There are two different kinds of methods of reasoning: inductive and deductive. Inductive reasoning is one where lots of specific things are noted and then general observations are concluded. Deductive reasoning begins with a general principle and ends with specific applications of that principle. Conclusions based on experience or observations are best expressed inductively, while conclusions based on laws, rules, or principles are best expressed deductively.

An example of inductive and deductive reasoning is seen in the following two responses to David's action. David: "I've noticed that every time I hit a tennis ball into the air, it comes back and lands on the court. Therefore I conclude that if I hit this ball into the air right now, it will come back down and bounce on the tennis court."

Albert: "Don't you remember the laws of gravity? Every thing that goes up, must come back down. So if you hit a ball into the air, it will always come back down and hit the earth, unless you overcome the laws of gravity by hitting it harder than anyone ever has before!"

David is using inductive reasoning - arguing from observation, while Albert using deductive reasoning is arguing from the laws of physics. Albert's argument moves from the general (the law of gravity) to the specific (this particular hit of the ball). David's argument is induced from his collection of individual observations leading to his conclusion that when he hits balls into the air, they will hit the court. David's argument will not be applicable to basketballs or super hard hits, while Albert's will apply to both. David's is based on his observations about tennis balls being hit with a certain force, while Albert's is based on the laws of physics, which include objects of certain masses and hits of certain launching velocities.

Deductive reasoning flows from the general to the specific. This is often referred to as a "top-down" approach. Researchers begin with a theory about how we know and understand things. They narrow that general theory into more specific hypotheses that can be tested. They then narrow down those hypotheses even further by collecting observations that fall within the arena of the hypotheses. This ultimately leads to testing of the hypotheses with specific data to confirm or disprove the original theories. The outcomes of deductive methodologies are laws and principles that can be modeled with symbolic languages (like math, calculus, and algebra), that are not constrained to only be applied to the specific tested situations, and can applied to situations that have never been tested (like NASA did when it designed the first ladder for the lunar landing module).

Inductive reasoning flows the opposite way of deductive reasoning. It moves from specific observations to broader generalizations and theories. This is referred to as a "bottom up" approach. In inductive reasoning, we begin with specific observations and measures, begin to detect patterns and regularities, formulate some tentative hypotheses that we can explore, and finally end up developing some general conclusions or theories.

The benefit of inductive methodologies are how much easier they are to use and validate. On the other hand, the drawback is that they require massive amounts of information and only result in conclusions that are specific to situations that have the exact same characteristics as those of the observed samples. Not only do the traits of the samples need to be the same (leadership, management, negotiating, or whatever specific role is being measured) but the contributing elements of the contexts must also be the same (large company vs. small company, with an involved board/manager vs. partially involved vs. not involved, etc.).

Each of the two methods provides different kinds of support. David's inductive argument is supported by his observations, while the laws of gravity support Albert's deductive argument. Thus, David could provide additional support by detailing those observations, without appealing to books or theories of physics, while Albert could provide additional support by discussing Newton's law, even if he had never seen a ball or someone hit a ball. And it is the deductibility of laws that makes deductive methodologies so valuable – we can reach conclusions about things we have never seen based on deductively produced laws, whereas inductive methodologies limit our applications to those situations and criteria that were originally part of the observed class.

These two methods of reasoning require totally different orientations of thinking when used to conduct research. Inductive reasoning is more open-ended and exploratory, especially at the beginning. It derives its "truths" from careful collecting and associating of many data points into patterns. Researchers who are serious about securing useful results have used factor analysis to aide their clustering of the data points into definable patterns.

Deductive reasoning is narrower in nature and is focuses on testing or confirming hypotheses. It leads to laws and principles that are simple (yet definite) in their elements and broad in their applications. E=mc2 is the perfect example of a deduced law. Once Einstein published and explained it, scientists immediately set out to prove and disprove it. As a law from deductive reasoning, it is a few clearly defined elements making a simple equation that is universally applicable in thousands of different ways and to thousands of different situations.

From Inductive Natural Philosophy to Deductive Natural Science

Prior to Galileo's work in motion, natural philosophers used inductive reasoning. Behaviors of planets, biological factors, weather patterns, and "set theories" were understood from thousands of observations about things in nature. One such "scientist" concluded that the discovery of an eighth planet was clearly false because everything in nature happened in patterns of 7! Galileo's contribution was significant because he was the first to define the elements that pertained to the nature of motion (distance and time), defined the relationships of those different elements to each other (when distance is divided time we get velocity), and thereby gave us both the methodology and a starting formula for natural science.

From Inductive Social Philosophies to a Deductive Value Science

Prior to Dr. Robert S. Hartman's work in formal axiology all social researchers used inductive methodologies. Psychology, economics, philosophy, sociology, and political science are so steeped in inductive methods that professionals in these fields have a difficult time considering how deductive methods could be used as the framework for any of their disciplines. These people are familiar with tools derived from deductive reasoning (like factor analysis or statistical validation) but because they have been unable to define the elements or the relationships pertaining to their disciplines with precision, they have all employed inductive reasoning to collect and develop useful tools. Because they lack definitions, they have been unable to build deductively deduced theories that can serve as the basis for laws or principles. Thus, before Hartman, psychologists have been left with inductively produced understandings that leave them with "knowledge" about personalities and behavior that is not "provable" or able to be modeled with mathematics.

The Hartman-Kinsel Profile is based on formal axiology, which is the deductive behavioral science that Dr. Robert Hartman formalized in 1955. Formal axiology is based on the theories that there are three ways of knowing (dimensions of value) and that people do "the good" (what is good to them). How we use and combine the three ways of knowing are the process we use to arrive at meaning which is what leads us to conclude something is "good." Because people "do the good," personalities and differences in people lie in how people think (arrive at meaning), so if we measure how they use the three dimensions of value, then we can deduce their behaviors, conclusions, personalities, and frames of reference.

Why Inductively Based Instruments Often Don't Work

Besides the problems with the tests themselves (take a long time because they need a lot of specific bites of information to reach their conclusions and are "fudgable" when their questions relate directly to the categories they are measuring), inductively derived conclusions are limited to situations and conditions that perfectly match their sample populations.

This means that samplings and validations done in business during the dot-com boom are not reliable in the struggling economy of 2004. Studies done on executives in industries where turnover is not a problem will be unreliable for the insurance and restaurant industries where turnover is a huge problem.

And at a theoretical level, because of the butterfly effect (measured and incorporated in chaos math), the combination of variables makes it genuinely impossible to measure and identify all of the individual conditions, their combinations, or their affects on one another. Bottom line – inductively based instruments do not provide the precision or the general applicability that deductively based instruments provide.

One more analogy – if Galileo had not defined the elements that pertain to an object moving (although you'll notice that distance and time have nothing to do with either the object or the motion itself), we would not have had the beginning steps of natural science. Scientists would be just like philosophers, social psychologists, and fortune readers – putting together combinations of properties into groupings that seem to identify common properties. But it was what Galileo did and those who followed his deductive methodologies that enabled us to build cars, lasers, rocket ships, TVs and computers. It is most likely that if Galileo and others had first developed a moral science (which many actually did try to do before moving over to natural sciences), we probably would be more morally advanced than scientifically advanced as a society. As it turns out we are technologically mature and morally bankrupt.

One last thought: it's a shame that natural science was discovered before moral science because natural sciences have given us the ability to destroy or replicate ourselves or others when we still do not have the moral maturity to be able to handle such power or knowledge.