“Thought experiments: Review and recommendations”—A brief commentary by Dov Eden
评论了Aguinis等人关于思想实验的综述，指出思想实验有助于理论发展，但需经实证检验，并质疑其作为实验的命名及在领导力等领域的实用性。
This is a masterful piece of work. It demonstrates exceptional scholarship. It is exquisitely written. The literature review is comprehensive. It ranges widely across the literature in many social science disciplines and beyond, to the likes of Newton and Einstein. It is innovative, certainly for OB. It provides a typology and guidelines for moving through the stages of conducting thought experiments. It is persuasive. I, for one, have rarely ever heard, read, or thought about thought experiments. When I did, I thought it was a dilettantish notion to be ignored. This review by Aguinis et al. has shown me how wrong I was. Persuasive but challenging. Despite the clear text, tables, and figures, it is not easy to grasp. It is so remote from conventional ways of thinking about and conducting empirical organizational behavior research and social science research at large that it is difficult to write a commentary. I assume many organizational behavior scholars will have similar reactions. The highlights of this contribution for me are in the examples. The “allyship” narrative scenario contrived for an academic department head and a young scholar is exhaustive in showing how a thought experiment can serve as a guideline for advising a young minority candidate for promotion and how this may be tested empirically, emphasis on how this may be tested empirically. The authors lead the reader through the steps they outlined for conducting a thought experiment. They exemplify and clarify the process, or method. This example is relevant to most readers of this PCP because they are probably academics who are likely, at some point in their career, to find themselves in the position of Dr. Manigold and having to give such advice and to make such decisions. It is more difficult (for me) to digest the proposals for thought experiments in the realms of leadership, recruitment, selection and onboarding, and performance. Perhaps, as the authors suggest, it really will speak more persuasively to a younger generation of scholars than to those of us who have been using the methods we learned decades ago as students. But the notion of employing thought experiments “to address an unlimited number of independent variables” is really scary. And it is exaggerated, even given the enticing absence of restrictions imposed by budget, sample size, and ethics, the requirement of obtaining IRB approval and protecting participant well-being, as well as protecting the sanctity of participants' data when conducting thought experiments. “Unlimited number” seems to be a gross overstatement, and it was not a feature of any of the thought experiments cited and described. What is really unlimited is the thought experimenter's mind and imagination. Such thought is qualitative, not quantitative, and it cannot be numbered. Furthermore, although the examples of the Newton and Einstein thought experiments are illustrative, perhaps inspiring, they are also deterring. Examples of the two greatest scientific minds for the past thousand years are hard to identify with; who were Newton and Einstein, and who am I, the typical reader? Examples of these great scientists are fascinating but more overwhelming than motivating. There is a validity problem with thought experiments. Viewed as a method for clear, straight, well-structured theoretical thinking, they may be useful. They may also be useful for generating testable hypotheses and for eliminating notions that simply are not reasonable or logical. However, they can only be the early stage of inquiry—theory development as the authors clearly state; the conclusion(s) reached via disciplined, structured thinking will ultimately have to pass the test of experimental validation. As Einstein has been quoted, “No amount of experimentation can prove me right, but one experiment can prove me wrong.” Gedankenexperimenting brought him to otherwise previously unimagined and unthought-of hypotheses; but the ultimate validity of the results of his innovative thinking was determined by confirmatory empirical experimentation. Without experimental confirmation, we who are not physicists may never have heard of him. The authors are surely well aware of this and make no claims for the thought experiment beyond theory development. For this reason, I wish they were not called “thought experiments.” They are thinking-through processes, not experiments. An experiment involves actually manipulating one or more independent variables empirically, not thinking about manipulating independent variables. What Aguinis et al. have described is more a method of “thought theory development” or “developing theory through systematic thought” than a method of “thought experimenting.” Moreover, it can likely prevent a lot of unreasonable (unthinking) theorizing, which runs rampant through our journals. To put it another way, think of the Academy of Management journals. Thought experimentation on any OB topic would be entirely appropriate for AMR and not at all appropriate for AMJ. Scholars may disagree regarding the usefulness of extant leadership theories, including the cited references to calls for scrapping them altogether or returning to square one because existing leadership theories can offer little practical advice to practitioners regarding their use and implementation. This is largely true. However, thought experiments are unlikely to realize greater potential benefits than existing leadership theories. So much thought by so many fine scholars for so many years—indeed, generations—has gone into developing these theories that calling for discarding them is highly inappropriate, even chutzpah. This is because existing leadership theories simply have only rarely been tested experimentally. One does not need a handful of fingers to enumerate the true, randomized field experiments on leadership (rare examples are Antonakis et al. (2011) and Dvir et al. (2002). Thus, we know precious little about their practical usefulness not because of theoretical failure but because of failure to test them field-experimentally. So, we grow tired of them. Oft repeated calls for “actionable research” drives this point home. It is this lack of experimental testing that renders these leadership theories of little or no practical advice for managers and other practitioners. The same is true for many other areas of OB research in which experimentation is possible but is not undertaken. This paucity of field experimentation leaves the OB scholars who are trying to develop evidence-based management largely unable to make science-based recommendations (e.g., Rousseau, 2012; Rynes, 2012; Rynes et al., 2018; Rynes & Bartunek, 2017). Without empirical experimentation, we are left with a huge pile of results, continuously accumulating, of causally ambiguous survey research on which causal conclusions and practical recommendations cannot be based responsibly and ethically. Thought experimentation is not the solution for this; field experimentation in organizations is. Nevertheless, the authors have stimulated this commentator to think deeply about thought experiments. If it gets others thinking about the issues, that will be a worthy contribution. Dov Eden is the Lilly and Alejandro Saltiel Emeritus professor of Corporate Leadership at the Coller School of Management, Tel Aviv University. He is a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the Academy of Management, the American Psychological Association, and the Association for Psychological Science. He has served as associate editor of Academy of Management Journal and on the editorial boards of Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Leadership Quarterly, Megamot (Israel Social Science Quarterly), Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and Organizational Psychology Review. He taught at Coller's management and organizational behavior master's program, which he chaired for two terms, and at its Executive MBA and International MBA programs. He directed Coller's Israel Institute of Business Research and its ‘Top Executive Program’ for advanced, nondegree management training. He has also served as research consultant at Bar-Ilan University and at Sapir Academic College. He is the recipient of the 2018 Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), Division 14 of the American Psychological Association.