The social sciences are, by design, intended to provide grounded, meaningful information and recommendations for various aspects of human life – from education, to criminal justice, to management, and many more. Yet for many years, social science research has yielded findings that are very limited in their relevance and applicability (Bornman, 2013). Small experimental studies and surveys, typically conducted on college students, cannot consistently tell us meaningful things about how people in the world-at-large think, behave, and feel. Furthermore, highly theoretical work that is conducted in a laboratory may not provide useful conclusions that extend to the office.
