“Without this combination of research methods, it is hard to imagine how this theoretical advance could have been achieved. If I had only relied on the anthropological studies, I would not have believed a student's report when professional anthropologists provided conflicting interpretations of the same community. Relying on the survey data alone, it would not have occurred to me to check the correlations between perceptions of conflict and perceptions of cooperation. If I had found a zero correlation, I could not have known how to interpret it.”

— William Foote Whyte

Source: Participant observer, 1994, p. 242; As cited in: Ickis (2014)

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William Foote Whyte 17

American sociologist 1914–2000

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