretical flexibility, a consequence of ambiguity in scientific concepts, undermines methodological rigor by failing to constrain how concepts are operationalized. Recently, Niemeyer et al. (2022) estimated how broadly defined theoretical and methodological shortcomings in other fields might similarly impact criminology’s false-positive rate. They found up to 90% of the discipline’s published findings might be false positives, raising concerns about research reliability in the field. This article extends Niemeyer et al. (2022) by examining whether conceptual ambiguity in criminology facilitates flexible operationalization. We investigated the operationalizations of key theoretical constructs in social disorganization and calculated indices of qualitative variation (IQVs) to determine the levels of flexibility in their operationalizations. Our analysis revealed high IQV values (0.583–0.978) for constructs like poverty, racial and ethnic heterogeneity, and residential stability. These findings suggest that unacknowledged conceptual ambiguity may contribute to a reproducibility crisis in criminology. We discuss the implications of this flexibility for social disorganization theory and broader replication efforts.